The Office of Career Planning provides a broad range of programs to help students and graduates as they explore career opportunities while also serving employers both nationally and internationally.

OCP encourages and helps guide students to look broadly at all the opportunities a Michigan Law education makes possible. We're here for our students even before they become our students: our emphasis on one-on-one counseling begins during the admissions process and continues long after our students become our alumni.

Students at Michigan Law have always enjoyed a wealth of opportunities, even in a difficult economy. Nonetheless, in response to the most recent economic downturn—from which we are now emerging—we concentrated enormous amounts of institutional attention on expanding the tremendous services we provide to our students. Our most dramatic step was to merge the Office of Public Service and Office of Career Services into a single entity, the Office of Career Planning (OCP), to facilitate students' exploration of opportunities in a variety of practice settings, and to allow us to build and develop all elements of our existing well-rounded programs. The coordinated approach that the reorganization allows reflects the reality of our students' careers, which are more often a melding of multiple opportunities than a strict division between private and public. Our new structure allows us to more effectively help students focus on both long- and short-term goals, and also facilitated the following improvements:

• the hiring of additional counseling staff, with resulting expanded counseling hours and diversified expertise
• increased career-planning and networking programming
• development of post-graduate and summer-funding opportunities that allow individuals to enter into new markets
• ever-increasing use of our powerful and broad alumni base
• expanded outreach to new employers outside our traditional network

Throughout the academic year, the Office of Career Planning offers a speaker series covering a variety of topics and designed to help students explore their career options, translate individual legal interests into professional paths, and analyze the latest market trends.  Past programs are available on our Archived Programs page.

The reputation and global reach of Michigan Law means that, after you complete your education, there is virtually no limit on where you can go, and the fact that our students come from all over the country and abroad makes for a rich and eclectic educational climate. Click on the links below to see which states our students come from, to which states they go after graduation, and the kind of work our graduates do. Attending Michigan Law will allow you to go anywhere geographically, and the Office of Career Planning will help you explore and obtain jobs in a broad range of practice settings, whether in private practice, government, public interest, judicial clerkships, or legal academia.

Employers Interviewing on Campus
During Early Interview Week (EIW) in August 2013, almost 500 employers from 36 states, Washington, D.C., and five foreign countries conducted almost 5,000 interviews with our students. Approximately 380 of our 2L and 3L students participated in this program. In addition to EIW, we offer a smaller on-campus program in the fall. Beyond on-campus interview opportunities, almost 1,100 other employers from throughout the United States contacted the Law School last year to post job openings and to request student resumes. Nearly all of the American Lawyer Top 100 firms, the American Lawyer Global 100 firms, and the American Lawyer list of Best Places to Work firms visit the law school or request resumes of Michigan Law students.

Listing an Employment Opportunity
If you have not posted a position with Michigan Law in the past, please follow these four steps to register and submit a job opportunity within Symplicity.  Please note - if you are submitting a resume collect, you will need to follow the same steps below and select "yes" for resume collect near the end of the job posting process:

1. Please go to this link:  https://law-umich-csm.symplicity.com/employers/
2. Click on "Register and Post Free Local Job."
3. Please fill out the form as completely as you are able, and hit "Next" at the bottom of the page.
4. You will be directed to the job posting page, where you can fill out and submit a new position posting (if you are submitting a "resume collect", be sure to select "Yes" for that field near the bottom of the page).

Please feel free to contact our office at lawcareers@umich.edu or 734.764.0546 if you have any questions, and thank you for thinking of our school!

Our Recruiting Programs
We are thrilled to announce that our 2014 Early Interview Week (EIW) will be held in the Lawyers Club (the Law School's student dormitory, and part of the Law Quadrangle), making it truly "on-campus interviewing" for the first time in more than decade!  Our 2014 Early Interview Week (EIW) is scheduled for Thursday-Friday, August 7-8th and Monday-Tuesday, August 11-12th. Employer registration for EIW will begin on Monday, March 10, 2014 via Symplicity.  Our Recruiting at Michigan - EIW 2014 (PDF) has instructions and registration information.  Dates for EIW will be assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.  Please be aware that last year the most popular dates filled up in literally just a few hours after registration was open -- so needless to say, we strongly encourage early registration if you have a specific date in mind.

We also offer on-campus interviewing in the fall and winter.  Our Fall On-Campus Interviewing (OCI) Program will be September 18, 19, 25, and 26 and October 2 and 3, 2013.  Our Recruiting at Michigan - Fall OCI (PDF) has instructions and registration information.  Employer registration for Fall OCI will begin in July, 2013 via Symplicity.

Our Winter On-Campus Interviewing Program is in February each year.   Dates for our 2014 Winter Interview Program are February 12, 13, 19, 20, 26, and 27, 2014.  Our Recruiting at Michigan - Winter OCI (PDF) has instructions and registration information.  Employer registration for Winter OCI will begin in November, 2013 via Symplicity.  Of course, arrangements may be made to interview at other times of the school year if it is more convenient.

Our listing of Ann Arbor hotels (PDF) contains street addresses and phone numbers for local accommodations.

For more information or questions, please email Kim LeClair, Recruitment Manager, at kleclair@umich.edu.

Videoconferencing Services
Employers interested in arranging student interviews using our videoconferencing system should contact Kim LeClair at kleclair@umich.edu for more information.

Student Directories
The Office of Career Planning compiles two student directories each year for distribution to employers who may wish to contact University of Michigan Law School students directly. Each directory includes student name, anticipated graduation date, local and permanent mailing addresses, email address, and undergraduate/graduate schools and degrees received.

Our First-Year Student Directory, comprising exclusively of first-year law students, is typically available in late November. Our Second- and Third-Year Directory comprises rising second- and third-year students and is typically available in early June. To request a Student Directory as a PDF, please email Tammy Sindlinger at sindling@umich.edu.

NALP Directory of Law Schools Information
View our 2014 questionnaire, available as a PDF.

Discrimination Complaints
Please see our memo from Dean Mark West on procedures for handling discrimination complaints.

Our Counselor Walk-in Hours:
Walk-in counseling is for quick questions, 10 minutes or less in nature. 

Carolyn Spencer, Attorney-Counselor:  10:00am-11:00am, Monday-Friday

Pyper Logan Alpern, Attorney-Counselor:  11:00am-12:00pm, Monday-Friday.

Greta Trakul, Attorney-Counselor and Judicial Clerkship Advisor:  11:00am-12:00pm, Monday-Friday.

Gary McGinnis, Attorney-Counselor:  2:00pm-3:00pm, Monday-Friday

Alyson Robbins, Public Interest Director:  3:00pm-3:30pm, Monday-Friday

Robin Kaplan, Attorney-Counselor and Government Advisor:  3:00pm-4:00pm, Monday-Thursday