As an international medical device company with more than 100,000 employees working in 150 countries, Medtronic was the perfect place for 2L Jade Egbert to learn about employment law as an extern this summer.
“Before this externship, I knew I wanted to do transactional work, but I did not know which type,” she said. “Since beginning my job, I am now interested in employment law and even changed my upcoming schedule to include classes in it.”
Egbert was placed at Medtronic as part of St. Thomas Law’s Legal Externship Program, which offers law students the opportunity to explore legal careers and provides them with relevant professional experience.
The company structured her position to be part informational interviews with members of its legal team regarding career paths in law and part hands-on learning opportunities.
“My supervisor was a risk mitigation attorney who does litigation and transactional work. One project she assigned was research about whistleblower laws,” Egbert said. “A different attorney, more of a generalist in employment law, asked me to research which states have enacted or proposed laws protecting employees from AI discrimination and if employees can continue to work from home due to fear of contracting COVID.”
Egbert is building connections with the people she has met during her externship, which is another goal of the law school’s program. In fact, two of the attorneys she’s worked with will be her mentors during the 2024-25 academic year.
“My favorite experiences (at Medtronic) were networking and learning about different areas of law,” Egbert said. “I bonded well with two of the employees, and I am interested in their work, so I asked them to be my co-mentors and they enthusiastically agreed!”
While there are many indicators that she has found a potential career path in employment law through the off-campus externship program, Egbert says she is still undecided, especially since she is just starting her second year of law school.
“I feel engaged in this field, enjoy the topics covered, and thoroughly enjoy in-house attorney work life,” she said. “I am still open to learn about different areas of law, but employment law is an important contender.”
