The Future of Legal Education in Korea: lessons from an American Law School’s Externship Program

Preparation for legal practice is an issue that American law schools have been grappling with much longer than Korean law schools. Consequently, they have developed a broader range and depth of programs aimed at preparing law students to become confident and competent attorneys. Such programs include various forms of experiential education, including externships. “Externship”, for purposes of this research, means practical on-the-job-training of a law student supervised by a practicing attorney for academic credit wherein the supervising attorney and the student’s school monitors and/or coordinates the work experience for its students. This paper presents a case study introducing and analyzing the apprenticeship model externship program in place in 2014 at the J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University (“BYU”), one of the leading externship programs in America. It provides the history, structure and function of the BYU externship program, then discusses elements of the program that might be useful for Korean law schools and their regulators to consider using in the future of Korean legal education. Such elements include BYU’s cost savings structure, methods of providing student externship placements and mechanisms used to tie together academic and professional elements of education and training.