Field Supervisor Information

Cooley Law School permits students who are selected as externs to participate in activities or studies away from the law school and receive credit when the educational objectives of the program are met. This is a general overview of the requirements for field supervisors. For more information, please request a Field Supervisor Handbook from the Office of Planning, Programs, and Assessment at (517) 371-5140, ext. 2943 or externs@cooley.edu.

The Role of the Field Supervisor in Clinical Programs

Any clinical program at Cooley has several educational goals for its externs. These can be described briefly as developing the externs: 1) lawyering skills; 2) insight into various aspects of the legal system and profession; 3) sense of professional responsibility; and 4) ability to reflect on and learn from their experience. The success of our placement programs depends on the willingness and ability of our field supervisors to serve as role models and teachers.

In any vocational experience, a student undoubtedly will learn something about the skills of lawyering. Depending on the nature of the program, the skills that can be developed in a clinical setting will include some or all of the following skills that have been identified by the American Bar Association www.abanet.org/legaled/publications/onlinepubs/maccrate.html as fundamental to good legal practice. Because externs do not arrive at their placements with well-developed skills in all of these areas, the field supervisor should assign appropriate tasks to the externs.

Field Supervisor Responsibilities

A. Assigning Appropriate Tasks

We believe that for an externship to be an excellent educational experience, the field supervisor must make a conscious effort to provide high quality, demanding training. Externs should not be regarded as paid employees available for any mundane task. Rather, the externs should be asked to do tasks that are carefully defined and appropriate to their abilities; they should also receive feedback about their performance.

B. Evaluation of Extern Work

At the middle and end of each term, the school will ask the field supervisor for a written evaluation of the extern's work. Despite the slight burden this request imposes, the school requests that every field supervisor provide a written evaluation of the extern, touching on such items as productivity, responsibility, effectiveness, cooperation and attitude so that the extern can learn from the evaluation and the school can maintain a permanent record of the extern's performance.

C. Feedback

Once externs have completed assignments, feedback on both written work and other task performance is an essential component of the clinical educational experience.

D. Providing Externs Insight into the Legal System and Profession

One of the most important benefits of an externship program is that externs can immerse themselves into a particular office and into a particular aspect of the legal system. To achieve this, therefore, the extern should be exposed to a variety of situations and the field supervisor should take the time to discuss what is observed by the extern.

E. Developing Professional Responsibility Skills

Professional responsibility is a required course in the law school curriculum. The externship can supplement classroom learning by providing opportunities to see or even be involved with actual professional responsibility decisions that confront practicing attorneys.

Further, the externship is an ideal situation in which to teach professional responsibility, since the extern has an opportunity to be professionally responsible under the guidance of the field supervisor.

A special note about professional responsibility: Externs as well as their field supervisors are bound by the rules of professional responsibility, including, but not limited to, rules regarding confidentiality and privilege. Externs will be exposed to client confidential information and they are absolutely prohibited from disclosing this information in any unauthorized manner, including to the faculty supervisors, without express consent of the client and the field supervisor.

F. Developing the Ability to Learn from Experience

Attorneys realize that every case presents new problems. Law school certainly does not teach externs all of the substantive and procedural law which could possibly come their way, nor the non-legal or intuitive information or behavior which they must have to be successful. This, in fact, is one of the main reasons Cooley supports clinical legal education. Good clinical legal education provides training in basic skills that externs can build upon to learn from their experiences in a systematic way. An externship program can help teach an extern to be an effective learner and to absorb the lessons of experience.

G. Insurance

The field placement office is responsible for maintaining adequate professional liability insurance coverage or its equivalent for all participating externs.

H. Resources

Field supervisors should provide adequate resources to the externs, including use of an appropriate work space, secretarial support, and firm library. Cooley Law School provides additional resources.

Extern Responsibilities

Externs participating in externship programs receive credit for successful work. An extern will arrange to work four hours a week for every hour of credit given for a field placement program. Many externs will in fact work longer hours.

Externs working outside of the law school are ultimately accountable to the faculty supervisor in charge of his or her respective externship. Externs are required to submit journals, time logs, and evaluations to the law school in order to receive credit for the externship.

Conclusion

A significant responsibility has been delegated to the field supervisor who is working in partnership with the faculty supervisor. In its entire curriculum, including its externship programs, Cooley Law School attempts to achieve the highest possible educational standards. For that reason, it is vital that the role of the field supervisor be performed according to the highest possible standards.