Another summer has rolled around, and I have again received enormous help from my externs from the University of Illinois College of Law, my alma mater. I often allow law students to shadow me in the winter, and from this exposure, I select one or more to serve as externs for me the following summer. I also often invite my colleagues to host summer externs. Sometimes, my colleagues ask me questions about the utility of hosting law students in chambers for a summer.

Here is a sampling of reasons to employ volunteer summer externs: It is wonderful to be surrounded by those with a youthful outlook on life. My externs always provide me with information about what is happening today in law schools. I have found this to be a great way to maintain contact with my alma mater. Although my technological skills are improving, I learn so much more about technology every summer from my tech-savvy summer externs. Some externs bring a specialized skill set. This summer, I hosted a brilliant student who had recently passed the CPA exam. She was incredibly helpful to me on a divorce case that involved a lot of number-crunching. Every summer, I have an extern perform a multi-level internet search on me to determine if I need to make any judicial privacy requests. We should all be concerned about private information like our address, telephone number, children’s names and school being accessible in the public domain. I save up non-urgent legal research projects throughout the year and provide them to the externs to work on when they are not observing court proceedings. Externs can even help with writing submissions for Section Council newsletters (see below)!

I would urge all of my judicial colleagues to host summer externs. They receive our wisdom and mentoring which will improve their skills when they begin practicing before us. We receive the myriad methods of assistance outlined above. It is a true WIN-WIN scenario. 