I interned at a criminal defense firm at 16. Here's what it actually taught me.

Last year, I walked into a criminal defense law office as a young junior in high school with exactly zero legal experience and a vague sense that I wanted to go to law school someday. I didn't have a clue as to what discovery meant. I had never seen a case file. I wasn't even sure what a paralegal did.

I left that internship with something I couldn't have gotten from any class: a real sense of what the law actually looks like in real life. Not the TV version. Not the textbook version. The version where a real person's life is sitting in a manila folder on a desk, and the work you do, or don't do, matters.

If you're a pre-law university student wondering whether to apply for legal internships before you feel "ready," this post is for you. The short answer is to apply now, figure it out later. I promise.

As a first-year college student with a sophomore standing, here's what I'd tell any student wanting to land a legal internship- or any internship, for that matter- before junior year: start small, and work your way up. Big, well-known firms often have formal recruitment pipelines that favor upperclassmen. On the other hand, Solo practitioners and small criminal defense or family law offices are more likely to take a younger, motivated student seriously. Send a genuine, tailored email. Explain why their specific work interests you. Young people's passion is an attractive quality for prospective interns.

In my experience, I learned about this criminal defense office through people who shared mutual interests and had praised this opportunity and the experience and knowledge they gained from it. From there, I sent an email to the office, asking if there were any high school opportunities, whether that was interning, shadowing, or simply coming in for an interview to discuss "what do lawyers do on a day-to-day basis?" I was so nervous to hit send on this email, but it was potentially the greatest decision of my career thus far. I was immediately offered an interview and ultimately accepted an internship. I didn't feel ready on the day I sent the email. I didn't feel ready at my interview. I didn't even feel ready after my first week interning. The point is: be uncomfortable. Growing pains are a vital aspect of developing yourself in every facet of life, so send that email. Apply for that position. Do not do something out of fear.

The most valuable thing I got from this internship wasn't something I could put on an application or my resume. It was clarity. A real, firsthand sense of whether I could actually see myself doing this work as a long-term career. That clarity only came because I showed up before I felt ready.

Which brings me to something I keep thinking about. A huge part of why people wait, whether it's for the internship, the LSAT prep, or the cold email they never send, is that discomfort feels like the signal to stop. You think your body is telling you you aren't ready yet.

There's actually a name for what you feel when you walk into that room. Imposter syndrome — the very real, very common experience of feeling like you don't belong somewhere you've worked to get to. And here's what nobody tells you about it: it doesn't go away when you get more qualified. It just changes shape. The lawyers I watched in that office had been practicing for years and still talked about moments where they felt like they were figuring it out in real time. The feeling isn't a sign that you're in the wrong place. It's a sign that you're in a place that's making you grow.

Thanks for being here for issue one. If you're a pre-law student and any of this resonated, or you're in a totally different place in your journey, I'd genuinely love to hear from you.