About the QU College of Law Externship Program (LAWC 409)
The College of Law's Externship Program is a three-credit experiential course that has been specially designed to expose QU students to different models of legal skills related to specific areas of law. Combining both practical and theoretical components, students acquire greater insight into the process of lawyering. They also develop a sense of professional development, reflect on and learn from actual experiences in a supportive yet real-world environment.
The course approaches lawyering from two perspectives. First, it provides a classroom component, during which students learn about professional skills related to the practice of law and share their experiences with each other. Second, it provides an out-of-classroom component, during which students work for academic credit in a supervised setting and gain direct legal experience with practicing lawyers, judges, government agencies, and other legal professionals in the public and private sectors.
The out-of-classroom component requires students to work for a minimum of 120 hours over the course of 10 weeks during either the Fall or Spring semesters. Employers assign real legal work to the students and provide real feedback on their assignments. Neither the students nor the employers are paid during this collaboration. Students earn experience and academic credit, while employers gain relationships with law students. Many employers use the externship program as a form of direct recruitment after graduation.