Why would you want to enroll in externship over the summer? 
Possible reasons are: the placements have no money to pay you, so you may as well get credit; you need the credits to graduate on time; the placements prefer volunteer students who are getting credit because they believe that such students may be more reliable; you would have a faculty advisor who can require that the work be substantial and educational.

Can you get paid? No. You cannot get paid for a position if you want to get credit. You may, however, accept reimbursement for expenses, such as travel, including commuting, or housing.  Please note that there are also opportunities to work in the public/public interest sector for work-study or APIL funds – for more information about those opportunities, contact Career Services.

What positions are acceptable? Practice placements must be government or nonprofit legal offices, where you have substantial legal work and supervision by a lawyer committed to mentoring you. Practice placements may be out of town, as the academic component will be organized according to the needs of the enrolled students, and will be on-line if we have distant students.

How do you get the position? In most cases, you should apply directly to the employer you are interested in, following their schedule for summer hiring. You may contact Prof. Gotthelf to check whether the placement is likely to be suitable as an externship, or for more information about externship to give to the employer.

You may know that for school year externship enrollments, students turn in a resume and application and  names are then sent to the employer. For the summer, however, we are finding that most employers are not “saving” a set number of positions for Rutgers students. Therefore, conforming to their expectations about their hiring process gets you in the queue along with other students. This is especially true for the larger public sector offices that routinely recruit for the summer, such as prosecutors, large city law departments, federal agencies, and the state Attorney General. See the placement listing on the webpage cited above for other placement possibilities.

Note on enrollment numbers:  Most summer courses may be canceled if there is inadequate enrollment to justify the extra cost of offering the course.  Summer externship, however, is never canceled for this reason, so as to protect the expectations of the employer and the student.

For more information, contact Professor Barbara Gotthelf atbarbara.gotthelf@rutgers.edu, or 856-225-6692.