Show Me the $: Reasons, Data & Strategies to Enact Paid Externships

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Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Hotel: N/A

Room: Franciscan A

Floor: Ballroom Level

During this 60-minute concurrent session, we will share the reasons and experiences of adopting policies permitting paid externships at four law schools—Boston University School of Law in 2016, the University of San Francisco School of Law in 2017, the University of California College of Law, San Francisco in 2022 and the University of Baltimore in 2022. We will draw on lessons from each approach to inform the experience of participants who are considering making similar changes at their own schools. We will also share recently collected data (from IRB surveys of current externship students, alumni who participated in externships, externship program directors, and field placement supervisors) debunking the common arguments against paid externships and discuss how paid externships have increased diversity within the externship programs. Finally, we will discuss strategies that have been effective in persuading faculty and administration to support permitting paid externships.