Journals
Three journals are due for the Spring Semester.
Journals should be posted on TWEN and are due on February 7, March 13, and April 24, by 11:59 p.m.
Additional journal topics can be found in the Legal Externship Handbook.
These three journals are an externship requirement for all externs. If you are in an externship seminar, the instructor may give you specific instructions about journals. If so, follow these instructions, keeping in mind these generally applicable rules as well:
- Purpose
- One purpose of keeping a journal during your externship is to help you observe and recall in greater detail your externship experience in order to enhance your contribution to seminar discussions. More importantly, keeping a journal enables you to step back from your externship experience and reflect upon what you are learning about:
- the law
- lawyering
- yourself as a student and as a lawyer.
- Serious reflection can give you valuable insights into such things as:
- The type of work you prefer (researching, writing, talking with people, being in court).
- The substantive areas of law that interest you or bore you.
- Ways in which you interact with the legal system.
- Ways in which you interact with people in your work environment.
- Ways in which people in your work environment interact with each other.
- Your working style. Do you prefer long projects with few deadlines, or do you need a fast-paced, multi-deadline environment to keep you motivated?
- Innumerable other things about yourself that crop up in the course of a working day.
- After three months of writing about your experiences, you will be amazed in reviewing your journals to see what you have accomplished and what you now know about yourself that you never knew before. That new knowledge may enable you to make more informed long-term career decisions.
- One purpose of keeping a journal during your externship is to help you observe and recall in greater detail your externship experience in order to enhance your contribution to seminar discussions. More importantly, keeping a journal enables you to step back from your externship experience and reflect upon what you are learning about:
- Format of Journals:
- For journal one and two, we require two double-spaced pages of reflection (journal three will be six pages) about your externship and/or assigned topics due on the dates listed above for every week. To the extent possible, try to incorporate your externship experience into your discussions of the readings and seminars. Please remember, however, that the Externship Faculty and Staff do not share in the attorney/client privileged information matters. Keep this in mind when writing journals in seminar and during the private discussions. Please click here for a list of journal topics