Chabad’s Edge in Job Hunt

by Rivka Chaya Berman, lubavitch.com

With law firm layoffs and cutbacks in new attorney hires worrying the students at Cardozo Law School in New York, the campus Chabad center has begun offering networking events to connect students with successful attorneys.

At Chabad’s recent Attorneys and Law Students Networking Event, 75 students got to know powerbrokers like real-estate mogul and attorney Leon Charney, Jones Day partner Andy Green, and president the New York Legal Assistance Group Yisroel Schulman.

“The idea for the networking events grew out of the informal connections we have been making for students on a one to one basis,” said Rabbi Chezky Wolff, Director of Chabad at Cardozo.

He has been making phone calls to lawyer friends on behalf of students since arriving on campus in 2008.

With the job market still in a slump, Rabbi Wolff and his wife and co-director Perry, have booked another night of networking for February.

At December’s event Terrence Oved, founder of Oved & Oved, LLP, counseled students to bear in mind that “there might not be a lot of jobs out there, but you don’t need ‘a lot’ you need only one.”

Student Matt Rothstein worked the room with determination. “If you have good connections, you can get a job,” he said.

Rothstein, who Rabbi Wolff credits for the brainstorm behind the event, noted that the networking night attracted new faces, ones he hasn’t seen at Chabad’s popular Shabbat dinners.

“They come to our networking events, spend time with other Jewish students, and discover that they fit in at Chabad,” said Rabbi Wolff.

While the jury’s out on law school students’ prospects for the future, one thing is certain: Chabad is doing all it can to sway the verdict in their favor.

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