How to get a job in Chambers at the ICTR

September 4th, 2009 • ICTR Internship

The Associate Legal Officer (ALO) is the general entry point into Chambers at the ICTR. It is described as a “P-2″ position by the United Nations requires you to be admitted to practice, have two years of experience and a law degree.

Beyond those relatively simple requirements, the ALOs I’ve met have had a variety of different backgrounds here at the ICTR. Some are UN employees fresh from non-legal work in other UN agencies, others are doing post-graduate study and quite a few are ex-corporate (or taking a sabbatical from their firm).

From what I can gather here are a few tips on paid employment in Chambers at the ICTR:

• Internships help. A lot of the ALOs here have previously done an internship at the Tribunal. I’m not sure what the crossover rate is from the ICTY, but doing a good job on an internship at the ICTR can open lots of doors to people and opportunities for paid work. That said, there are also ALOs here who have no experience at international tribunals/courts, so it’s definitely not determinative.
• Corporate experience is great. While at university we can often create a stark divide between “corporate law” and the “non-private sector”, but in Chambers plenty of the ALOs have come from corporate jobs, in areas like IP, dispute resolution or banking, and some are even going straight back to their corporate jobs when they finish here. Corporate law gives you valuable training and experience in dealing with “the law”, even if its not substantive international criminal law. Not to mention being forced to work to real world deadlines and being forced to develop your people skills. So no need to ’sculpt’ your CV to make it look “anti-corporate”.
• Get admitted. One thing that is clear is the importance of being admitted in some domestic jurisdiction. And it’ll make your life a lot easier if you get it done sooner rather than later. Not only is it required for certain legal job opportunities at the ICTR, but it means that you “really are a lawyer” when applying for jobs, even if the job ads don’t specifically mention admission.
• Post-grad study recommended. While its definitely not a requirement to getting a job, it seems that most ALOs, and more senior staff, have either already done some post-graduate study or are planning to soon. International criminal law is one of those areas where post-graduate study is definitely “strongly recommended” as it develops your substantive knowledge of an area of law and you can significantly contribute to the existing scholarship based on your experience of working in the law. So in many ways, study and work at the ICTR are a natural mix.

These tips are purely based on my personal observations, so let me know in the comments if I’m totally off-base or have missed out on a crucial piece of advice. Also, I have no idea how relevant these are for any institution apart from the ICTR. And don’t forget, with the two ad hoc closing “in the near future…” jobs are hypothetically going to get a lot scarcer with more competition.

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1. Advice on getting an internship at the ICTR (and elsewhere)
2. Five Stereotypes of ICTR Interns
3. Procedural law at the ICTR
4. More advice for new ICTR interns
5. Corruption at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

Tags: advice, ALO, career, Chambers, ICTR

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