| Although Touro offers a wide choice of outside-the-classroom programs, some students have particular interests or distinctive needs that are best accommodated by custom-designed educational experiences. The Law Center's externship program allows students to work in specific fields of law, gain exposure to highly technical or unusual legal skills, practice in specialized courts, or perform legal work that calls upon unique talents or knowledge. These individualized externships are supervised by a faculty member with expertise in the appropriate field and involve close interaction between student and faculty mentor.
Because it is important that each student has the requisite knowledge to succeed in the externship, every student participating in the program must simultaneously enroll in a course in a relevant area of substantive law. For example, a student, in an externship with a state or federal agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws might enroll in a course in Employment Discrimination Law; a student in an externship with a firm specializing in estate and tax planning might enroll in the Estate and Gift Taxation course. The student and faculty member develop a plan for learning so that each component—classroom and placement—contributes to the student's goals.
Students are expected to bring experience from the placement into the classroom and to share knowledge and insights with classmates. In addition to maintaining a journal and contributing to class discussion, students may be required to make more formal presentations on, say, important policy, legal, or ethical issues raised by the work.
The primary purpose of all externships is to create a "real world" engagement by encouraging students to think critically about the role of law in society, professional ethics and norms, and the demands and stresses of law practice. They offer the opportunity to compare the operation of law and the pursuit of justice as learned in law school against the often pressured, uncertain, imperfect reality of the settings in which the real human drama of law and rights are enacted.
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