Individual Externships

Individual Externships

Individual externships are semester or full-year course-length student placements with organizations or individuals outside the Law School. In these placements, the first level of student supervision is conducted at the placement by an individual designated as the placement supervisor.

In addition to the direct student supervision by the placement supervisor, each student is under the supervision and sponsorship of a member of the full-time faculty (the faculty supervisor). The faculty supervisor is responsible for ensuring that the individual placement provides educational work assignments including significant writing and appropriate evaluation of student performance during the semester for which the student receives credit. The faculty supervisor makes initial arrangements establishing the externship, specifying the one or more specific projects and any other work to be done by the extern, the placement supervisor and supervision to be given, and other aspects of the externship. The faculty supervisor communicates regularly with the placement supervisor to provide continuing supervision of the externship.

The faculty supervisor meets periodically with the student extern to discuss his/her work and to review the student's work product. Each student extern is required to keep a journal or log of his/her work at the placement and the faculty supervisor reviews this periodically. Individual externships may be for either two, three or four credits, as determined by the supervising faculty member at the beginning of the externship. A minimum of 56 hours of work by the extern is required for each credit allocated. In addition, per week, students should work a minimum of four hours per credit allocated.

Individual externships are treated as special research projects for purposes of determining limits on the number of credit hours a student may take. Thus, students may enroll in an externship with a maximum of 3 credits in a semester and 4 credits over the summer or students may enroll in a special research project with a maximum of 3 credits in a semester or four credits over the summer. Students may opt to enroll in both a special research project and an externship in the same semester or summer only if the combined credits for both don't exceed the cap of 3 per semester and four per summer. During each student's law school career, 8 credits is the maximum that any student may receive from special research projects and externships combined. All participation in individual externships is graded pass/fail.

No student may be enrolled in an individual externship during the same academic term  in which they are enrolled in in-house clinical programs, partnership programs,  or externship clinics. 

Approval of individual externships must be obtained. A form for this purpose is available at the Registrar's Office. The deadlines established for the submission of special research project applications apply to the individual externship applications.

Please note that there are additional requirements for students on F-1 visas seeking an externship.