Social Justice Initiatives | Columbia Law School

Fall 2012 Externships Application Schedule

Externship Expo: Tuesday, March 27, 5:30-7 p.m.
Applications Due to Externship Instructors: Monday, April 2
Offers to 1st Round: Tuesday, April 10
Acceptances Due: Thursday, April 12
Offers to Waitlists (if any): Monday, April 16
Final Acceptances Due: Tuesday, April 17

Externships Offered Fall 2012

Below you will find brief summaries of the externships offered in Fall 2012. For full course descriptions and application information, click on the linked course title.

Arts Law Externship
Teri Silvers, Lecturer-in-Law (4 credits)
The Arts Law Externship provides students with practical experience in intellectual property, entertainment, and nonprofit law as they assist staff attorneys at volunteer lawyers for the Arts (VLA) in their representation of artists and nonprofit arts organizations. Through class discussions and journals, students reflect on the wide variety of clients and issues they encounter in their fieldwork, and engage in critical thinking about the role that law and lawyers can play in the arts and entertainment world. The Arts Law Externship consists of three components: a weekly seminar; a fieldwork placement at Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, at which students work for 10 hours per week; and two out-of-class simulated exercises, in client counseling and contract negotiation.

Bronx Defenders Externship on Holistic Defense
Robin Steinberg and J. McGregor Smyth, Lecturers-in-Law (2 academic and 2 clinical credits)
The Bronx Defenders Externship on Holistic Defense immerses students in the cutting edge of defense work on the frontier of civil rights in the South Bronx—the poorest congressional district in the country. A person of color living in the Bronx is more likely to be stopped and frisked by the police, arrested, evicted, enter a homeless shelter, be on welfare, or have their children removed than a resident of any other county in New York State. Learn interdisciplinary approaches to solving these problems at a defender office with the rare commitment to addressing root problems, to serving the client, not processing the case. Course content and fieldwork will train students as future holistic lawyers offering seamless access to services that meet clients’ legal and social support needs; engaging in the dynamic and interdisciplinary exchange of information, ideas, and strategy; constantly developing and improving an interdisciplinary skill set; and seeking a robust understanding of, and connection to, the community served.

City and State Policy Advocacy Externship
Nisha Agarwal, Amy Carroll, and Paul Sonn, Lecturers-in-Law (2 academic and 2 clinical credits)
The City and State Policy Advocacy Externship will expose students to the varied and important roles that lawyers are playing in policy experimentation and innovation in states and cities across the country. Course content and fieldwork will focus on the role of a lawyer in supporting community-conceived policy initiatives at the city and state level—from analyzing constraints on local authority to drafting policy proposals to advising on the political fight to win passage. Fieldwork will be done at both the National Employment Law Project and the Center for Popular Democracy.

Community Defense Externship
Rick Jones, Lecturer-in-Law (Full-year course: 8 credits)
The Community Defense Externship is a full-year course that offers students the opportunity to learn about the practice of indigent criminal defense in a community-based setting. Students will learn about aspects of criminal law and procedure related to the movement of a case through the court system and the practical and ethical considerations related to client interviewing and the forming of the attorney-client relationship. They will also engage in critical thought about topics related to criminal defense, including discovery and motion practice, investigations, developing a theory of the case, suppression hearings, disposition advocacy, and trial preparation.

Constitutional Rights Enforcement in Capital, Habeas, and Prison Cases Externship
George Kendall, Sam Spital, Corrine Irish, and Carine Williams, Lecturers-in-Law (Full-year course: 3 academic and 4 clinical credits)
The Externship on Constitutional Rights Enforcement in Capital, Habeas, and Prison Cases is a two-semester seminar that will explore how important constitutional rights are advanced in capital, serious criminal and prison cases. The course will meet weekly; it will be taught by four attorneys at Squire Sanders Public Service Initiative. Fieldwork will require students to work on one or more death penalty, habeas, or prisoners’ rights cases that originate from the American South, or assist in the research and writing of amicus briefs in cases before the United States Supreme Court.

Criminal Appeals Externship
Carl S. Kaplan and Mark Zeno, Lecturers-in-Law (5 credits)
The Criminal Appeals Externship at CLS offers students a firsthand opportunity to learn about criminal law and appellate advocacy while gaining practical experience drafting a brief on behalf of an indigent defendant in a New York State appellate court proceeding. The externship will consist of a seminar component and a placement at the Center for Appellate Litigation (“CAL”), a public defender organization based in lower Manhattan that engages in cutting-edge advocacy of defendant’s rights, often involving complex constitutional issues.

Domestic Violence Prosecution Externship
Scott Kessler, Lecturer-in-Law (4 credits)
The Domestic Violence Prosecution Externship is a one-semester course in which students work at the Queens County District Attorney’s Office, under a practice order as assistant district attorneys. They will take the lead in prosecuting misdemeanor domestic violence cases from the very inception of the case though trial. Third-year students chosen for the program will work in the new Family Justice Center, a unique facility where the efforts of civil services providers for domestic violence victims are coordinated with those of law enforcement officials. The seminar will prepare students for their field work and explore topics related to domestic violence prosecution. Scott Kessler, who has a national reputation for leading one of the finest domestic violence prosecution bureaus in the country, will teach the seminar and oversee the field placements.

Federal Appellate Court Externship
The Honorable Robert D. Sack, Lecturer-in-Law and Anne Green, Director of Academic Counseling and Judicial Programming, Lecturer-in-Law (pending faculty approval) (4 credits)
The Federal Appellate Court Externship introduces students to the judicial and adversary processes involved in federal courts of appeals. Students work in the chambers of a Second Circuit judge on legal research, analysis, and writing, occasionally drafting lengthy bench memos and parts of opinions. Students also participate in seminar classes, which include lectures addressing fundamental topics of appellate review and federal jurisdiction, discussions with judges and experienced appellate attorneys about appellate law and practice and reflection/debriefing sessions for students to share their experiences and problem-solve. A moot court argument to three Court of Appeals judges provides a relevant oral advocacy experience.

Federal Court Clerk Externship
Paul Radvany, Adjunct Associate Professor (4 credits)
The Federal Court Clerk Externship provides an in-depth examination of the functioning of the federal trial courts. Students will have the opportunity to work with a federal judge, draft opinions, and observe trials, oral arguments and hearings. The externship requires a commitment of 15 hours per week, which includes at least one day per week at the courthouse. In addition, students must submit a few short papers relating to the externship experience; read selected materials; and participate in seven classroom meetings to discuss topics such as: the externship experience; writing judicial opinions; habeas corpus; and effective courtroom lawyering. Two of the classes consist of panel discussions on criminal and civil law with judicial and practitioner guests.

Externship on the Federal Government in Washington D.C.
Michael Shenkman, Lecturer-in-Law (12 credits)
The Externship on the Federal Government in D.C. is a full-semester offering for selected Columbia Law School third year J.D. candidates in the fall 2012 semester. It is designed to provide a valuable hands-on complement to the Law School’s more conventional teaching offerings in public law, affording an opportunity to integrate aspects of students’ public law education in an applied setting.  Admission is by application only. Up to 15 students will be selected. Ellen Chapnick, Dean for Social Justice Initiatives, and Matt Gewolb, Associate Director of Government Programs, will oversee externship placements, including the application process and term-time counseling. Michael Shenkman, Fellow of the Center for Law and Politics and Lecturer in Law, will teach the seminar components of the program in Washington, D.C.

Federal Prosecution Externship: U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York
Joan Loughnane and co-Instructor TBD, Lecturers-in-Law (2 academic and 2 clinical credits)
The Federal Prosecution Externship offers students the opportunity to learn about investigating and prosecuting federal criminal cases in United States District Court. Students will be placed in the Criminal Division of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, where they will work with Assistant United States Attorneys representing the federal government in a wide range of criminal prosecutions, including ones involving firearms, narcotics, fraud, immigration, child exploitation, public corruption, terrorism and violent crimes.  The externship will also consist of a weekly seminar taught by Joan Loughnane, Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Immigration Defense Externship
Maria Navarro and Olivia Cassin, Lecturers-in-Law (5 credits)
The Immigration Defense Externship offers students the opportunity to learn about U.S. immigration laws and policies through a combination of lecture, discussion, simulation and representation of immigrants facing deportation from the United States. The Externship consists of a two hour weekly seminar and a field placement with an attorney from The Legal Aid Society's Immigration Law Unit in one of the unit’s projects, providing direct representation and counseling to immigrants facing deportation.

August Intensive Course, 2012

Judicial Externship
The Honorable Paul G. Gardephe, Lecturer-in-Law and Anne Green, Director of Academic Counseling and Judicial Programming, Lecturer-in-Law (pending faculty approval) (3 or 4 credits)
The August Intensive Judicial Externship provides an in-depth examination of the role of judging in the courts in the United States. Columbia Law School students who obtain a position with a state court or federal court judge for the summer of 2012 and will not be financially compensated for the position or other legal employment over the summer can elect to take the Judicial Externship. The class combines field experience in chambers with a seminar, which will meet in May and August and require reading and written work over the summer. The students will reflect on the judicial externship experience and choose topics related to judging. They will complete reading and writing assignments and make presentations on their chosen topics. Attendance of all class meetings is mandatory. Students will receive one graded seminar credit.  They must work in chambers at least 35 hours per week for 6 or 8 weeks and will receive two or three ungraded clinical credits accordingly for that work.