Overview, Eligibility and Identifying a Field Placement

An externship can be one of the most rewarding experiences of your legal education. It is an opportunity to develop or hone practical skills, learn about different areas of legal practice, enhance your academic understanding of the law through its real-world application, and gain exposure to some of the most pressing challenges facing legal professionals today.
You will also have the opportunity to become adept at self-directed learning and reflection, assess your professional skill set and values, identify and pursue self-identified learning goals, establish mentoring relationships, build professional networks, and learn from direct observation of and experience in the practice of law. In short, you will complete your externship and seminar with a robust toolkit of skills that you can use in your future legal career.
At the field placement, you will work alongside supervising attorneys—at qualifying judicial, governmental, or nonprofit field placements—to observe, exercise, and develop competency in a wide range of lawyering skills, including client counseling and interviewing, negotiating, developing legal strategy, policymaking, and advocacy. Working in collaboration with your supervising attorneys, you will establish learning goals for your experience and receive ongoing feedback in a real-world practice setting.
In the seminar, you will reinforce your field placement experiences. You will consider essential topics involving professionalism, self-reflection, ethics, professional identity, legal problem solving, cultural competency, work-life integration, and the role of a lawyer. Through regular classroom engagement, you will enhance your field placement experience and grow as a professional.
Finally, both the fieldwork and seminar credits earned through the J.D. Externship Program count toward the 6-credit experiential education graduation requirement.

To participate in the J.D. Externship Program, all of the following statements must be true:

• After Completing Your First Year: You will have completed the required first-year program before your externship begins. Evening division and interdivisional transfer students may enroll prior to completing Criminal Justice, Property, or their first-year elective.
  If you experienced extenuating circumstances during your first year that prevented you from completing the entire program, or if you transferred to Georgetown and your previous institution did not require certain Georgetown Law first-year coursework, you may seek a waiver of this requirement by completing this form, identifying the course(s) you were not able to complete and the reason(s) you were unable to complete the course(s), and explaining why you believe you are nonetheless ready to extern.
• Qualifying Placement: You have secured a placement in a qualifying judicial, governmental, or nonprofit office within the applicable geographic scope for the given semester.
  • NOTE: Students who have secured a proposed externship opportunity (not a Research Assistant position, which is not an eligible opportunity for the J.D. Externship Program) with a Georgetown Law Center or Institute must notify the Office of Experiential Education at lawexp@georgetown.edu in advance of submitting an application, so that we can request some additional documentation directly from the Center or Institute.
  •  NOTE: The primary goal of the Law Center’s externship program is to award academic credit for an educational opportunity in which students build skills in an environment that prioritizes their ability to learn, make mistakes and ask questions about the work environment in which they are externing. The goal is educational and focuses on the student’s professional development first (not the work priorities or goals of a field placement). Thus, we don’t allow students to extern for credit with their current work supervisors on their assigned workload. Students may not earn credit for work they are obligated to do because of an employment relationship.
    • We have allowed students to extern at a field placement in a different department, office or unit from the one in which they are currently working, provided that:
      •  The student is eligible to participate in the Program, and their field placement and proposed externship meet all of the J.D. Externship Program’s requirements; and
      •  The student provides the Experiential Education Office with a written and signed verification (an electronic format is acceptable) from their employer and the individual who would supervise the proposed fieldwork that:
        • 1) The student’s respective roles as an employee and as an extern would be entirely distinct from one another; and
        • 2) The student would be supervised by someone who is a licensed attorney (or otherwise qualified to supervise a legal extern) and not a participant in the supervision structure of their employment.
    •  Students who are interested in pursuing this type of externship opportunity should schedule an appointment with the Senior Director of Experiential Education to further discuss their plans before applying to the J.D. Externship Program.
• Geographic Scope: To satisfy this geographic scope requirement for fall and spring semesters, the field placement must have an established place of business (i.e., a physical office location) in the Washington, DC metro area where the student’s field supervisor is also based, and the student must be externing with that office. To satisfy this geographic scope requirement for the summer session, the field placement must have an established place of business (i.e., a physical office location) in the United States where the student’s field supervisor is also based, and the student must be externing with that office.
  • Please note that proposed changes to the Geographic Scope Requirement for Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 are currently under review. Specifically, the Office of Experiential Education has proposed that the Law Center temporarily modify the J.D. Externship Program’s geographic scope policy to allow students to extern outside of the D.C. area remotely or in person. The modified policy has been approved by the Academic Standards Committee, but until the full faculty have had the opportunity to review the policy and vote on it, the Office of Experiential Education cannot confirm whether the proposed changes will become final.
• Legal Work: Your work at the field placement will be legal in nature (i.e., you will be working on substantive legal or legal policy work).
• Minimum Hours/Weeks: You will work 11 or 16.5 hours per week for a minimum of 10 weeks during the fall or spring semester, and 18.5 or 27.5 hours per week for a minimum of 6 weeks during the summer session.
  • NOTE: For the fall and spring semesters, the J.D. Externship Program strongly recommends planning to work 11 weeks or more for the best experience and to allow for an unanticipated need to make up any missed time.
• Work to Maximum Extent Possible in Person: You will extern in person (i.e., on-site) to the maximum extent possible.
  • NOTE: This requirement is meant to maximize your opportunity to consult with, observe, and develop relationships with legal professionals in person (which will improve your externship experience). You are not expected to work (and indeed, are discouraged from working) on-site when others in your office will not be working on-site.
• Start By Fieldwork Start Deadline: You will be fully eligible to start working at your field placement (i.e., security clearances and/or background checks complete) by the last business day before the Law Center’s Add/Drop deadline (or by the last business day before the summer registration deadline), or able to confirm that you are eligible to start work no later than the J.D. Externship Program’s fieldwork start deadline even if any security clearance/background check process is incomplete at that time. Students who are unable to confirm either of these items but choose to stay enrolled in the J.D. Externship Program following the Add/Drop deadline (or the summer registration deadline), and who end up being unable to start work by the fieldwork start deadline, will be WITHDRAWN from the J.D. Externship Program – including the companion seminar – with a corresponding “W” transcript notation. Further, they will not earn any corresponding externship credit or make progress toward satisfying the experiential credit graduation requirement through the Program during that semester (or summer session).
  • NOTE: The background check/security clearance process can take time for anyone. We strongly recommend that, if you anticipate your background check/security clearance process might take additional time (e.g., because you have moved frequently, have had extensive overseas activities), you notify your point of contact at your prospective field placement right away, explain your concerns and provide the field placement the deadline by which your security clearance or background check must be complete to remain in the Program (unless you can extern without a complete security clearance/background check). If you have any concerns about your security clearance progress, please notify the J.D. Externship Program, lawexp@georgetown.edu, as well. Further, we encourage students to identify an alternative course schedule plan in the event their background check/security clearance process is not complete by the J.D. Externship Program fieldwork start deadline. Finally, we recommend that students request written confirmation from their field placement once their background check/security clearance process is complete.
  • More information about the security clearance/background check process can be found in the Security Clearance FAQs.

Every student who applies to the J.D. Externship Program during the guaranteed application period and meets all eligibility criteria will be offered a seat in the Externship Program.

To earn credit for their participation in the J.D. Externship Program, J.D. students must work at a qualifying judicial, governmental, or nonprofit field placement where they are supervised by a licensed attorney who graduated from law school at least three years prior to the beginning of the externship. If performing legal policy work, students alternatively may be supervised by an individual otherwise qualified to supervise a legal extern.

Georgetown Law defines “individual otherwise qualified to supervise” as someone qualified to assign, review, and give substantive feedback on a student’s legal policy work. Students who would have a non-attorney field supervisor must provide additional information about that individual’s qualifications to supervise a student legal extern in their application to help determine if that individual may serve as the student’s primary field supervisor. As general guidance, the individual should possess the following:

• At least 5 years of applicable legal advocacy or policy experience in the subject area(s) the externship would entail, or if fewer than 5 years, confirmation that the student would also have regular communication with an attorney at/affiliated with the placement about their fieldwork;
• Previous experience with direct law student extern field supervision; and
• A demonstrated legal advocacy or legal policy leadership role at the field placement (for example, Legislative Director, Executive Director, Senior Policy Analyst).

Students are not permitted to be supervised by an individual to whom they are related, nor are they permitted to be supervised by their externship seminar professor.

Students are responsible for finding and securing their own judicial, governmental, or nonprofit placements.
NOTE: Only upon review of a student’s externship application (regardless of where the opportunity was found or whether a Georgetown Law student has externed with the entity in the past) can the Office of Experiential Education definitively confirm whether an externship is approved.

Tips on your search

• First, do some pre-planning. Generate a list of judicial, governmental, or nonprofit offices that interest you as possible field placements.
• Second, check internal and external Law Center resources for externship listings:
  • Internal: Login to Symplicity to scan the list of potential externship opportunities submitted by offices looking for law student externs. Symplicity also contains student evaluations of many externship placement sites. Please note the J.D. Externship Program does not pre-approve field placements, even if a student has externed there before. If you have a question about a Symplicity posting, the Office of Public Interest and Community Service (OPICS) manages and posts opportunities on Symplicity. Please contact OPICS with any questions.
  • External: The University of AZ Government Honors and Internship Handbook and the companion University of AZ Public Policy Handbook are highly recommended resources for law students seeking government and/or non-profit legal policy opportunities. The University of AZ Government Honors and Internship Handbook features summer/academic year internships and post-graduate opportunities offered by over 100 federal, state, county and municipal government agencies. The University of AZ Public Policy Handbook features relevant policy internships, fellowships, and other post-graduate opportunities with think tanks, advocacy organizations, federal agencies and other organizations engaged in policy analysis and implementation. The password to access these resources is: MOVINGFORWARD.
  • Other resources include PSJD and Idealist for public sector opportunities, or USAJOBS for opportunities at government agencies. When available, search the specific website of an agency or organization for directions on how to apply for their externship opportunities. Many agencies have well-developed externship programs with very specific application procedures. If you do not see a listing for a specific office of interest, consider contacting the office directly to ask about openings for legal externs.
• Third, make an appointment: You are encouraged to meet with an OPICS advisor for guidance on nonprofit and government searches. Additionally, OCS advisors are available to support students interested in externing for a judge. You can also contact the J.D. Externship Program at lawexp@georgetown.edu to make an appointment with a member of the Experiential Education team.
• Finally, think about the areas of law that interest you and contact Law Center faculty in those areas to set up appointments to identify organizations that perform such work.