Externships

This article explores what the author has learned from developing and supervising an externship program that places students in the legal departments of major corporations. Externship placements in corporate legal departments provide unique opportunities for law schools to integrate into the curriculum the core practice competencies that are essential for commercial and business lawyers but that are rarely taught in an experiential setting. The article proposes an educational partnership model to establish, structure, and implement a corporate counsel externship. This approach advocates a carefully orchestrated collaboration between the faculty who administer the program for the school and the lawyers who supervise the students on site. The structure of the program must be adaptable enough to take advantage of the particular opportunities that each participating legal department offers, with the only inflexible principle being that the primary purpose must be to educate the students. The author concludes that educational partnerships of this kind offer some of the most promising avenues for improving legal education in the 21st century.