Externship seminars

As part of your externship, you are required to attend and participate in seminars with faculty supervisors to gain skills knowledge and values related to your externship and to discuss and reflect on your experience. Seminars are organized around seven legal practice areas:

  • Criminal Seminar – Prosecuting Attorney's Offices and Public Defenders
  • Civil Seminar – Legal Services Organizations and other Non-profits
  • In-house/Government Seminar – In-House Counsel and Governmental Agencies*
  • Judicial Seminar – Courts and Administrative Tribunals
  • International Seminar – International Organizations and Tribunals.

*This seminar is split into two seminars: In-House Counsel Seminar and Government Attorney Seminar in summer only.

Important notes:

  • Attendance at the day-long seminar intensive is required to earn credit so please note the date in your calendar when you fill out the externship application form.
  • ABA Standard 304(a)(5) requires all experiential learning courses to provide a means of ongoing, contemporaneous, faculty-guided reflection. Seattle University School of Law externs satisfy this requirement through attending the externship seminar. Your attendance of the mandatory intensive and the ongoing seminar blocks are required to meet to this standard for receiving credit.
  • Like any other law school course, students cannot take the same externship seminar twice. For example, if your previous externship was a criminal placement and you took the Criminal Seminar, you cannot earn credit at another criminal placement since you would need to take the Criminal Seminar again and that is not allowed.
  • You may apply to externships that fall into other seminar categories.
  • If you can’t work at a placement for credit, you can possibly apply for a Public Interest Law Foundation grant or volunteer.

When should I start applying to externships? Is there a deadline?

It is best to apply for externships about three to five months before the start of the semester. Here are a few things to be aware of.

  • To apply you must submit an Externship Application and send application materials for your three top sites. Most sites do not have a deadline but fill their positions on a rolling basis. Some have lengthy background checks that can take 4 to 5 months.
  • A few sites have deadlines and won't accept applications after that point. If the sites have told us about these deadlines, we will include them in our Externship Clinic Newsletter.
  • Each seminar has a cap and seminars often fill up well before the start of the semester. Once the seminar is filled, you won’t be able to earn credit, even if you found the site on your own,
  • It generally takes two to four weeks to get through the whole process — this includes sending a resume and cover letter, scheduling an interview, receiving an offer, and asking the externship program to register you for the seminar. Because of this time frame, we don't usually take applications in the last month before the semester starts.
  • There are always more externships looking for students than students looking for externships, so if you start early and keep applying to sites, you are guaranteed to find a position!

Contact

Externship Program
206-398-4128
externships@seattleu.edu

Make an appointment with Externship Program Faculty on Microsoft Bookings.