Last fall, Caroline Smith spent her 3L capstone with Smucker Co., a leading consumer packaged goods company. Their portfolio includes timeless brands like Uncrustables, Jif peanut butter, Hostess and Milkbone.
“I pursued a capstone at Smucker because it was really important to me that my capstone be something I could really see myself doing in the future,” Smith says. “Through law school, I realized that corporate law is what I really enjoy doing, and being able to get corporate experience working for a company that I actually admire was so rewarding.”
Smucker Co.’s sprawling headquarters stands out in the quaint town of Orville, OH. Initially, Smith reflects, working at a company as large and storied as Smucker Co. represented a unique challenge. Projects there were larger and more complex, so Smith’s level of involvement in them seemed smaller than it had been in previous internship roles. “It was an adjustment to be a smaller fish in a bigger pond…because my previous job only had one attorney, my projects felt "bigger" in some ways,” she says. She recalibrated quickly, of course. Eager to engage with corporate counsel work and her new colleagues, she made the 1 hour journey from Cleveland to Orville every week. She wrote memos, conducted legal research, shadowed attorneys, prepared presentations and reviewed contracts, extremely proactive about seeking out work.
“If I had downtime, I'd walk around and see what other attorneys were up to, either to take some work off their plates or just to sit in on whatever meetings/projects they had going on,” she notes. She was also able to engage in opportunities specific to corporate counsel work. “About once a month, after lunch, there would be a company-wide event highlighting a department or celebrating the launch of a new product,” she points out, and “it was really fun to go to those events and see the hard work of everyone at the company pay off.” That she could have an impact on Smucker Co.’s success is perhaps the most gratifying part of the capstone, though.
“It was just so cool to play a role in keeping a company as big as Smuckers successful. For at least the next year, I'm going to see new products launch, new commercials air and new initiatives roll out that I know I played a part in, and I'm so proud of that.”
Law students who are in the thick of job and externship season, she says, should not feel discouraged “when it feels like nothing is working in [their] favor.”
“Yes, I've worked hard, but I've also gotten extremely LUCKY. I earned my position, but I also was at the right place at the right time for the opportunity. So if you ever feel like you can't figure out why you can't land a job even though you're working hard and putting yourself out there, don't worry! I promise your time is coming.”