Director of Externships and Placement- Learning

Position: Director of Externships and Placement-Based Learning
Location: New York

Director of Externships and Placement-Based Learning

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Director of Externships and Placement-Based Learning

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• Job Type: Officer of Administration
• Regular/Temporary:
  Regular
• Hours Per Week: 35
• Salary Range: $150,000 - $160,000

The salary of the finalist selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to departmental budgets, qualifications, experience, education, licenses, specialty, and training. The above hiring range represents the University's good faith and reasonable estimate of the range of possible compensation at the time of posting.

Position Summary

The Director of Externships is a key leadership position responsible for the strategic development, oversight, and administration of Columbia Law School's externship program. We seek a dynamic and creative administrator with experience in higher education or in legal services organizations to ensure that Columbia Law School’s externships and other placement-based learning opportunities are of consistently high quality, further the Law School’s strategic vision, and respond to student interests and community needs.

Pending faculty approval, the incumbent may be asked to teach related courses as needed.

The Law School currently offers an extensive program of externships and placement-based learning opportunities designed to help students become knowledgeable, skilled, ethical, and reflective practitioners. Students enrolled in externships have the opportunity to explore the role of lawyers in a variety of settings, identify their own professional goals, and learn the values and competencies that are needed in modern legal practice through well-supervised, hands-on work at public and private sector organizations and in a related seminar.

In addition to the externships offered through the program, CLS also permits students to find independent externships that must be paired with a faculty tutorial. The successful candidate will report to the Vice Dean for Experiential Education.

Responsibilities

• Managing and further developing all aspects of a robust, high-quality externship program that furthers Columbia’s pedagogical goals and meets the standards of the ABA, university policies, and other regulatory bodies:
• Cultivating and maintaining relationships with diverse external placement sites across various legal sectors (e.g., judicial chambers, government agencies, non-profit organizations, corporate legal departments).
• Recruiting excellent seminar teachers and placement supervisors;
• Developing training programs and materials, and conducting workshops to support externship seminar teachers and placement supervisors;
• Regularly evaluating externship seminars and placements, including through classroom observation and site visits;
• In consultation with the Dean and the Vice Dean for Experiential Education, developing new externship opportunities;
• Assisting faculty members who want to explore the development of a placement component for their courses, and fostering connections with practitioners in the public interest, government, and private sectors who might be good partners in developing and implementing a placement component.
• Advising students about externship opportunities, counseling them about the externships most likely to meet their goals, and helping them to resolve and learn from any problems that arise in the course of their externships;
• Advising and supporting students and identifying resources to help students arrange independent externships and secure faculty supervisors;
• Integrating LLMs into the externship program and coordinating with the Office of Graduate Programs on international student rules and other relevant concerns;
• Coordinating with Registration Services and Student Services on enrollment and registration matters;
• Assisting Lecturers in securing Teaching Assistants for their externship seminars;
• Main…