Internship Application Email to a Law Firm: Sample

An internship application email should be about 120 words, state your year and your exact dates in the first two sentences, and attach a one page CV. The firm is deciding in roughly fifteen seconds whether to open the attachment, and a long email makes that decision easier for them and worse for you.

The subject line

Make it searchable and specific. The reader may be sorting dozens of these into a folder.

• Internship application: June 2027, third year student, National Law University Jodhpur
• Application for internship, 2 to 27 June 2027

Some organisations prescribe the subject line. Human Rights Law Network, for example, has asked applicants to write “Internship at SLIC” followed by the month. Where a format is given, use it exactly, because an automatic filter may be sorting on it.

A sample you can adapt

This is a working template for an unsolicited application to an advocate or a small firm. Change every sentence that does not apply to you.

Subject: Internship application: 2 to 27 June 2027, third year student

Dear Mr Srivastava,

I am a third year student of the five year BA LLB programme at the University of Lucknow, and I am writing to ask whether you would consider taking an intern between 2 and 27 June 2027.

I am interested in service and constitutional matters, which is why I am writing to you in particular. I read your reported argument in the recent writ on compassionate appointment and would like to see how such matters are prepared. I have drafted a writ petition and a counter affidavit in our clinical course, and I can read and write Hindi fluently, which I understand is useful for records in the Lucknow Bench.

My CV is attached. I am available for the full four weeks and can report at the chamber from the first day. I would be glad to send a writing sample if that would help.

Thank you for your time.

Yours sincerely,

Anjali Verma

Third year, BA LLB (Hons), University of Lucknow

+91 98765 43210

Why each part is there

The first sentence does the work

Year, programme, university, and the exact dates. The reader now knows whether you are relevant and whether you fit a slot. Everything else in the email is secondary to this.

One sentence of genuine reason

This is the only part the reader cannot predict. Something you have actually read of theirs, a practice area you actually want, a matter type you actually find interesting. One sentence is enough and two is plenty.

Write this honestly. “I have long admired your firm’s excellence” is read as filler because it is filler. “I want to see how service matters are prepared before the Lucknow Bench” is specific and plainly true.

One sentence of what you bring

For a student with no internships yet, this is drafting done in a clinical course, a moot, a language, research you have done, or a published piece. It should be a fact, not an adjective. “I can read Hindi records” is worth more than “I am a hard working and dedicated student”.

Logistics, briefly

Availability, whether you can attend in person, and where you will be staying if that is relevant. For a chamber internship in another city, saying you have accommodation arranged removes an objection before it arises.

What to attach

A one page CV as a PDF, named sensibly: Anjali_Verma_CV.pdf. Never a Word file that opens with tracked changes, and never a link to a drive folder that requires a permission request.

Attach a cover letter only if asked. For most unsolicited applications the email is the cover letter, and sending both means the email gets skipped.

Mistakes that cost replies

• Dear Sir or Madam when the name is on the website. Find the name.
• No dates. The reader cannot act on it.
• Four paragraphs about your passion for justice. Cut all of it.
• A different firm’s name left in. It happens constantly and it ends the application.
• Attachments over about two megabytes. Compress the PDF.
• Sent from a casual email address. Use your name, or your university address.

The follow up

If there is no reply after about a week, send one short message in the same thread so the original is visible underneath.

Dear Mr Srivastava,

I wrote last week about an internship between 2 and 27 June. I understand you may not have had a chance to consider it. I remain available for those dates and would be glad to hear from you if a place is open.

Thank you,

Anjali Verma

One follow up is expected. Two is acceptable. A third will not help you.

A chamber and a large firm need different emails

The template above is written for an advocate or a small chamber, where one person reads the email and decides. The sentence about why you are writing to them specifically is what does the work, and it only works because it is true of that one person.

A large firm is different. The email is likely to be read by a recruitment or human resources team against a slot list, so what matters is that your dates, year and university are instantly visible and that you have followed whatever the website says. If the firm publishes a form, use the form and do not send an email instead. If it publishes a dedicated internship address, write to that and not to a partner, because going around the stated process is read as not having checked.

Where a firm has a stated application window, there is no advantage in writing before it opens. Your email simply arrives too early to be sorted and is rarely kept.

When you have no connection to the firm at all

Most students writing their first applications have no introduction, no family in the profession and nothing obvious to say in the “why you” sentence. That is normal and it is workable.

Give a reason drawn from the work rather than the relationship. A reported matter the advocate appeared in, a practice area the firm is known for, the court they practise before, a subject you have studied and want to see in operation. Any of these is a real reason, and all of them are available to anyone willing to spend ten minutes looking.

What does not work is flattery that could be addressed to anyone. If your sentence would be equally true of forty other firms, it is not doing anything, and the reader will know why it is there.

If the answer is yes

Reply the same day confirming the dates, ask what time to report on the first day and whether anything should be read beforehand. Then turn up on the first day with a notebook and a pen. A surprising number of interns do not.