Externship: Project for the Innocent

The Externship course provides an invaluable opportunity to enhance students’ legal education through structured and supervised off-campus placements, where students learn through observation as well as hands-on fieldwork. The fieldwork is complemented with a class component, including orientation at Loyola Law School’s Project for the Innocent.

At the placement, students work on actual legal matters and engage in lawyering tasks. In that capacity, students need to be especially mindful of conducting themselves as professionals, including being mindful of professional responsibility and confidentiality issues. The class component supports and reinforces the students’ learning at the placement.

The Project for the Innocent externship is a year-long externship (fall and spring semesters) with the Loyola Law School's Project for the Innocent, which is dedicated to the exoneration of the wrongfully convicted.

Externs play a central role in the investigations that LPI undertakes. Responsibilities include investigating claims of innocence; interviewing witnesses; meeting with prosecutors; visiting prison inmates.

Prerequisites: Criminal Law and need to have completed or be concurrently enrolled in Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Evidence, Legal Profession, and Wrongful Convictions courses.