Guided Externship Guidelines

Guided Externship

LAW 993FP; 1-3 credit hours

In a Guided Externship, the student works for an attorney in a law office approved by the Executive Director of John Jay Legal Services and the Academic Dean. Guidelines for this program are as follows:

1. Generally, guided externships are intended for potential field placements that are not already covered by an existing externship program.
2. Preapproved field placement sites are limited to those where a field supervisor already has agreed to comply with the Law School’s standards and expectations for field placements. Alternatively, a student may locate a new field placement, subject to approval by the Executive Director of John Jay Legal Services. For any new field placement, the field supervisor must agree to comply with the Law School’s Guided Externship Standards and Expectations for Field Placements.
3. Students can ask any member of the full-time faculty to act as their faculty supervisor.
4. 1-3 credits per guided externship.
5. A completed Guided Externship Application must be submitted by the student prior to the beginning of the semester.

Course Requirements:

1. During the semester, the student will work a total of 52 hours for one credit (four hours per week for 13 weeks), 104 hours for two credits (eight hours per week for 13 weeks), or 156 hours for three credits (12 hours per week for 13 weeks). During the fall and spring, this should be over no more than two different days per week. During the summer, the schedule will be arranged in consultation with the field supervisor and the Executive Director of John Jay Legal Services.
2. The student and faculty supervisor will meet no later than the first week of the semester to plan the semester, to make the faculty supervisor’s expectations clear, and to formulate the student’s learning agenda.
3. The faculty supervisor will contact the field supervisor early in the semester to agree, inter alia, on the student’s schedule and scope of the student’s work.
4. The field supervisor, student, and faculty supervisor must sign and follow the “John Jay Legal Services Externship Written Understanding.”
5. After the initial student-faculty supervisor meeting, the faculty supervisor will meet with the student at least three additional times during the semester. The faculty supervisor may meet with the field supervisor or with the student and the field supervisor, at the discretion of the faculty supervisor (as revealed through the weekly journals).
6. The student will submit weekly reflective journals to the faculty supervisor and the faculty supervisor will provide regular feedback on these journals.
7. The student will complete a substantial writing project (ordinarily at least 15 pages, although length will not be determinative), the nature and subject of which is determined in consultation with faculty member, which could be:
   1. produced in the course of the student’s work (preferred);
   2. a reflection document;
   3. a research paper; or
   4. an analytical paper not required in the course of the student’s work.
8. The faculty supervisor will provide both oral and written feedback on drafts of the writing, and the student will submit a final draft of the writing no later than the final day of the semester.