Call for Proposals

DEADLINE: Monday, October 16, 2017, 11:59 p.m.

EXTERNSHIPS 9 marks the 20th anniversary of the first Externships Conference in Washington DC, in March 1997, at the Catholic University Washington College of Law. Since that seminal conference, the externship community has come of age. It is time to celebrate and to take stock.

Externship pedagogy has matured, a development displayed in recent editions of the Best Practices Project and of Learning from Practice. Changes to the ABA Standards confirm this maturation, by more clearly defining externship pedagogy as experiential teaching. Teachers and directors of externship courses are now transitioning into faculty roles, with an increased awareness of their contributions to their schools. We recognize and can assess the impact of externship courses on student learning, on student professional and career development, and on institutional outcomes. Research and scholarship regarding externships has flourished with diverse perspectives and values. Finally, we have greater clarity and passion about externships as a way to foster a sense of the public dimension of the lawyer's role.

The Externships 9 Conference, from March 9-11, 2018 at the University of Georgia School of Law in Athens, Georgia, will develop these themes by assessing the past, present, and future of externship teaching. Its five themes will allow us to explore the potential and the challenges of externship teaching:

  • Theme 1: Foundations and innovations in externship pedagogy
  • Theme 2: Defining and developing your role within your law school
  • Theme 3: The impact of externships on law schools and communities
  • Theme 4: Research and scholarship on the externship experience
  • Theme 5: Externships and fostering the public dimension of the lawyer's role

These themes overlap, as they do in our work more generally. The Conference will explore them separately and in their various interactions. We will not offer separate tracks for each theme; presenters need not restrict proposals to one theme. That said, separate tracks for new and for experienced teachers will offer both familiar and new ideas on core externship challenges: how to deliver a seminar; how to work productively with seminar faculty and site supervisors; how to teach the skill of reflection; and how to translate what students learn into transferable skills, enduring values, and professional identity.

We encourage attendance and proposals from clinical faculty (both field placement and in-house clinicians), from deans and associate deans, from career services professionals, and from others interested in both the possibilities and the practical realities of externship courses. We also solicit active participation by international clinicians, both as participants and presenters.

Possible Topics

We encourage you to propose a topic that will develop the conference themes. We append to this RFP a list of specific ideas as prompts for proposals.

The Conference will offer programming for those new to field placement work and for experienced clinicians. To help us plan, we ask that you identify which audience you plan to address - new or experienced or both - when submitting your proposal.

Presentation Formats and Publication

The Planning Committee seeks proposals in several formats:

  • Concurrent session
  • Workshop or affinity groups by geographic region, topic, or practice area
  • Scholarly work-in-progress
  • Short presentation (10-20 minutes, TED Talk or similar format)
  • Poster presentation

We also seek topics for and facilitators to convene affinity groups, designed for those attendees who would like to meet with others to discuss common issues. Groups may form according to geographical region, practice type (e.g., prosecutorial externships), or concerns (e.g., ABA site visit issues).

We encourage proposals to present scholarly works-in-progress. We may also offer sessions consisting of short, "TED Talk-like" presentations of 10-20 minutes. We also invite proposals for poster presentations.

The Clinical Law Review has agreed to consider papers emerging from the Conference (whether from a works-in-progress session or any other conference session) for publication in a special issue. No guarantee of publication exists; all papers will be reviewed in accordance with the Clinical Law Review's normal standards. Potential authors must submit final drafts of manuscripts no later than June 1, 2018, for consideration.

Proposal Selection Criteria

In general, the Organizing Committee will favor proposals that address the Conference theme, are relevant to conference attendees, are well-defined and focused, are timely and important, and show care and thoughtfulness in development. We will also have a preference for proposals that:

  • demonstrate innovation either in new topics or in new approaches to familiar topics;
  • include both new and experienced presenters with expertise in the topic or a base of experience that provides a unique or useful vantage point on the topic;
  • indicate specifically how the presentation will encourage active learning by attendees, including specific methods for engaging in interaction with the audience; and
  • describe the takeaways that attendees can use when they return to their schools.

We value diversity, both in the composition of presenting teams and in your topic's presentation of diversity and inclusiveness as a concern in field placement work. The Organizing Committee will give preference for diversity in terms of race, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, geographical location, years of experience, type of school, type of program and other factors.

Help with Proposals:

We are ready to talk over your ideas as you develop them. We are also ready to help anyone who is new to presenting at conferences or who wants assistance finding possible co-presenters. Feel free to contact members of the Working Group responsible for conference content to discuss your ideas as you prepare a proposal.

Submitting a Proposal:

To submit a proposal, use the form available on the "Submit a Proposal" tab at the top of this page.

/submitting-proposal-externships-9

Submission deadline: 11:59 p.m., Monday, October 16, 2017.

We expect to make decisions about your proposal by Monday, November 13, 2017. We will notify the contact person for each proposal and may contact you sooner to discuss modifications or to suggest collaborations. After confirming your participation, we will identify a contact person from the Planning Committee who will help you prepare so that your presentation and materials contribute to an excellent conference.

We look forward to working with you,

The Conference Planning Committee:

  • Tim Floyd, Mercer University School of Law
  • Alexi Freeman, Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver
  • Carole Heyward, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law
  • Bob Jones, Notre Dame Law School
  • Carrie Kaas, Quinnipiac University School of Law
  • Kendall Kerew, Georgia State University College of Law
  • Lisa Mead, UCLA School of Law
  • Millicent Newhouse, University of Baltimore School of Law
  • Bridgett Ortega, John Marshall Law School (Atlanta)
  • Esther Park, University of Washington School of Law
  • Meg Reuter, University of Missouri Kansas City School of Law
  • Sue Schechter, U.C. Berkeley School of Law
  • Alex Scherr, Chair, University of Georgia School of Law
  • Sarah Shalf, Emory University School of Law

POSSIBLE TOPICS FOR PROPOSALS

We offer these as suggestions only. Use them as prompts: we welcome your creativity and thoughtfulness. We recognize the possibility that your topic might address more than one theme and welcome proposals that advance one theme or several.

Theme 1: Foundations and innovations in externship pedagogy

  • Developments and innovations in the design and delivery of externship courses
  • Best practices in externship teaching
  • Models for externship teaching in non-US law schools
  • Compliance with ABA regulations on field placements and experiential courses
  • "How to" sessions on supervising students, teaching the seminar, working with site supervisors, fostering reflection, and administering externship courses

Theme 2: Defining and developing your role within your law school

  • How externship faculty contribute through teaching, scholarship, and service
  • Working across the curriculum, with in-house clinic, simulation, or non-experiential faculty
  • Collaboration with legal writing, simulation and doctrinal faculty
  • Working with administration, including an "experiential dean"
  • Working with multiple roles as an externship teacher, such as career services or student services

Theme 3: The impact of externships on law schools and communities

  • Externship courses and the assessment of a law school's institutional outcomes
  • Externships, hybrids, and practicums: assessing different program models
  • Externship courses and a student's career development and post-graduate opportunities
  • The impact of externship courses on clients, communities, and the law

Theme 4: Research and scholarship on the externship experience

  • Developing your own scholarship
  • Works in progress on law and policy, empirical research, and clinical pedagogy
  • Using data to assess the impact of externship teaching on students and on service

Theme 5: Externships and fostering the public dimension of the lawyer's role

  • Externship teaching to develop student commitment to public service / public interest work
  • Externship courses and the teaching of social justice
  • Externship teaching in fostering students' values and professional identities