Samuel Ellis '25
Staff Editor
UVA Law’s Office of Private Practice hosted a Mix & Mingle for the 1L class to meet firms. While the majority of the 1L class will work in public interest roles this summer, the Mix & Mingle provided an excellent first opportunity for 1Ls to meet UVA Law graduates at a variety of firms and learn about what they do in their respective practice areas.[1] Students placed bids through the On-Grounds Interview bidding system on Symplicity, where they ranked their choices one to forty-one in order to determine which four firms they would have the opportunity to meet out of the forty-one participating firms. The firms represented included a range of practice and geographic areas from Atlanta to New York City and Houston to Los Angeles. After rooms were assigned, students received a full list of participating firms, with links to the online biographies of the attorneys they would soon meet. OPP encouraged students to familiarize themselves with the attorneys and their practice areas before the Mix & Mingle in order to be fully prepared to engage and ask questions.
Kevin Donovan, Senior Assistant Dean of Career Development, said, “The Mix & Mingle was created some years back to meet several goals. First, we know that many 1Ls do not have a background in private practice and so need information to help make practice decisions (and an opportunity to develop legal vocabulary). Second, we determined that the changes we saw in the industry meant that effective networking was going to be of high importance. Third, there were so many single-firm events occurring that students were complaining about being overburdened (hard to believe after the isolation of Covid that this could be possible!). And fourth, we wanted to have an organized way to give firms that hire extensively at the Law School an early look at the class.”
Shortly before the clock struck 4 p.m. on Tuesday, October 18, 1L students hurried into their apartments or to semi-private meeting spaces at the Law School to attend the virtual Mix & Mingle. Students were encouraged to dress professionally for the event, where they would engage with attorneys until 6 p.m. The virtual introductions were hosted on Flo Recruit, which shuffled 1Ls from room to room until 5:35 p.m.
Each firm room included attorneys who spoke with about six students each session. The sessions were both professional and welcoming, as associates and partners warmly introduced their firms to the 1Ls. Each session lasted twenty minutes and often focused on allowing students to ask the attorneys questions both about their firms and the job search in general. Attorneys offered candid advice about what they look for in candidates for summer associateships and occasionally reminisced on their time on Grounds, telling us about how they made the most out of their time at the Law School.
When asked about his own Mix & Mingle experience, Ricky Robinson ’25 said, “Coming from a science background, I don’t think I could have named a single law firm. Over the past few months, I had heard plenty of names bandied about by 2Ls and 3Ls with such reverence that I started to be a little apprehensive about meeting with these high-powered firms. I was grateful to attend the firm Mix & Mingle because it offered a laidback opportunity to start networking with these super interesting attorneys.” Robinson further noted his enjoyment of how students “chose areas instead of firm names. It’s all too easy to get fixated on the prestige of the name, and I really enjoyed talking with firms whose work I relished hearing about but had never heard of prior to the event.”
OPP provided a full guidance packet to students to prepare for the Mix & Mingle. Anticipating that some students have never spoken with a practicing attorney, OPP gave students a full rundown of how to conduct research, appear on camera, and effectively ask questions. Included in these materials was a useful subsection on event follow-up emails, instructing students how to write to attorneys after the event, thanking them for their time and indicating further interest in the attorney’s firm. OPP noted that, unlike thank-you emails for one-on-one interactions with attorneys, thank-you emails for school-organized group events like the Mix & Mingle are optional. For many students, these post-Mix & Mingle communications help establish key first contacts in the private-sector firms of their preference.
Following the event, OPP will send a resume book containing the resumes of all 1L participants who submitted a resume to all 41 participating firms. Coming after most students seeking firm jobs met for OPP counseling at least once and received invaluable, timely resume feedback from their counselor, the book serves as a welcome opportunity to communicate credentials to firms as the job search ramps up. Laura-Louise Rice ’25 reflected on how the fall networking events all connect into the great, interwoven tapestry that is the 1L job search when she said, “Before attending all of these networking events, it was really nerve-wracking interacting with firms—especially with less than two months of law school under my belt—but now, experiencing both the Mix & Mingle and Texas Day helped me see that partners and associates at firms are human, too, and used to be in all our shoes at one point. I definitely think participating in both of these events has helped me to feel more confident going into the Diversity Reception this week.”
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co6mx@virginia.edu
[1] Someone at an orientation presentation had a 1L summer jobs breakdown, but I cannot find it online.