This article examines university liability created by internship and consulting relationships. Clients assign tasks accordingly, and the university incurs liability that is conditioned by business clients' expectations. Substantial liability is related to unusually large and rare unfavorable outcomes in the outreach engagement, known as tail events.
Tail events can significantly and negatively impact the client.
Both the liability for and the probability of tail events increase as universities continue to expand business outreach activities. As internship and consulting engagements increase, the probability of a tail event also increases. The responsibilities of IT intern engagements and potential liability of the sponsoring university are analyzed. The university is the primary insurer for the client and indemnifies its representatives. All internship engagements should be formalized by written contract.