REMINDER: Fall Legal Externship Applications due by August 3, 2021

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  3. REMINDER: Fall Legal Externship Applications due by August 3, 2021

Access2Practice (A2P) Legal Externship is a 4-credit-hour non-graded program which enables you to extern with a supervising attorney in a wide variety of legal areas – private or public, civil or criminal. Externships are available in the Fall, Spring and Summer semesters. Some public sector externships enable you to obtain a 711 license and appear in court.

Why Extern?

To become a good lawyer and to supplement what you learn in the classroom, you need practical experience in real-world legal work. Most students aren’t fortunate enough to receive a paid clerking position — or even a volunteer opportunity — that teaches what they want to learn. LEP presents a unique and important opportunity to gain exposure to an area of the law in which you are interested and helps you significantly broaden your future employment opportunities.

Where Can Students Extern?

You select and obtain your own externship. This program does not assign you to a particular placement. To gain access to the many available externship placement possibilities, consult Symplicity.

Students interested in civil law may extern in a wide variety of public sector or public interest legal places. For example, some have externed at the City of Chicago Corporation Counsel’s Office, Office of the Illinois Attorney General, Illinois Commerce Commission, Immigration Court of the U.S. Department of Justice, Internal Revenue Service, and U.S. and Illinois Environmental Protection Agencies, Legal Aid Bureau, Chicago Board of Education, and Equip for Equality.

Students interested in criminal law may extern at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Office of the Federal Defender, and at the offices of the State’s Attorney and Public Defender in Cook County as well as the surrounding counties.

While Summer LEP includes a significant number of private placements in law firms and in-house corporate legal departments, Fall and Spring placements are almost exclusively in the public and not-for-profit areas. Fall LEP placement opportunities will be posted on Simplicity. Please scroll to: Access2Practice - Legal Externship Fall.

How to Apply

The Information and Application packets for Fall are available online and on Symplicity.

Fall applications are due on or before Tuesday, August 3, 2021.

If you have any questions about anything related to externship applications, please contact Professor Vivien Gross (vgross@kentlaw.iit.edu).

The Record