So yester, I got to the office in the morning, and since no one was there, I decided to start off my day in a very productive manner: by checking my personal email. The first email in my inbox was from an unfamiliar name, but I recognized her email account: it was from my old law school. Mind you, seeing this address hit me like a bad LSD flashback (or at least that’s what I would imagine a bad LSD flashback to feel like), because I haven’t seen that address since I graduated.  Despite my apprehension, I opened the email anyways, and this is what I found, save the identifying information: Dear [Judge’s real name], Hi? How are you? I am a recent grad of [my alum] and I recently passed the Illinois bar. I am currently looking for a position in Chicago and was wondering if we could meet for coffee. I had a few questions about my job search and was wondering you’d be willing to share any information or advice you have. Thanks, Unemployed Lawyer Now this is strange for more a few reasons. First of all, I had never given my information out to anyone in Career Services, so I had no idea how this girl got my email address. Secondly the idea of “having coffee” with other lawyers is upsetting; I didn’t do that in law school and I definitely wasn’t going to start now. But more than anything, I remembered learning about this concept in law school: networking. People in law school love to talk about networking, claiming that it’s the best way to find a job and “make connections”.  I remember that the Head of Career Services at our law school gave my entire 1L class a lecture on the importance of networking. She claimed that besides our grades, contacting practicing attorneys and getting involved in the legal community was the single most important thing to do to ensure that your career takes off. Now for me, this was horrifying; as a child, I opted out of Girl Scouts because I didn’t want to harass strangers about buying overpriced cookies. And networking was even worse; I would be cold calling and emailing random people to ask for help, and I could offer absolutely nothing (besides coffee) in exchange. But still, my concern about paying off my looming debt outweighed my fear of being ridiculed by random lawyers. So I tried networking. Surprisingly, what I found is that the alums I contacted were very nice. They not only responded, but were very friendly, asking me questions about where I grew up and why I was coming to Chicago. However, they could provide me zero input as to how to find a job. Through my networking attempts, the only thing I learned was that the legal market is tight, and as much as people want to help you, they usually can’t. I’ve asked my co-workers, and they also confirmed that networking had done nothing to jump start their careers. After law school, I found my first job from a legal job website (I swear that’s really true).  But back to the email from the new law school grad, while I had nothing to offer her in terms of job opportunities/information/advice, I definitely didn’t want to leave her hanging. So I sent her a friendly email congratulating her on passing the bar and asking her why she was coming to Chicago. What about you all? Has “networking” worked for any of you?