Rural and Regional Legal Experiential Externship

Legal Aid Saskatchewan is excited to partner with the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Law, Public Prosecutions, and the Ministry of Justice to provide rural legal experience for 2L and 3L students! The Rural and Regional Legal Experiential Externship Placement program will be offered in both first (September to December) and second (January to April) terms, beginning fall 2024.

Students accepted into this unique program can choose to be placed with a rural prosecutions’ office or a rural Legal Aid Saskatchewan office. “LAS has six rural area offices that are prepared to take a law student for this program, including Battlefords, Prince Albert, Moose Jaw, Yorkton, Melfort and Estevan,” explains Joanne Khan, Practice Management Counsel at Legal Aid Saskatchewan. “In addition, students will have an opportunity to spend a week in LAS’s Northern Area Office where they will experience legal matters in northern jurisdictions.”

To assist with the costs of relocating rurally for a few months during the school year, financial support will be provided for student accommodation during their participation in this program.

The goal of the Rural and Regional Legal Experiential Externship is to provide an extensive legal experience for law students in rural locations in both criminal and family law. During their placement, students will work with a principal/mentor, and perform a variety of hands-on tasks, such as:

• meet with clients, including correctional centre visits
• review disclosure and preparing documents
• research legal matters
• attend court (youth court, therapeutic court, Court of King’s Bench, Provincial Court of Saskatchewan), as well as experience other court initiatives such as Judicial Case Conferences and mediation

Khan says, “This new initiative invests in the Saskatchewan Legal Aid Commission’s strategic priority of improving staff recruitment and retention by investing in students’ experiences and engagement with LAS in collaboration with University of Saskatchewan, College of Law at this early stage.”

For more information, visit https://law.usask.ca/students/jd-students/experiential-learning.php. The deadline to apply is July 15. For more information, contact law.EL@usask.ca.