Rising 2L Chloe Margulis on Her Summer Experience at Google

Chloe Margulis ’20 recently had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of participating in the Google Legal Summer Institute, spending a week in California and experiencing life and law on several Google campuses.

What is the Google Legal Summer Institute?

The Google Legal Summer Institute is open to applications from 1L students around the country. The program promotes diversity and minorities in the law by providing selected students with the opportunity to grow in the industry.

What was the selection process?

Of 350 applications submitted, 25 students were selected to spend a week on Google campuses in Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and San Francisco.

Please describe your experience in the program.

We met with Google in-house counsel as well as many other prominent figures in the Google ecosystem, including chief legal counsel at Netflix, Starbucks, Facebook, and Bet companies. (Alphabet Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate that became the parent company of Google and several of Google's subsidiaries. Bet companies are other subsidiaries aside from Google that are included under the Alphabet umbrella and therefore have Alphabet as their parent company.) We listened to panels about trending topics in the legal industry, advances in Google, and the various avenues for careers that a law student can take -- whether nonlegal-based, firm, or in-house. We were treated like Google employees for the week, with access to all of their dining facilities, meals and deserts served all day, gym access, sleeping pod use, slide use, and everything else offered to full time Googlers. We were exposed to the unique Google culture, other Bet companies, and the connected ‘out-house’ law firms.. It was a wonderful opportunity to see the hundreds of avenues for growth, to become inspired to find a passion in the law, and to network and connect with attorneys in firms as well as in Google.

Every student was assigned a Google in-house counsel as their mentor. We were given time to work and talk together while at Google with the expectation that this relationship will continue throughout our careers as young attorneys.

What happens after participating students spend a week on the Google campus?

After the week at Google, all students were offered a three-week internship with one of Google's “out-house” law firms. I actually started working at Shumaker & Sieffert in Minnesota before the program was announced. Since S&S works a lot with Google, S&S was able to send me directly to Google for this program without having to go through the application process. As a result, I returned to work at S&S after the week at Google and will continue working at S&S through the summer.

Would you recommend participation to other 1Ls?

Yes! The Google Summer Legal Institute is a great opportunity for 1Ls to apply to, regardless of what area of law they are interested in. I want to practice IP law, but there were a majority of students interested in corporate, M&A, trademarks, security, privacy, etc. The program is open to anyone who exhibits diversity and is interested in growing his/her legal career. I would highly encourage any and all 1Ls to apply for this amazing opportunity (plus, it's an astounding foot in the door if you want to eventually end up at Google or a related company).

Visit the Google Summer Legal Institute site for more information about the program and application process. You can also reach out to Chloe Margulis at margu014@umn.edu with any questions regarding the program.