Externships
Externships are the best way to get your foot in the door to the career of your choice. You’ll learn tricks of the trade before you’ve even begun your career, giving you an added advantage of entering the workforce ready to practice law.
Approximately half of Mercer Law Students take advantage of opportunities for real life practice experiences through one of five classes offered within the field placement program:
- Externship I – offered during the Fall or Spring Semesters
- Externship II – offered to students who who have taken Externship I
- Judicial Field Placement
- Legislative Field Placement
- Corporate Counsel/In-House Externship Program
- Consumer Bankruptcy Externship Program
- Summer Externship
These opportunities provide students practical work experience while also providing faculty supervision and guided reflection by including an educational component involving discussions, readings, and weekly reflective journals to help students learn from their fieldwork.
Benefits of the Externship Program include:
- A great learning experience, letting students apply the knowledge they’ve learned in law school to actual practice settings.
- Practice at being a professional within a support structure of both a fieldwork supervisor and a faculty member.
- Exposure to a field that you may or may not want to work in later. Students learn about their own placement and also about those of fellow classmates, through classroom discussion.
- Creating networking opportunities. Some students have secured temporary or permanent jobs at either their placement sites or through contacts developed during the placement.
- Enhancing your resume, giving you a list of specific skills and experiences that you have gained through the fieldwork.
Open to second- and third-year students.
Offered during the fall and spring semesters.
Corporate Counsel Externship Program
Consumer Bankruptcy Externship Program
Open to third-year students who have successfully completed Bankruptcy, Law of Lawyering, and Evidence.
Consumer Bankruptcy Externship Program Information
“Throughout my time at Georgia Legal Services Program (GLSP), seeing the impact the attorneys had on every individual that came to the office made me feel like this was the perfect externship for me. My externship at GLSP was truly a valuable asset in supplementing my legal education. The knowledge, research, and writing skills I acquired through my courses was transformed and greatly improved during my time at GLSP. I was able to learn from many attorneys who practice in various areas ranging from family law to housing law. Additionally, I was given the opportunity to handle cases in court through the Student Practice Act, which helped me improve my oral argument skills. My perspective of legal education changed in a positive way and I believe my passion, to be an agent of social justice for ALL, was enhanced because of my experience at GLSP. Overall, being an extern at GLSP has truly been a memorable and important aspect of my law school journey.” – Nicole Esuola, Class of 2019