Works in Progress Group #11 Experiential Education

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Session Type: Works-in-Progress

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Law Clinics and (Social) Media

The media can be a powerful ally and tool for lawyers, but few are trained in media advocacy or the opportunities, best practices, and landmines that it presents. The goal of Professor Karin's article is to help change that norm by making the case for integrating media work into our clinical curriculum, demystifying the media toolkit, and providing an overview of the potential components of an effective 21st century campaign. It also will provide faculty with an understanding of the pedagogy behind and the options to train students on ethical media advocacy skills. Part I will outline the role of media as a lawyering competency, the potential components of a media toolkit, and a lawyer’s professional obligations related to these skills. Part II will make the case for (re)designing a law clinic to intentionally integrate media advocacy. After offering an overview of how some clinics are already doing this work, this section also will explore the reasons for doing this and counter some anticipated critiques against training students on these skills. Finally, the article will offer best practices and tips to deploy media work for the advantage of a client or campaign and provide sample exercises related to both traditional and social media for use in seminar.


Just Compensation: An Empirical Examination of Legal Externships for Pay and Credit

For-credit externships offer law students a much-needed opportunity to experience the “real world” of legal practice, rounding out their legal education in ways not possible through classroom teaching alone. When the ABA changed its rules to allow externs to be compensated for their work while still earning school credit, some in legal academia were worried. Would highly attractive paid externships come at the cost of diminished interest in unpaid government and non-profit work? Would the work paid externs would be assigned be of a lesser educational quality than their for-credit only peers? Conjecture and anecdotal evidence abounded on both sides of the argument.

Professor Larmore's article aims to inject the debate over paid externships with empirical evidence. Drawing on several years’ worth of student and supervisor final evaluations, the author analyzes enrollment patterns, numerical ratings, and work assignment descriptions to determine whether students who are paid for their externships fare any better or worse than their unpaid counterparts. The resulting data demonstrates that, while paying students for their work has had some notable impact, it is far less than critics might have predicted. Moreover, there are some areas in which the data shows that paid externs are thriving even more than their unpaid peers.