The Many Benefits of an In-House Internship Program: Part 1

Internships are single-handedly one of the best ways for law students to get practical legal experience, to start building their networks, to get a sense of practice area interests, and to set themselves up for future success in the legal field. What people often forget is that internships, in particular in-house internships, also provide employers with several benefits that go beyond simply getting more work done. This first article in our two-part series highlights the significant benefits hiring organizations gain by investing in an internship program.

Expose Law Students to the Company and In-House Practice

By their nature, internships allow employers to identify—and possibly court—high-caliber talent at the outset of a student’s legal career. Internship programs serve as a recruiting tool to help reduce the drain on internal recruiters by cultivating a pipeline of former interns to fill future openings. Also, because law school curricula typically focus on litigation practices, and because law firm positions are most common upon graduation, law students are often unfamiliar with what it means or what it takes to be an in-house lawyer. In-house internships can expose students to the operations of in-house legal departments, potential areas of practice within different organizations, and the various career paths of the organization’s practicing (or formerly practicing) lawyers. Once a student has this understanding and experience, it may increase the likelihood that the student will want to pursue an in-house role—and perhaps an in-house role at the same organization—later in his, her, or their career. Additionally, employers seeing quality work from interns may share those same sentiments, keeping the interns in mind for future openings and expanding their potential talent pools. Finally, well-run internships often leave interns with a sense of pride in their work and a strong connection to the organization. These, now former, interns can become great “culture carriers” for the organization, further promoting it to future interns or full-time candidates.

Showcase Company’s Values and Priorities

Second, internships can showcase a company’s values and priorities, both internally and externally. In light of recent racial injustices, many organizations have doubled down on their diversity hiring practices and their commitment to create diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace environments. Internships—and primarily diversity internships—benefit organizations by providing them with an opportunity to execute on these promises. By providing valuable experiences to individuals from underrepresented groups, the organization can support efforts to combat historical inequities and can introduce a broader range of legal talent into the organization. Additionally, underrepresented talent can introduce new perspectives into internal analyses, leading to better-informed decisions. Hiring underrepresented talent also helps to cultivate a pipeline of candidates and employees both for roles within the organization’s legal department and the local legal community. Such programs also demonstrate to current employees and to the broader public that the organization is committed to nurturing the next generation of talent. Finally, studies have shown that increasing diversity among teams leads to improved financial performance, a result that all organizations should support.

Leadership Opportunities for Current Employees

Third, internship programs are great mentoring and leadership opportunities for current employees. Establishing and overseeing a successful internship program requires good communication, a willingness to teach, coach, and provide feedback, and superior organizational skills to ensure the program runs smoothly. Providing these opportunities to employees that have management or leadership aspirations can be great training for those employees and an opportunity for employers to see those skills in action. It can also expose the employees to a broader group of individuals who may be involved in the internship program but with whom the employee may otherwise not interact, further increasing the employee’s internal network. Finally, employees who are given these stretch assignments may feel a renewed sense of purpose within the organization, increasing the employee’s own organizational commitment.

Infuse New Talent Into Company

Finally, internships are an opportunity for employers to onboard ambitious, new talent who is posed to make immediate contributions to productivity, often in an inexpensive way. Legal interns often have experience with modern research tools, current training in those tools, and an unparalleled excitement to see the law in action. These traits make interns ideal candidates for researching thorny legal questions, conducting broad-scale assessments of current legal applications, or generally increasing positive energy within the department. Additionally, because interns are not entrenched within the organization, they may offer previously unconsidered approaches to problem solving that prove valuable and insightful. Of course, hiring interns is also an effective way to accomplish aspirational projects that keep getting deprioritized and to lighten the load of current employees, increasing efficiency and satisfaction among the company’s current workforce and freeing up employees to focus on matters that require a higher level of expertise.

Companies will reap significant benefits from internship programs in many ways. Internships are an opportunity to infuse fresh perspectives, energy and proficiencies into the company’s ecosystem, leading to better decision-making and outcomes. Internships also positively impact a company’s employee base through skill-building and managing workload as well as position the company to hire future leaders through expanding its pipeline of competitive talent. By offering interns real-world experience that will help them excel in their careers, corporations invest in the next generation of the practice of law and support the legal communities in which they work. The second article in our two-part series will explore best practices for establishing and managing a well-rounded internship program that achieves the intended benefits for the company while also ensuring interns have rich learning experiences that prepare them for the next step in their careers.

Geneva Campbell Brown is associate senior counsel for Cigna and lead counsel for Cigna Foundation. She focuses her practice on M&A and venture capital transactional matters as well as antitrust and nonprofit foundation advising.

Laura A. Bautista is an associate counsel at The Vanguard Group. She provides legal advice on foreign ownership limitations, mutual fund events, securities transactions, corporate governance, regulatory compliance and reporting obligations, and general business matters.