To be a good lawyer takes practice
We guarantee a clinic or externship experience to every student; most students take more than one, either to sample more than one area of law or to go even deeper in a preferred subject.
Connecticut's liberal student-practice rule allows you to start gaining practical experience after your first year. Whether your legal interests lie in health law, tax, sports and entertainment law, environmental law, family law or a number of other specialties, we have a clinic or an externship to meet your interests and goals to set you on the path for a successful career.
Our clinics and externships provide students with key educational opportunities. Among them: the opportunity to become knowledgeable about legal doctrine as it operates in practice; to understand the rules of professional responsibility; to develop interviewing, counseling, fact gathering, strategic decision-making, negotiation and oral advocacy skills; to sharpen research and writing skills; to gain experience in legal and factual analysis; and to hone the habits of reflective practice.
Clinics
There are many opportunities to apply classroom lessons to solving real-world legal problems. Six on-campus law clinics, covering 19 different subject areas, combine casework with a classroom component, award between two and eight credits to fit students’ schedules, and are supervised by full-time faculty and dedicated practitioners.
Some clinic students represent prisoners appealing convictions for non-capital offenses; some advocate for civil rights at the state legislature; some investigate when a grievance has been filed against a lawyer. Others work in our tax clinic providing no-cost legal services to local, low-income clients. All students serve clients and the public interest while learning how to practice law in a setting that is designed for them to take on maximum responsibility for their clients.
Clinic offerings
- Constitutional Law
- Criminal Defense Appellate Practice
- Criminal Prosecution Appellate Practice
- Employment Law
- Family Law
- Human Trafficking Prevention Project
- Immigrant’s Rights Policy
- Immigration and Refugee Law
- Juvenile Justice
- Meditation
- Medical-Legal Partnership
- Negotiation
- Prisoner Reentry
- Prisoners’ Rights
- Tax
- Transgender Rights
- Veterans Advocacy
- Veterans Benefits and Status Law
- Women’s Rights
Civil Justice Clinic
The Civil Justice Clinic consists of 15 of the 19 subject areas: Constitutional Law, Employment Law, Family Law, Human Trafficking Prevention Project, Immigrants’ Rights Policy, Immigration and Refugee Law, Juvenile Justice, Mediation, Medical-Legal Partnership, Prisoner Reentry, Prisoners’ Rights, Transgender Rights, Veterans Advocacy, Veterans Benefits and Status Law, Women’s Rights. You will get to engage in both direct client advocacy and policy work.
Externships
Our dynamic externship model emphasizes close, collaborative relationships among students, faculty supervisors and your real-world field supervisors. You'll analyze and reflect on your field experiences throughout the semester in on-campus seminar classes and tutorials.
We have 18 areas of focus for externships available — offering more than 350 possible placements each year with lawyers, judges, legislators, policy-makers and mediators.