Field Supervisers as Teachers
Sue Schechter, University of California
With
the increase in attention to experiential education and the expansion of field
placement programs to meet some of that demand, field placement faculty/staff
must be educated and empowered to persuade field supervisors working with
students to embrace their role as teacher in these academic credit
opportunities. With programs allotting 2-12 units (generally) for these
experiences, it is critical that faculty/staff advocate for field supervisors
to take the role as teacher to heart in preparing the next generation of
lawyers. Field placement supervisors have a range of supervision experience and
dedication to working with students.
This
article will be divided into 3 parts:
1) Provide a brief historical overview of
the evolution of ABA Standard 304©(iv)- specifically, the selecting, training,
evaluating and communicating with supervisors provision;
2) Engage in a discussion about what it
means to be a field supervisor, why it is critical for supervisors to embrace
their teacher roles and why that matters for the student experience; and
3) Delve into what faculty/staff
can/should do to train and support field supervisors to ensure students are
provided with a meaningful academic experience.
While
arguably obvious and ABA-rule mandated that law school faculty/staff dedicate
time to field supervisors, given the limited resources many/most field
placement programs are struggling with, this is not always a priority.
This article will argue that selecting, training, evaluating, and communicating
with field supervisors must be a priority if field placement programs are to
serve students and be taken seriously in law school experiential education and
clinical pedagogy.
What Factors Lead
to Externship Success
Anahid Gharakhanian, Southwestern Law School
Carolyn Larmore, Chapman University Fowler School of Law
There’s been lots of conversation in the externship
community about what contributes to a good externship program/course. The
ABA has been trying to figure that out too. However, these conversations
are mostly informed by anecdotal or collective experience/wisdom and not based
on methodical data/analysis. So we’ve decided to embark on an empirical
approach to probe into what contributes to success in an externship.
To answer our research question, we are gathering
information about four Southern California law schools’ externship
programs/courses that are run differently as well as surveying the externship
supervisors and students over three terms. The surveys will gather
information about multiple data points and ask that the student and the supervisor
rate the student’s “success” at the externship.
We are defining “success” based on the