This week Green Grads passed the one year milestone!

Our very first article was posted on the 11th of November 2008 and since then we’ve played around with a number of ideas connected to our overall goal of establishing a community for Australian law students and young legal graduates. Some things have worked quite well and others, well, not so much.

The idea behind this post is to have a quick wrap up of our 2009 and give you an idea of what we’re planning in 2010.

Summary of 2009

Overall, 2009 has been a success. None of us really knew what to expect when it came to setting up this website and for the most part, the main goal was simply not to crash and burn in our first year. Well I think we can cross that lofty goal off the list.

But I think it’s also fair to say that we’ve done some good things beyond merely staying afloat. The Tuesday Transcript series has been very well received and is well worth a look if you haven’t been through them all yet.

The more recent Green Scenes, while sometimes a bit hit-or-miss, seemed to be pretty popular as well.

Our Grad Girl series was also a hit, among law students especially. Of course, given the nature of the series, it was difficult to get enough content out to to build up a real following – but that will happen over time.

Ultimately, 2009 was a good beginning for our community.

Short Term Plans

Now that most university semesters are winding up, this website is going to be a bit quieter as we prepare for the 2010 semester. This means that over the next three months or so we’re going to shift our focus away from this ‘blog’ side of things to some more direct communications, like Twitter, email and even some real world meetings.

Our aim is to spend some time planning, building up for a much stronger 2010.

Long Term Plans

In the longer term, we are planning to change some things around a little bit. For one, Green Grads will probably have a different (better) feel in 2010. We’re currently in the process of choosing a much better name for our community (and if you have any suggestions, feel free to send them in!). We’re also going to go through a complete overhaul of the website so that everything is a bit easier to use.

We plan on putting much more of an emphasis on networking and introducing people to one another. This means we’re going to try to do less blogging (ie. one-way communication) and focus on more interactive, two-way communications.

The idea has always been to create a network and so 2010 is going to be all about building on what we have achieved this year and making that network worthwhile.

Connect With Us!

So, as some of us finish up our semesters, some of us finish up our degrees and others start to look forward to a bit of time off across the rest of the year (my sincere apologies to the Biglaw lawyers and clerks who felt a pang of hatred reading that) we wish you all the best and look forward to connecting with you throughout 2010.

Remember you can stay in contact via our RSS Feed, our Twitter (@Green_Grads) and even by (what is, these days, almost old-fashioned) email.

Recently I have been trying to force myself to get back into RSS feeds. Keeping up with my Google Reader is one of my secret, shameful failures. I admit this upfront to get into the spirit of what this post is going to be about.

Anyways, one of the feeds that I’ve recently subscribed to has been all about personal branding. That is, treating your identity as a brand and attempting to control the image associated with your name.

I get personal branding, I do. There is plenty of stuff floating around that drives home the importance of controlling your image (take a look at the Personal Branding Blog and the connected Student Branding Blog). It is important. But also, it sucks. Personal branding sucks. It sucks so bad.

Here’s why.

Personal Branding is Totally Fake

It requires you to censor nearly everything that you do to prevent your ‘weaknesses’ damaging your overall ‘brand’. Yet, social media is about being social. It’s about being genuine and creating connections with other people. Censoring myself in this way makes me feel like I’m attending some rich kids masquerade ball. Sure, everyone is very pretty and TV shows like Gossip Girl sexify it up, but how do I know what the people behind those masks are really like? Did you see Eyes Wide Shut? What was up with that?

Personal Branding is Hard Work

The internet and social media is a part of my life now. Is it even possible to use all of the new networking services and still retain complete control of how I am portrayed?

I thought I was safe putting my Facebook profile on ultra ninja stealth mode, but that doesn’t stop random people identifying me through mutual friends. So what should I do? Start culling friends because I cannot be sure they won’t protect my flawed secret identity?

My ‘Flaws’ Make Me Awesome

Here is the take home message. I am equal parts flawed and awesome. Chances are, you are too. It’s just, for better or worse, the internet has changed the way we network and now it’s a lot harder to compartmentalise your flaws and your awesomeness.

Perhaps in years past it was possible to go to work and see your fellow employees, or your boss, as super heroes capable of saving the day without a hint of weakness. The truth is, though, while these people were superheroes at work, or on the sports field, or wherever, they had a mild-mannered secret identity too.

And that secret identity was flawed.  Perhaps your superhero boss didn’t eat right. Or perhaps he or she would attend parties on the weekend and let their hair down. Perhaps they would get stuck in traffic and vent their frustrations loudly in their empty car.

Well, now thanks to the wonders (‘Wonders, Lisa? Or blunders..’) of the computer age, it’s a lot harder to keep these two identities separate. I say, deal with it. I promise you, even though you will find unattractive photos of me on Facebook, I’m still a pretty clever kid. Even though someone occasionally uses Twitter to abuse the public transport system, it doesn’t mean they should be tarnished forever. A person who blogs about how disappointed they are with their below average exam results should be viewed as someone who wants to do better, not as a failure.

Social networking blurs the lines between ‘work identity’ and ‘home identity’ and that is part of what makes it so valuable.  It can give us a deeper insight into a person’s life, but you have to be willing to take the good with the bad.

Personal Branding Just Plain ‘Ol Sucks

Personal branding sucks because it encourages the idea that people need to be pristine and perfect to be valuable. But the truth is the complete opposite. The valuable people, in my mind, are the ones who identify their flaws, account for them, and turn up ready to make things better for the people around them.

In my (flawed) opinion, if you’re using social networking to promote a promise that isn’t you, well you’re kind of missing the point.

I should also point out the huge hippocracy in this post, as Ben Blue isn’t actually my real name. I post under this alias to protect my mild mannered secret identity. Baby steps…

Number Eleven in our Green Scenes series.

Number Ten in our Green Scenes series.

Number nine in our Green Scenes series.

Number eight in our Green Scenes Series.

Number seven in our Green Scenes series.

Number six in our Green Scenes series.

Don’t panic! The sky has not fallen yet!

This year a lot of law students received a rather harsh ‘welcome to the real world’ moment when, after three, four or five years of training at law school, they came through the graduate recruitment process without an offer.

Law firms might be brave enough to come out and say they’re not going to reduce their summer clerkships and that everything is fine but anyone who knows a final year law student knows better. This year was a tough one. So what can we soon-to-be-unemployed-layabouts do to make things better?

1. Keep Studying

There are a number of opportunities for graduates who haven’t yet become allergic to the university lifestyle (that is, tuna-from-the-can and drinking cask wine). The Australian National University, ranked 16 in the Top 400 Colleges in the World, offers a Graduate Diploma in Legal Studies. It is a one year course and can be an alternate pathway into being admitted in all Australian jurisdictions.

Edit: I don’t know why I originally wrote that this was a one year course, it isn’t. It is very flexible and you can tailor it to your needs.

Another alternate pathway is the national College of Law Program. This can be done externally, full time or part time. It’s not really a way of continuing the university lifestyle, but I suppose you could probably get a group of your other unemployed law-grad mates and get through the course while at your law library or tavern.

2. Dazzle the Public Service

Most graduates have probably already given this a go, but a few of you may have limited your options to the law firms around town. Expand your horizons and apply to the public service. Even if you’ve always set your goal on a commercial law firm, experience within the public service, either in a legal or policy related role, can only serve you well in the long run.

The National APS Jobs Website can be an excellent tool to find what jobs are available around the country. Also keep an eye on the Federal Court of Australia Website and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions Website. Don’t forget about your state solicitors, too!

3. Volunteer

So long as you’re sitting around not being paid, why not find a volunteer organisation that can not-pay you while you do something worthwhile.

Obviously there are the big sexy volunteer organisations like Red Cross and the Salvation Army – but don’t ignore the opportunities around you in your community.

Also remember to check if places like Legal Aid and the Aboriginal Legal Service can take you on. These are larger organisations so they might not be able to squeeze you in on the fly, but if you make it clear that you’re willing to work for zero pay and you will bring your own tea and biscuits perhaps they can make use of you.

4. Travel

Because the world needs more loud mouthed, drunk Australian tourists. Contiki is basically like a right of passage these days and you might not have a spare 12 months for quite a while.

5. Be Generally Awesome

If you’re super determined to get out there and find yourself the perfect job then you need to be proactive about it. You must break out from your comfort zone and make things happen. Try to think outside the square and find a way to prove to prospective employers that you’re worth taking on.

Remember that it costs an employer a considerable amount of money to take on a law graduate and you’re essentially worthless. You don’t know jack yet and you’re probably going to make their life more difficult. So you need to come up with something that will make you worth the investment.

So – this is just five things that you could try. There’s many more (but apparently people’s brains explode unless everything is in ‘Top 5′ list format).

If you have suggestions then feel free to send them in to us!

Number five in our Green Scenes series.