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Since the 1960s, the United States government has paid increasing attention to the rights of language minorities and to the need for greater civic and political integration of these groups. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the issuance of Executive Orders, and intervention by the federal judiciary, progress has been made in the realm of language access. State and local courts have likewise taken steps (albeit imperfectly) to provide interpretation and translation assistance to Limited English Proficient persons. Most recently, responding to both lack of services and inconsistent practices, the American Bar Association has set out national guidelines on the subject. As language access rises in importance – within the government as a whole, and the legal system in particular – law schools have begun to develop strategies to promote language access within the academy. These strategies serve multiple purposes: to prepare students to identify, and respond to, issues of language difference in the context of legal work; to ensure that the policies and practices of law schools comply with language access norms; and to foment student awareness and advocacy on language access, as a key social justice issue. Indeed, educating future lawyers involves not just teaching law students how to read a case, interview a client or draft a brief, it also includes introducing them to the numerous ways lawyers seek to participate in and improve the justice system. Promoting language access in the legal academy offers numerous opportunities to expose students to a diverse set of organizations and skills, and to a community of advocates who have engaged on these issues. This article describes some innovations and best practices relating to language access in the legal academy. It opens with a description of the salience of language access in the current political moment, noting recent demographic trends, and the political importance of language access. It discusses the contemporary salience of language access and the ...

"Externship Pedagogy and Practice is an in-depth exploration of how to design, structure, evaluate, and teach law school externship courses. The book will be an essential resource for experienced and new externship faculty, law school administrators, and externship site supervisors. One of the ways law schools have responded to the demand for more experiential education is by expanding externship courses and faculty. In recent years, dramatic changes in the use of technology in law practice and recognition of the impact of bias on the justice system have influenced legal education, including externship courses. Law schools are also considering how to better integrate their externship programs into their law school curriculum. While there are a number of excellent books on how to design and teach in-house clinical courses, to date there is no comprehensive book on best practices for designing and teaching externship courses. This book fills that gap. The book starts by describing the essential characteristics of all externship courses and explaining the ABA Standards and other regulations governing externships. The next section focuses on program design, including types and locations of placements, credit hours, selecting and evaluating supervisors, establishing and assessing program learning outcomes, and designing individual courses. The third section focuses on teaching the externship course, with chapters on faculty-guided reflection, class topics for general and subject-specific courses, teaching techniques, and using online technology. Each of these chapters includes multiple examples of in-class and out-of-class assignments, discussion and reflection topics, and other tools for successful teaching. The final section is specifically geared towards externship site supervisors and describes best practices for supervision, feedback, and ethical duties. The book provides comprehensive guidance to ensure that both long-standing and relatively new externship programs and courses provide excellent learning experiences for students that are a high-quality component of a school's experiential curriculum"--