Empowering Students to Lead on Social, Environmental, and Racial Justice Priorities through Corporate Counsel Externship Programs

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Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Location: N/A

Room: Franciscan A

Floor: Ballroom Level

Our Corporate Counsel Externship Programs can be powerful vehicles to build equity, antiracism, and inclusion leadership in our students and graduates. This session will focus on how the programs and courses at Boston University and UC Hastings are evolving to achieve these goals. Our externs in corporate counsel (for-profit and nonprofit) and government placements are encountering organizational clients that are prioritizing: purpose over profits; stakeholders beyond shareholders; employee values; flexible workplaces; open cultures; antiracism and social justice; the environment and sustainability. These clients put students on the front lines of the legal and business function within these goals. Students are immersed in today’s transformation in what an entity is; what it exists to do and for whom; and how it remains accountable. Our externs bring authentic generational voices to these issues, with a purpose to speak up to, improve, and challenge corporate decision-making and impact. This training ecosystem also brings together the equity and antiracist commitments of clinical educators with today’s corporate client, as many of our graduates will represent for-profit, nonprofit, or government clients. These programs also serve equity goals within our own law schools; they appeal to a broad and diverse group of students with purposes not met by traditional law firm practice, and many of these positions also pay, meaning more students can afford equitable access to these mentors and networks.