Rohan and Skylar,

I also think this is an excellent question and I am happy to have found your post before recreating a similar topic. One of the beauties about attending law school in New York, is that we are surrounded by so many opportunities to gain legal experience, yet many of us probably have not taken advantage of the opportunities that are available to work outside of the law school (or may feel there isn't enough time). Today, while Professor Moglen was speaking about ways in which we could obtain the type of experiences we will need to shape our individual practices, I began to think about putting together a detailed plan of the experiences I wanted and the people that I would like to work with prior to graduation so that I have options and won't have to "pawn my license away". I agree with some of your ideas for ways to structure an ideal curriculum, but one thing that my time at Columbia has opened my eyes to, is that if we expect to obtain all we need within this building or through the channels of Columbia, we will have missed many professional and personal development opportunities in New York. Thus, in crafting what the remainder of my time at Columbia will involve, I have begun to look for outside opportunities to get involved, create meaningful relationships with people who can help me in the future, and work for people whom I am in a position to help (many of whom are practicing attorneys that are not affiliated with this school).

In the same vein, I am interested in creating a new topic on the Wiki that will attempt to accumulate opportunities for students to get involved depending on our different interests (i.e. gender equality, environment, civil rights, education, etc). This idea came to me when I was sent an email about the NY State Attorney General's Civil Rights Bureau needing student volunteers to work on a fair housing issue, that may culminate in volunteers serving as witnesses at trial. Would anyone else be interested in this Wiki topic? It would be great if we could all work together to inform each other about opportunities such as this, so that those who are interested in alternative ways to obtain legal experience, can do so meaningfully. -- AbiolaFasehun - 27 Mar 2012