Comparing Externships and Clinics – Two Sites of Experiential Learning

Co-op placements, internships, clinics, and externships are all types of “experiential” programs that typically involve real clients, cases, and/or issues. They are distinguished from simulations in which experience is the primary form of education, but without directly impacting clients.

Externships and clinics share some similar goals. They both value learning from experience, require some engagement with clients and/or communities outside the walls of a law school, and often have a seminar component that supplements students’ on-site work. They also have unique aspects, set out below.

While most clinics and externships in Canada have a social justice or access to justice orientation, that is not universally true of either clinics or externships. Sometimes, the in-class or seminar component includes social justice or access to justice content that supports critique of dominant approaches to legal practice.

Externships and clinics share certain goals, but they are also distinct learning experiences. How? Clinics usually involve a group of students working in a single organisation. Externships typically involve a small number of students placed in many different organisations. This means students are working on different substantive legal issues with different supervisors in different organisational contexts.

The law school also has no legal or governance authority over externship sites. This means the organisational context of practice is very important to critically examine (meaning, the policies, procedures, relevant workplace legislation, etc.). Because the externship site typically does not operate with students by design (unlike student legal aid clinics, for example), an externship placement requires significant student autonomy and self-direction. It also provides for rich opportunities for learning from peers. Since most law student colleagues are placed in different workplace settings, students can take advantage of learning about many contexts of practice at once. However, students might not get the same intense exposure to client representation in an area of law available in a clinic. Much of this depends on the nature of the placement site, so it is important to carefully choose which site will provide the desired type of learning.

Robert Seibel and Linda Morton wrote about lessons from early experiments with externships (or “field placements”) in the United States. They argued that externships provide distinct learning experiences not available in either the classroom or the clinic. In their view, they are sites that include a great variety of practice skills, and also emphasize self-directed learning, managing uncertainty and deepening students’ understanding of lawyers and legal systems. (See Robert F Seibel & Linda H Morton, “Field Placement Programs: Practices, Problems and Possibilities” (1996) 2 Clinical L Rev 413)

Regardless, both clinics and externships are important ways for students to learn about practice, themselves, access to justice, and many other important lessons.