Nazali Tax & Legal Managing Partner Ersin Nazali and Kinstellar Managing Associate and Head of Employment Kristina Pavlovic talk about their firms’ summer internship programs – the crucial bridge between academic learning and practical experience for law students.
Internship Intake and Selection Criteria
Both Nazali and Kinstellar have well-defined criteria for selecting their summer interns, ensuring they attract dedicated and capable candidates.
“Our law firm consists of different areas (departments),” Nazali begins. “Within this scope, each department requests summer interns in accordance with their workload. Generally, each department has two to three summer interns each month. Our summer intern program covers three months, from June to August.” As for Kinstellar, Pavlovic says that the firm typically takes “two to four summer interns each year, mostly depending on the volume of work during the summer and the time our lawyers can devote to the candidates.”
Moreover, Nazali reports that their firm’s HR department is the one that selects the summer interns. “Their criteria are the academic year of the student (only second and third-year students are selected), the intern’s letter of interest, foreign language skills (with English being a must), previous intern programs, in case of third-year students, and social activities such as debate clubs and social responsibility projects,” Nazali outlines. As for Kinstellar’s selection criteria, Pavlovic reports that academic standing and English fluency are paramount. Aside from that, Pavlovic says that the “candidate’s enthusiasm to understand the way an international corporate law firm works, what we do in practice, and their readiness to spend a month of their summer working and learning” are also major selection criteria.
University Partnerships and Internship Structure
The way firms engage with educational centers and structure their internship programs plays a significant role in shaping interns’ experiences.
“We don’t have specific university partnerships, but we are attending universities’ career days programs,” Nazali says. “Through these programs, we easily meet different students and these students have a chance to learn about our office internship program.” As he puts it, the firm’s aim is to show the “enforcement part of our work that is not shown at university.”
“Traditionally, we partner with the Belgrade University’s Faculty of Law and its student association, ELSA,” Pavlovic says for Kinstellar. “In recent years, we have also engaged students from foreign universities interested in learning about international law firms operating in the local market and Serbian jurisdiction and legislation.”
Continuing, Pavlovic says that, “through the internship, the intern gains insight into what life of a Junior Associate at an international law firm entails, what are the expectations and challenges in practice.” At Kinstellar, each summer intern gets one of the firm’s Associates as a mentor. “Being attached to a mentor, the intern is mainly associated with one practice group. However, depending on the workload, they also receive tasks from Associates in different fields,” Pavlovic explains. “In addition to working on legal matters and serving clients, our interns frequently engage in various research and business development activities.”
Nazali also outlines that their legal interns do research, draft the results of their legal analysis, create presentations about new regulations, write articles, visit the courts with lawyers, and much more.
Conversion to Full-Time Hires and Intern Experience
The ultimate goal for many interns is to secure a full-time position post-graduation. Both firms have systems in place to facilitate this transition, offering a pathway from internship to full-time employment.
“After their internship program, each Partner gives feedback to the HR department,” Nazali says. “In case an intern makes an application for a legal intern program, if the feedback is positive, our HR team selects the intern as a legal intern candidate and the process moves forward.” As a general rule, Nazali shares that the firm’s default approach is to select “previous summer interns as our next legal interns.”
“Some of the most successful lawyers within our office started as our summer interns,” Pavlovic chimes in. “Others went studying abroad or decided to opt for different careers. In any instance, the feedback they gave us indicated that the internship at our law firm was a valuable learning experience, helping them determine their future career paths.” Not only that but Pavlovic also happily shares in conclusion that “many friendships developed among team members. We love to have interns among us because they bring a special energy and enthusiasm to our work atmosphere.”
This article was originally published in Issue 11.7 of the CEE Legal Matters Magazine. If you would like to receive a hard copy of the magazine, you can subscribe here.
