Gain experience off campus
We offer more than 200 externships with some of the most prestigious organizations in the region that allow you to earn credit outside of the law school by working with practicing attorneys in the community. Deeper, more intensive experiences at external sites are available through the residency program.
Students work across a range of practice areas, including health law, business law, alternative dispute resolution, and criminal law. Students also practice law in a variety of legal settings, working with public defenders to preserve the rights of the accused; with prosecutors to achieve just results in criminal cases; with state and county agencies to shape public policy and protect society’s most vulnerable; with federal, state, and tribal judges to ensure the judicial system is just; and with numerous other partners. Students in externships are supervised both by Mitchell Hamline faculty and by attorneys or judges in the field.
Mitchell Hamline offers students a variety of externships that provide valuable hands-on learning experiences. Externships have an hour commitment based on credit enrollment and require prerequisite courses. Each student registered for an externship has a faculty supervisor and field placement supervisor.
Externship Courses
Each course offers a classroom portion focused on analytical topics. These externships have regularly scheduled classes and are under the direction of the assigned professor.
Independent Externships
Independent Externships—including Independent Judicial Externships—are for-credit courses, in which the student takes responsibility for much of his or her own learning by working in field-placement sites under the guidance of a field supervisor and faculty supervisor.
Credits
Students can take up to a total of four (4) Independent Externship credits AND a total of four (4) Independent Judicial Externship credits during their law school career. These limitations may be waived by the Externship Director after determining that additional credits will be for work that provides a valuable learning experience and are otherwise manageable in light of a student’s other obligations.
Credits from externship courses, e.g., District Court Externship course, Government Agency Externship course, do not count against the independent externship credits.
Among the partners our students have worked with
- Best Buy Corporation
- Colich & Associates
- Department of Human Services General Counsel’s Office, Appeals and Regulations
- Department of Labor & Industry Chief Legal Counsel’s Office
- Department of Public Safety Internal Affairs
- Department of Transportation General Counsel’s Office
- Department of Veterans Affairs, Regional Counsel’s Office
- HealthPartners
- Hennepin County Title Examiner Office, Tax Services Contracts and Procurement
- Jardine, Logan & O’Brien
- Kagan Binder
- Medtronic
- Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
- Minnesota Pollution Control Agency General Counsel’s Office
- Minnesota State Colleges and Universities General Counsel’s Office
- National Labor Relations Board, Regional Counsel’s Office
- NCS Pearson Inc.
- Paschal Nwokocha Law Offices
- Public Utilities Commission
- Ramsey County Public Defender’s Office
- St. Croix County, Wisconsin, District Attorney’s Office
- St. Paul City Attorney’s Office
- Shepherd Data Services Inc.
- Target Corporation
- U.S. Department of Agriculture
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
- University of Minnesota Office of Institutional Compliance
- White Bear Lake Area Schools
- Wilson Law Group