January Was My Month: How Reaching Out To Alumni Got Me a Job!

By Jessica W. Rosen
GGU JD 2013

I just accepted an offer for employment that I am so excited about—an offer I couldn’t refuse. The pay is great, but more importantly, the firm’s work is rooted in what I fell in love with in law school: appeals.

Here’s how it happened: After taking the Bar Exam and moving back to Los Angeles, I had absolutely no idea what I should be doing. The networking I had done was up in the Bay Area – it wasn’t going to be very helpful in a new big city. While I’m from Los Angeles, I had very few legal contacts down here. After getting my Bar Exam results and finding out that I passed, I told myself, “January will be my month!” I’d start actively looking for work and begin (the dreaded) networking. I made a phone appointment with Susanne at Law Career Services for early January and Susanne gave great advice – join bar associations and be active within those associations in order to make contacts (I joined local associations and the Federal Bar Association, where I went to a few Young Lawyer Division events). She then emphasized that I should reach out to alumni located in Los Angeles, which I told her I had been meaning to do… and gave excuses why I hadn’t even signed into the alumni database. Nevertheless, having spoken with Susanne and feeling determined to make January my month, I contacted alumni down here.

I met with an alumnus for a drink at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and we spoke of my experiences volunteering in an attorney capacity and looking for work, our mutual connection to GGU School of Law, and the experiences that led him to open his own law firm on Wilshire Blvd. Best of all, he wanted to help me! He told me he wants to see fellow GGU Law alumni succeed. He asked me to send him my resume so that he could post it on a list-serve that includes him and a substantial number of other lawyers in the LA area. Within a week, I had an interview with a firm that hadn’t yet posted a job listing! A couple of days later, I had a job offer, and this week I will officially be an Associate Attorney.

I’m so glad that I got the nerve up to contact another GGU alum, even though I didn’t know him. I wasn’t sure what I’d say, but the fact that we both went to GGU and work in the legal field in the same city gave us plenty to talk about.  I know now how important networking can be: had I not reached out to alumni, I wouldn’t be writing this. I hope I can “pay it forward” in the future to another new GGU alum!