Clinical Law Programs
Law Office Externship
Law Office Externs are law students placed under the supervision of a practicing lawyer to gain knowledge and experience in the practice of law. While working with their supervising attorney, students acquire valuable practical skills in a real world setting. The Law Office Extern program is intended to supplement and complement the knowledge and experience students receive in the Law Practice Clinic and in their other law school courses. In the extern program students, under the close supervision of a licensed attorney, confront actual legal problems, and analyze and explore the various roles lawyers or legal institutions play. In their placement, students have the opportunity to interview and counsel clients, negotiate with lawyers and others, make presentations in court, draft legal documents, interview witnesses, and generally learn the various tasks and skills necessary to help a particular client resolve his or her legal problems.
The lawyer supervisor with whom a student is placed is expected, to the extent possible given the lawyer's and student's special circumstances, to provide students with training in lawyering skills such as: client interviewing, counseling, negotiation, legal drafting, case evaluation and planning, case management, time and office management, argumentation, and applied legal research. Students are expected to master a significant body of substantive and procedural law related to the legal problems they confront. Not of least importance, students should be exposed to the professional responsibilities of a lawyer. Whenever ethical issues arise, the supervising lawyer is expected to explore these issues in depth with the student.
Law office extern placements are most successful when students are given as much responsibility for decision-making and interaction with the clients as possible, and when the lawyer's supervision is active and close, but not so directive as to interfere with the student's ability to exercise professional responsibility. The supervising lawyer should be involved in every aspect of the student's work. The lawyer should be prepared to provide constructive critiques, encourage growth and development, and if necessary, protect clients and the public from the mistakes that can be made by student lawyers. The lawyer's supervision comes before, during, and after the student works on a problem. For example, if a case is to be negotiated by the student, the student presents a negotiation plan to the supervising lawyer before the negotiation, which is then followed by a post-negotiation review and critique by the lawyer.
Research and drafting of legal memoranda are important lawyer tasks and should be required, as these skills are important to the competent handling of legal matters. Legal research is, however, not the exclusive skill of legal problem solving. In clinical placements. It is important not to let legal research become the exclusive or predominant task assigned to the student. In the clinical placement, students should be introduced to a broad range of clinical skills.
