Career Services | Simmons Law School | SIU

Request Reciprocity with other law school career services offices

• We can help you request access to other law school’s job postings.

• Visit CORE (Students) 
• For employers, visit here.

• We bring employers to campus who are looking to hire for summer and post-graduate positions.
• Upcoming Career Fairs:
  • Thursday, September 24th, 2026
  • Thursday, November 5th, 2026
  • Thursday, February 25th, 2027

Our graduates enter their careers undaunted

It’s the result of learning from faculty with deep connections to the profession, as well as global ties that empower our students to take their learning beyond borders and to another level.

Practice Ready

Our students are developing as professionals with a skill set they never stop adapting-skills that are in short supply and great demand. Our students begin to grow into their roles as expert communicators, negotiators, and advocates as participants in Externships, and a variety of experiential education opportunities such as moot court, trial advocacy, legal clinics, and pro bono projects.

What our Alumni are Doing

SIU Law alumni work in 50 states and around the world. More than 200 alumni serve or have served as state and federal judges. Our alumni are a supportive community willing to assist current students and recent graduates in a variety of ways, including externships, networking and employment opportunities. 

Simmons Law was founded in the public interest to serve the public good.

Simmons Law strives to promote access to justice for all. Our students and alumni are engaged and working in non-profits, public defenders offices, and legal aid offices, such as Land of Lincoln. Our students have been recipients of the Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) Internships. Simmons Law School is a member of Equal Justice Works, which creates opportunities for students to transform their passion for equal justice into a lifelong commitment to public service.

For those working as summer clerks in non-paying public interest positions, Simmons Law offers the Joseph R. Bartylak Public Interest Fellowship Program.

The Joseph R. Bartylak Public Interest Fellowship Program was created to assist students who accept nonpaying, full-time (defined as 35 or more hours per week/7 weeks), public interest summer internships following their first or second year of law school.

The Fellowship Program is named in honor of the Joseph Bartylak, who served as executive director of the Land of Lincoln Assistance Foundation from 1976 to 2004. SIU Simmons Law School set up the fellowship in July 2004 after it received $425,000 in unclaimed funds from the 2001 settlement of a consumer protection lawsuit involving MCI.

“Public interest” is defined liberally and includes internships in any non-profit legal office, including but not limited to governmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, consumer advocacy groups, and legal services offices. The funds are to be used to assist the Fellows in meeting their basic living expenses during the internship period.

Bartylak Fellows may participate in internships anywhere in the world; however, first priority shall be given to internship experiences in the “Metro East” area of St. Louis, Missouri (i.e., the Illinois side of the Mississippi River) and second priority shall be given to internships elsewhere in Illinois. Students receiving pay or externship credit for their summer experiences are not eligible for consideration to be a Bartylak Fellow.

The annual application process takes place each spring semester.