Introduction

An externship is a for-credit placement with a law related organisation, typically accompanied by an integration seminar taught by a law school faculty member or adjunct instructor. Unlike some clinics, the law school typically has no governance authority over the placement sites; rather, the law school coordinates the placements themselves, and helps both the student and placement supervisor(s) reach appropriate learning goals throughout the term.

Externships are also sometimes called placements or internships. Some people consider an externship and a co-op program to be similar – typically, however, a co-op program does not have a formal pedagogical element (such as an integration seminar).

Critically, externships are not solely about “practice readiness” (although they do support students transitioning into the profession); rather, they are highly supported experiences that merge theory and practice, professional identity formation, and critical consciousness about law and lawyering. Ideologically, these experiences are less about “training” and more about “education.” They are rich opportunities to learn about and reflect on law, lawyering, and legal systems.

Externships are set up in many different ways. Some externship programs have a social justice focus. Some include judicial clerkships or internships. There are different credit structures, academic policies, and student roles in each program.

Regardless of these differences, externships have distinct elements when compared with law school clinical, volunteer, and pro bono programs.

In an externship, students in a single cohort are working in many placement sites at the same time. This opens up new avenues for inquiry and learning about the law, lawyers, clients, and communities. Externships investigate questions about the nature of legal workplaces, the different types of work that lawyers do, how work is conducted in each site, how clients are included (or not), different governance relationships, the context of law practice more generally, and so on.

Externships and clinics bear some similarities and some differences. For example, clinic students typically work in one site context and in a particular legal area. There are often many students in one clinic working on similar cases, such that case rounds and other more specific teaching and learning approaches are possible. We examine more deeply this relationship between clinics and externships later in this Chapter.

Pro bono or volunteer placements also take many forms, but do not earn students credit. These programs vary widely but typically do not have an extensive or stylized pedagogy.