The University of Colorado at Boulder Law School

Externships: Student Information

Finding an Externship

The Office of Career Development maintains a list of possible externships in its CDOnline site and a list of Past Externship Placements. Many externship opportunities are newly created, therefore, you are encouraged to make an appointment with a career counselor, a faculty advisor, or a professor to discuss additional externship ideas.  

Financial Considerations of the Externship Program

Because the externship program is an academic program, enrollment has the same financial considerations as an academic course. An externship takes the place of a law school class and counts as a part of the Fall and Spring term’s full-time tuition. During the Summer term, students must pay for each individual externship credit.
Note: Financial aid will not kick-in unless you are enrolled in 4 or more credits during the summer.

Requirements for Approval of an Externship

1. The work must be supervised by a practicing attorney or judge on site and this person must agree to be your field supervisor.
2. Your supervisor must commit to providing you with substantial feedback on your work quality and progress, and he or she must have the time to serve as a mentor.
3. The work must be uncompensated.
4. The work must be legal in nature and have a substantial writing component. Acceptable writing pieces include:
      
   • compositions for your externship sponsor which are reviewed and critiqued;
       
   • legal memoranda and briefs which are a significant part of your work and which are reviewed by your field supervisor;
   • and a paper submitted to your faculty sponsor, the content of which is determined by mutual agreement. Interrogatories, pleadings, correspondence and nonlegal memoranda normally are not sufficient.
     
5. Your selected externship site must provide you with enough work to satisfy the requirement of fifty hours of working time for each academic credit sought.
6. You must only seek credit for one extern placement per semester.
7. As a part of your externship you must attend a professional skills class given at the law school.   Each class session is mandatory.  The dates for the class can be found under the corresponding semester’s PDF syllabus on this website. 

PLEASE NOTE:

1. You may not do an externship as a research assistant for a law school professor.
2. You may not extern for the Boulder DA’s office if you are simultaneously enrolled in ANY of the law school clinics.
3. You must have completed at least 30 law school credits to be eligible to do an Externship.

Application Process

1. Determine an externship site that will satisfy the above requirements and that will meet your career interests. 
2. Approach the site of interest and identify an attorney who will serve as your field supervisor.  Make sure that you discuss with your supervisor your need to be trained and mentored.
3. You must decide on the number of academic credits you would like to receive for this externship. Each credit consists of 50 working hours per semester and you may register for 1, 2, 3, or 4 credits.  Please note that no student may earn more than four externship credits while in law school, unless the student successfully petitions for additional credits.  See Petitioning for More than Four Credit Hours
4. Obtain a resume, bio, or related document, from your field supervisor (which should include qualifications of this individual to be your supervisor, and a business address and phone number).
5. Fill out a Program Description Agreement
6. Have your supervisor submit this agreement electronically WITHOUT Assistant Dean Trujillo’s signature to: Karen Trojanowski in the Office of Career Development by the deadline.
   Your completed application should consist of:
   
   
   • The Program Description Agreement 
   • A copy of your field supervisor’s resume or qualifications.
     
7. Once your application is received by the Office of Career Development, Assistant Dean Trujillo will review your application materials. If your application is approved, Dean Trujillo will sign the Program Description Agreement and you will immediately be registered for the appropriate amount of credits by Cindy Gibbons, the Registrar.

Application Forms

Please read: Please fill out the form(s) below and save a copy to your local machine. Then email this version of the document to lawexternships@colorado.edu and retain a copy for your records.

• Program Description Agreement
• Petition to Receive Additional Externship Credits
• Student Self-Analysis Form
• Student Externship Report
• Field Supervisor Externship Report

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