Externship Manual

The following is a summary of the ABA Requirements for law school Externship Programs:

• Substantial Lawyering Experience and Designated Externship Site Supervisor. An Externship should provide a student substantial lawyering experience that is reasonably similar to the experience of a lawyer advising or representing a client or engaging in other lawyering tasks in a setting outside a law clinic under the supervision of a licensed attorney or an individual otherwise qualified to supervise.
• Affiliation Agreement. An Externship must also include an Affiliation Agreement between the Externship Program and the Externship Site that describes both:
  • the substantial lawyering experience and opportunities for performance, feedback, and self-evaluation; and
  • the respective roles of faculty and the Externship Site supervisor in supervising the student and in assuring the educational quality of the experience for the student, including a clearly articulated method of evaluating the student’s academic performance.
• Externship Site Supervisor Oversight. An Externship must include a method for selecting, training, evaluating and communicating with Externship Site supervisors, including regular contact between the faculty and Externship Site supervisors through in-person visits or other methods of communication that will assure the quality of the student educational experience.
• Student Evaluation. An Externship must include an evaluation of each student’s educational achievement by the Externship Program.
• Sufficient Control over Student Experience. An Externship must include sufficient control of the student experience to ensure that the requirements of the ABA Standards and Rules of Procedure for Approval of Law Schools are met.

To qualify for an Externship, JD students must satisfy the below minimum academic requirements:

• Must have completed at least 28 credit hours toward their JD at the College of Law – there are no exceptions to this policy. Twenty-eight credit hours are the number of credit hours a student completes in his or her first full-time year at DePaul; and
• Be in good academic standing

Intensive Externships are only available for students who are entering their final fall or spring semester of law school. Please see the 'Intensive Externships' section of this manual for further requirements and limitations.

LLM students please see the 'LLM Students' section of this Manual.

The ABA requires law schools to execute an Affiliation Agreement between the law school’s Externship Program and the Externship Site that describes both:

• the substantial lawyering experience and opportunities for performance, feedback, and self-evaluation; and
• the respective roles of faculty and the Externship Site supervisor in supervising the student and in assuring the educational quality of the experience for the student, including a clearly articulated method of evaluating the student’s academic performance.

Each Externship Site must execute an Affiliation Agreement prior to the first day of law school classes for the student to remain enrolled in the Externship Program and to receive credit for the Externship. The Externship Site will be sent an Affiliation Agreement after the Externship Site is approved by the Externship Director.

Externship Sites that do not execute an Affiliation Agreement prior to the first day of classes will disqualify the student from receiving academic credit for the Externship for that semester. Thus, it is vitally important that the student coordinate with the Externship Site to ensure the Affiliation Agreement is executed promptly upon receipt.

Please review the Experiential Learning Calendar for applicable deadlines and application timelines.

1. To become an approved Externship Site, the potential Externship Site must first complete an Externship Site Application applying to be an Externship Site. The Externship Site Application is automatically routed to the Externship Director upon submission. The potential Externship Site must meet the minimum requirements for approval which are available in the 'Externship Site, Minimum Requirements' section of this Manual.
2. After the Externship Director receives the Externship Site Application, the Externship Director will contact the potential Externship Site for a follow-up conference call or in-person meeting to discuss the Externship Site Application and ask and answer any additional questions.
3. After the Externship Director completes the follow-up, the Externship Director will either approve or reject the application to be an Externship Site and will communicate this decision to the potential Externship Site.
4. If the potential Externship Site is approved, the Externship Program will send the now-approved Externship Site an Affiliation Agreement for execution.
5. After the Externship Site has executed the Affiliation Agreement, the Externship Site will then be listed as an approved Externship Site for students. Accordingly, students who have been hired by the Externship Site and meet the Academic Minimum Requirements can apply to the Externship Program. For further information, please see the 'Academic Minimum Requirements' section of this Manual.

Position Listings for available Externship positions are on the Externships Posting page. These listings include positions from Approved Externship Sites and positions from Not-Yet-Approved Externship Sites.

Approved Externship Sites are those sites that have already been reviewed and approved by the Externship Program and will be designated as such on the Position Listings webpage. Not-Yet-Approved Externship Sites are sites that have not yet been approved by the Externship Program. We list the Not-Yet-Approved sites for your convenience to expand opportunities for our students.

Occasionally, students seek out, or are offered, a position with a firm, an organization or judge that has not yet been approved to participate in the Externship Program. If a student wants to create their own Externship with an Externship Site that is not currently an Approved Externship Site, the student must:

·   Ask the Externship Site to submit the Externship Site Application.

·   After the Externship Site Application has been completed, the Externship Director will contact the proposed Externship Site for a review before approving the Externship Site for hosting an Extern.

To participate in the Externship Program, students will be enrolled in the fieldwork component of the Externship Program and co-registered for an Externship Seminar. There are four Externship Seminars based on practice area. The Externship Seminars are (i) Judicial; (ii) Private Practice; (iii) Government (excluding public defenders, but including prosecutors’ offices); and (iv) Public Interest (including public defenders).

In the Externship Seminar, Externs will have an opportunity to link their Externship field work to topics in the law through case rounds, facilitated discussion and directed reading. Students will also explore legal ethics, professionalism and continue to learn about the practice of law. The Externship Seminars are taught by practitioners experienced in the practice area of the Externship Seminar.

The Externship Seminar is a mandatory co-requisite of the Externship field work component. There are no exceptions. Students must take the Externship Seminar during the semester of the Externship, including if a student completes multiple Externships at the same Externship Site in successive semesters. If the Externship Seminar conflicts with another class, the student must choose between participating in the Externship Program and the conflicting class.

Students do not self-select their Externship Seminar. Instead, the Externship Program will assign students to the applicable Externship Seminar based on the substantive work of the Externship. The Externship Seminar course meeting times are set forth in the law school course schedule.

Illinois Supreme Court Rule 711 allows eligible law students to perform specified legal services under the supervision of an active Illinois attorney and with the client’s written consent. A student must have completed at least half of the credit hours required for graduation, remain in good academic standing and receive a 711 license before performing services authorized by the rule.

A licensed student may counsel and advise clients, negotiate claims, participate in mediation and other nonlitigation matters, draft legal documents and appear in certain state and federal court or administrative proceedings, subject to the rule’s supervision and filing requirements.

Students may use a Rule 711 license only through an eligible legal aid organization or law school-approved clinic, a public defender’s office or a state, local or federal government office. Students may not use a Rule 711 license for work at a for-profit externship site, including a private law firm or corporation. The rule contains a limited provision for a private firm performing contracted services for an eligible entity, but any Rule 711 work must remain limited to that contract.

The full text for Rule 711 is available in the complete Illinois Supreme Court Rules, and the 711 application and application procedures can be found on the Student Affairs website.

Students are permitted to enroll in an Externship and a law school clinic during the same semester.

If students have a job or volunteer position in addition to their Externship in the same semester, the student must inform the Externship Site and the Externship Program prior to commencement of the Externship so that the Externship Site and the Externship Program can be aware of any potential ethical conflicts. If there are potential conflicts, the student, the Externship Director and the Externship Site may be able to help address the conflict, but students should be aware that the student may not be permitted to do both.

Students are not permitted to work, volunteer and/or intern for a prosecutor’s office and the public defender during the same semester to avoid ethical conflicts of interest.

Existing Approved Externships. Many Externship position postings are available on the Externship Position Listings.

Creating a New Externship. See the 'Creating Your Own Externship' section of this Manual for more information.

The Externship course and the Externship Seminar are Pass/Fail courses. The grade is determined by:

• Satisfactory completion of the minimum work hours required by the Externship credit hours within the 14-week academic semester.
• Satisfactory Attendance and class preparation for the Externship Seminar;
• Completion and timely submission of the Progress Reports and Daily Logs (please see the 'Progress Reports and Daily Logs'section of this Manual);
• The written and oral reports of the Externship Site supervisor*; and
• For 3Ls taking an externship during the spring semester only, the completion and timely submission of the 3L at graduation survey and corresponding attestation.

* The Externship Site supervisor will be asked at the middle of the semester and at the end of the semester to evaluate the Extern’s performance. These evaluations are made available to the Externs for review when they are posted to D2L.

Intensive Externships are only available for students who are entering their final fall or spring semester of law school.

To qualify for an Intensive Externship, JD students must submit an application that must be reviewed and approved by the Experiential Learning Department, and JD students must satisfy the following requirements:

• Must have completed their first and second year of law school and be in the last or second to the last semester of law school.
• Must enroll in the fall or spring semester; no student may enroll in an intensive externship over the summer.
• Must be in good academic standing.
• Externships field work is considered non-classroom credits, but the seminar is not. A JD student may earn a maximum of 12 credit hours for out-of-class (non-classroom) courses. Thus, applicants will have to use available credit; they will not be given a waiver. For example, if you have already used 5 out-of-class credits, you may earn up to 7 credit hours for the externship (5 + 7 = 12) and you will earn one academic credit for the seminar.
• The externship site must meet the site requirements and the affiliation agreement must be executed by the date set forth in the Externship Calendar.
• May only have completed two or fewer externships.
• No exceptions to any of these requirements will be granted.

LLM students at DePaul can participate in the Externship Program after the completion of their first semester of enrollment. LLM students should verify with their program director that the Externship counts toward their program requirements and the maximum number of out-of-classroom credits permitted.

The law school caps the credit hours a JD student can earn for non-classroom courses. Externships are considered non-classroom credits. For information on the policy governing maximum non-classroom credit hours, please see the Student Handbook. Students are encouraged to meet with the law school Academic Advisor to review the student’s current and anticipated accumulation of non-classroom hours.

Students are permitted to work at the same Externship Site during subsequent semesters. However, students are restricted to a maximum number of Externships and the semesters during which those Externships can be performed. Please review the 'Maximum Number of Externships' section of this Manual for more information.

Paid Externships are permitted and, thus students may receive compensation and course credit for an Externship.

Please see the 'Externship Site, Billing Student Time' section of this Manual for more information on an Externship Site’s ability to bill for student time.

Progress Reports (First, Second and Final Progress Reports)

• At the beginning, midway and at the end of the semester, each Extern must complete and submit reports of the Extern’s educational progress in the Externship. The link for these reports can be found on the Experiential Learning Calendar. Once the Extern completes the report, the Externship Program will upload the report to D2L for archiving and for review by the Externship Seminar Professor.

Daily Logs

• It is the Extern’s responsibility to complete on a continual basis the time “log” of his or her day-to-day Externship experiences and responsibilities. These logs must be submitted every week on Mondays. The link for these reports can be found on the Externship Program Requirements for Students page.
• The final log must reflect the total minimum required hours of work required by the approved Externship credit hours.

Documentation Submission

• All required documentation for the Externship Seminar, unless otherwise indicated, should be submitted via D2L.

After (i) the student is approved to join the Externship Program and (ii) the student’s Externship Site is approved, the Externship Program will enroll the student in the Externship course as well as enroll the student in the applicable Externship Seminar.

Please note that students cannot register themselves for an Externship. Instead, the Externship Program will register students for the Externship Program’s fieldwork component and related Seminar. Externship registration does not occur during the law school registration period but later in the semester.

The Externship Program will send you an email when you are being registered. The student must have room in the student’s schedule to accommodate the credits for the Externship fieldwork component and Externship Seminar. If you do not have sufficient space in your schedule, you will be asked to rearrange your schedule to make room for the requisite credits needed for your Externship.

If you do not have sufficient space in your schedule at the time the Externship Program begins its registration, you will be asked to rearrange your schedule to make room for the requisite credits needed for your Externship.

Applying for Externships is akin to applying for a job, so it is recommended that if any uncertainty exists about securing the position or the Externship Site being approved, a student should consider registering for another class on the off chance that the Externship position is not obtained or the Externship is not approved. If the position is obtained, this class can be dropped, and the student can then be registered for the Externship fieldwork component and the Externship Seminar.

Add/Drop Restrictions. Please note that once the last day to add a class for the law school registration period has closed, students cannot switch between the different credit hour Externship options. To switch before the Add/Drop deadline, the student must email the Externship Program to request the adjustment sufficiently in advance of the Add/Drop deadline.

Summer Tuition. Students must pay tuition for a summer Externship.

Summer Work Hours. The official summer semester runs from early June to late July. Externs can either work longer hours per week during the official semester, or can work shorter hours during a more flexible schedule from any time in mid-May to the end of the first week of August.

Standard Externships are available for the following credit hours: 2, 3, and 4.

Intensive Externships are available for the following credit hours: 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

A student may only participate in an Intensive Externship if they are entering their final fall or spring semester of law school.

Please note these credit hours do not include the one (1) credit hour earned for the requisite Externship Seminar. For more information, please see the 'Externship Seminar' section of this Manual.

Work Schedule

• Externs should begin work no later than the first week of classes and should complete work no later than the last week of classes. Please see special notes in the 'Summer Externships' section of this Manual.
• Externs should report to work as agreed and assigned unless the Extern has previously notified the Externship Site Supervisor of an absence. In the event of an emergency preventing the Extern from reporting to work as agreed, the Extern must notify the Externship Site Supervisor as soon as possible.
• Failure to complete the minimum number of work hours required to earn the credit hours before the end of the last week of classes can result in a failing grade for the Externship.

Externship Conduct

• All DePaul academic and conduct policies remain in place during the Externship Program, including on-site at the Externship. Students are expected to comply with all of the policies set forth by the Externship Site as well as the Student Handbook. Failure to comply with university or law school policies or the policies of the Externship Site may result in a failing grade or sanctions, including removal from the Externship and/or the Externship Seminar.
• Externs must conduct themselves in a professional manner as Externships are work environments and should be treated as such.

Extern Resources

• If the Extern experiences unresolvable issues with the Externship, the Extern should notify the Externship Seminar professor, the Externship Director, the Associate Dean for Experiential Learning, and/or the Assistant Dean for Student Affairs, as appropriate.
• We rely on the Extern to immediately notify the appropriate law school or University personnel in the event that the Extern encounters problems with the Externship Site supervisor or at the Externship so that we can provide the necessary support and resources.