Loy earns experience and full-time position at global law firm

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Sarah Loy, now a third-year student at Penn State Law, spent the summer before her final year of law school working at Reed Smith LLP, an elite global law firm founded in Pittsburgh, where she gained legal experience and a full-time job offer after graduation.

Already knowing she wanted to go to Pittsburgh, Loy determined through Penn State Law Career Services’ on-campus interview program that she really liked the people she would be working with at Reed Smith; taking the position was a no-brainer. The varied work of a large firm like Reed Smith also appealed to her.

And varied it was; Loy worked in civil litigation, writing memos and motions, and giving presentations. But she was ready for it all.

“Thanks to my preparation at Penn State Law, I had the research and writing skills necessary to succeed in this position,” said Loy. “I was able to hit the ground running, take assignments right away, and I received good feedback.”

Loy also took on a lot of pro bono work at the firm, something Reed Smith really encourages its summer associates to participate in. A lot of the research she undertook in this realm related to Pennsylvania state law regarding juveniles sentenced to life without parole. As a rapidly changing area of the law, Loy found it to be a meaningful way to spend her time, and she took away a great deal from being able to discuss what she was researching and learning with attorneys as it applied to their cases.

Loy also got a chance to explore a different kind of writing than she is accustomed to in the legal field, as she wrote blog posts for some of the firm’s attorneys. Because these posts were created for clients, she needed to break down the legal terms into words and concepts that make sense to those not in the legal field. This is a skill she knows will be useful in her career after law school.

“Law school teaches you the theory of law, but it was nice to discover that I can apply what I’ve learned, work through various tasks successfully, and feel comfortable,” she said.

At the end of the summer, Loy accepted a full-time position with Reed Smith following graduation next spring. She met many Penn State Law graduates while she was working in Pittsburgh, noting that it was great to have that solid network of support, and that she looks forward to more Penn Staters heading that way.