Third-year students may be placed with a district attorney, public defender, or with the U.S. attorney and may try cases under supervision pursuant to local, state, or federal rules. These placements are carefully selected, monitored, and evaluated by the administrative professor for field placement in order to provide practical lawyering experiences with the supervision of highly qualified and experienced attorneys. Students integrate substantive learning with the practice of law and develop their legal skills through exposure to many different kinds of law practice. A Guide to the field placement program is published each fall and each spring listing placements available in the next semester. The Guide contains brief descriptions of the individual placements along with eligibility requirements and pre-requisite courses.
Additional information is available from the director of the field placement program.
Each semester, students are invited to apply to a limited number of placements for which they are academically eligible. The application process is coordinated by the director of the field placement program. Applicants are then interviewed by the field placement supervisors and students are selected as interns for the following semester prior to pre-registration for other courses in that semester. All placements are two credits and require that the student commit a minimum of 110 hours to the placement over the course of the semester. Other requirements include participation in special classes on ethics and professionalism designed for students in field placements, weekly timesheets, journals and submission of a sample work product.