How to Apply for the Graduate Externship Program

LLM and MSL students interested in applying for a for-credit externship should follow these steps:

  1. Identify and secure an externship placement. Externship work must be done on site at the office of the host organization or offsite alongside one or more attorneys or compliance professionals from the organization (as in the case of meetings, court appearances, etc.). Work done remotely will not be eligible for externship credit. Students are responsible for identifying and securing their own externship placements. The process to find an externship is similar to the process you would go through to secure any type of employment. To that extent, we recommend that you utilize the services and resources available to you through the Graduate Professional Development Program and also that you review the list of Approved Organizations to see which organizations have hosted Graduate Externs in the past.

  2. Once you have secured an externship placement, submit the Student Application.
    Deadline: First Day of Classes for the Relevant Semester

  3. Simultaneously, you should ask the host institution to submit the Site Approval Application. The student is responsible for ensuring that the host completes the Site Approval Application. Organizations that have been approved in the past and have hosted a Fordham graduate extern in the past three years do not need to submit a new Site Approval Application. Click on "Approved Organizations" on the left for a list of organizations that have already been approved.
    Deadline: First Day of Classes for the Relevant Semester.

  4. As soon as both applications have been received, the Graduate Externship Program will review the request. Once approved, the Graduate Externship Program will ask the registrar to manually enroll the student in a two-credit "Graduate Externship Fieldwork" course, as well as a related one-credit seminar.