Donate Now
Donate Now

Academic Training Highlights

SEO Law Institute is a two-week program that provides training in areas including legal analysis, legal research and writing, and law school study skills and exam strategy. In addition, distinguished members of SEO’s Board of Directors, SEO’s leadership team, and law firm partners offer workshops and training on corporate law firm etiquette, law firm culture, networking strategies, and more. Conceived in partnership with our law partners, the Law Institute teaches pre-law school interns the skills necessary to excel during their first year in law school.

Fellows will participate in the SEO Law Seminar Series during the training weeks.

The Seminar Series will feature high-profile speakers and timely topics of interest to the Fellows, and will be sponsored by our partner firms. Partner firms are encouraged to send representatives to meet the Fellows.

Following the Law Institute, Fellows work on a series of legal analysis exercises on which they receive individualized, written feedback from legal writing professionals.

Past SEO Law Institute Topics include:

  • Overviews of 1L courses
    • Torts (Professor Regina Austin, University of Pennsylvania School of Law)
    • Civil Procedure (Professor Arthur Miller, New York University School of Law)
    • Criminal Law (Professor Rachel Barkow, New York University School of Law, and Ken Levy, Louisiana State University School of Law)
    • Constitutional Law (Professor Tobias Wolff, University of Pennsylvania School of Law)
    • Contracts (Professor Liam Murphy, New York University School of Law)
    • Property (Professor Dan Kelly, University of Notre Dame Law School)
  • Reading Legal Opinions & Briefing Cases
  • How to Prepare a Law School Outline
  • How to Draft a Legal Memorandum
  • Issue-Spotting on Law School Exams
  • How to Handle a Summer Assignment
  • Relationship-Building and Networking

Fellows also have the opportunity to attend Networking events sponsored by our partner firms throughout their internship and meet with attorneys across our wide network. Past events have included:

- Meet and Greet with Preet Bharara (sponsored by Milbank Tweed)
- Citywide Diversity Reception featuring guest speaker April Ryan, White House Correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief for American Urban Radio Networks & CNN Political Analyst (sponsored by Paul, Weiss)
- Citywide Diversity Reception featuring guest speaker Misty Copeland, First African-American Female Principal Dancer with the American Ballet Theatre (sponsored by Simpson Thacher)