City Semester Program - Frequently Asked Questions

The City Semester Program allows students to earn a significant portion of a semester’s academic credit for working part-time at an approved legal placement. Most students work in government and non-profit settings, engaging in legal representation and assistance to the public. In limited circumstances, students can work in a private law firm, and other private law settings. The most important requirement is that there needs to be an experienced attorney who will supervise the student on a day-to-day basis. The placement must be approved by the City Semester coordinator, but as long as the student is working in a government or non-profit setting, most placements will be approved. The supervisor at the placement needs to agree to accept the student to work at that placement—most placements are more than willing to host an Albany Law student. Generally, the placement lasts the entire length of a semester, or 14 weeks, and the student works between 15 and 18 hours per week over those 14 weeks. Most importantly, those placements can literally be anywhere in the world, as long as the site supervisor is a licensed attorney or an individual otherwise qualified to supervise the student; the student’s field work is supplemented by additional courses taken through an online format.

Students can earn between 5 and 7 credits per semester by working in a City Semester placement. This constitutes working between 12 and 18 hours per week over the 14-week semester, and participating in a weekly, one-hour, classroom discussion that is typically joined remotely by all students. There is some flexibility in the number of hours that students can work and the number of credits they will obtain. Basically, a student earns one credit for working three hours per week over the course of the 14 weeks of a semester. For students who want some flexibility, we can generally accommodate some changes to the number of hours worked in a week, and the number of credits the students earn over the course of the semester. For example, some students, in their final semester of law school, do not need a full complement of credits to graduate, and thus can work fewer hours each week, with a corresponding reduction in the credits they will earn. Students earn 1 credit for every three hours a week they work for 14 weeks of the semester.  In addition, they must also complete the summative and evaluative work assigned through the accompanying classroom component, as well as that which is needed to close and/or transition their cases and projects.  Altogether, students must complete a total of 42.5 hours of work per credit earned over the course of the semester.

Students can only work in a law office where there is an attorney competent to supervise the student and who is available to supervise him or her on a day-to-day basis. Most students choose to work in a government or non-profit setting. In limited circumstances, we will approve internships that take place in a private setting, that is, in a law firm or the general counsel’s office of a for-profit entity, under certain restrictions. A private placement may be approved if the type of work the student wants to do at that placement is not generally available in a government or non-profit setting. For example, a student might want to work on real estate transactions or do intellectual property work. Those types of placements are more difficult to find in government and non-profit settings and we will consider a private law placement in such circumstances.

The big difference between the City Semester Program and the Semester-in-Practice or Summer-in-Practice Program is, first, in the Semester-in-Practice Program, students will generally work a minimum of thirty-three hours per week at their placement over the course of the 14-week semester. Second, the Summer-in-Practice Program lasts only seven weeks. In addition, the Summer-in-Practice Program affords students the opportunity to obtain, at most, six credits. There are options that allow students to earn fewer than six credits, based on the number of hours students will work. Otherwise, the City Semester Program and the Summer-in-Practice Program are quite similar. As further discussed below, another distinguishing feature of City Semester is that it generally affords students the opportunity to take online classes in addition to their internship, so a student can get the benefit of on on-site placement outside the Capital Region while also taking additional courses.

The student should think about a number of different factors. The most important: what type of experience does the student want to get and what type of law does the student want to practice? A student should also consider the region in which he or she wants to work in a placement, and the location where he or she might want to work after graduation. A student may use a City Semester placement to develop contacts in an area in which he or she wants to work after graduation. A student may also want to live with family for a semester and save money on expenses for room and board. The main questions should be what type of work does the student want to do; what type of law office does the student want to work in; and where does the student want to live and work, both during his or her years in school as well as after.

Probably the best time to think about participating in the City Semester Program is in the second semester of a student’s second year, so in the spring semester of the 2L year. It is certainly possible to do it in the spring or fall of a student’s third year, and many students do it in those semesters. To give a student the maximum amount of flexibility for taking required classes, and classes that he or she might want to take to get prepared for the bar, sometimes it makes sense to make the second semester of a student’s second year the semester in which he or she participates in the City Semester program. On occasion, students have taken City Semester in the fall semester of their second year create logistical challenges because students have a required class to take that semester, but it is certainly possible and students do it every year. Your academic advisor, or the City Semester advisor, will help you to consider the best semester to participate in the City Semester Program.

Yes. In fact, a student will generally have to take additional classes to ensure he or she is obtaining an adequate number of class credits in the semester in which he or she is enrolled in City Semester to ensure the student can still be considered a full-time student for the purpose of enrollment, financial aid, and any scholarship he or she may have. Thus, another feature that distinguishes City Semester from the Semester-in-Practice and Summer-in-Practice programs is that students generally must enroll in additional courses while in the City Semester program. Because of the geographic flexibility of the City Semester program, however, the student will take courses from among the full complement of online courses available to the student, which includes an array of classes, both elective and required, and this list is being expanded by Albany Law School in the coming years. Any arrangement through which a student might enroll in the City Semester Program and additional classes should be approved by the City Semester advisor, the Registrar, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, and his or her student’s placement supervisor.

No. A student cannot receive a salary or stipend for the time that he or she is also receiving academic credit. It is possible that a student could finish his or her City Semester placement hours in a given week, or by the end of the semester, and then receive payment from his or her placement for work that is done outside of the required City Semester hours, but a student cannot get paid for any hours he or she is enrolled in the City Semester Program and receiving academic credit for such hours.

The City Semester Program operates just like any academic semester in which the student is enrolled. The general financial aid and/or scholarship package that a student receives during that academic semester would apply to the term in which he or she is enrolled in City Semester.

Yes. A student could participate in a City Semester placement where he or she volunteered or where he or she received academic credit through the law school’s Field Placement Program. The expectation in such a situation is that the responsibilities would change during the student’s second placement, however, so that there will be an opportunity for professional development and growth should the student continue to work in the same placement for an extended period of time.

The answer here probably depends in part on whether a student is engaged in the City Semester Program in a placement that is relatively close to the Law School’s campus. In such situations, it is fairly easy for a student to also participate in student activities. When a student has a placement that is not in the Capital Region, it is likely too difficult for the student to participate in moot court for that semester. Students have participated in a student-edited journal when participating in such programming as the Semester-in-Practice program—including remotely—but he or she would have to coordinate that with the law journal editors to ensure that he or she can meet the obligations and expectations of the journal.

Students must find their own housing situation, and cover their own expenses for room and board.

Students should begin by thinking about where they want to work, both geographically and the type of office in which they want to work. Then students could contact the City Semester advisor as soon as they are considering participating in the City Semester Program to discuss their options and next steps.

Students will participate in the City Semester program in just one of their six semesters enrolled in the law school. There is plenty of time to fit in their required courses and those courses that cover subjects that are tested on different states’ bar exams. If students want to ensure that they have all of their classes covered, and are prepared for taking bar subjects, they can consider enrolling in the City Semester Program in the second semester of their second year. That will give them a full year after participating in the City Semester Program to cover all required classes and study subjects covered on the bar in the year immediately preceding the bar exam.

Yes, just not in the same semester! Students can complete one semester in the Semester-in-Practice Program and one semester in the City Semester program, in either order. This could give them the opportunity to complete a full year of their academic studies in a location other than the Capital Region of New York State. This would require careful planning and sequencing of classes to ensure the student completes all of the other requirements of graduation.