Student proposed internship guidelines FAQ

At the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law, the distinction between internship types lies primarily in how the placement is initiated and how students apply.

A Student-Proposed Internship (SPI) allows a student to independently secure or design their own law-related placement with an organization that aligns with their interests. The proposed internship must then be submitted to the Career Development Centre (CDC) for approval before it begins and is subject to separate application processes and deadlines.

In contrast, Law-Related Internships are opportunities developed or pre-approved by the Career Development Centre (CDC) in partnership with specific organizations. Students apply directly to these structured placements through the CDC centralized application process and must follow the official internship deadlines for each term.

In both cases, students receive academic credit and must meet the same academic requirements. The primary distinction lies in whether the internship is initiated by the student (SPI) or provided by the CDC, as well as the application process and deadlines.

Both internship types offer valuable opportunities to gain practical legal experience, develop professional skills, and earn course credit through 115 hours of supervised, unpaid work.

In short:

• A Student-Proposed Internship (SPI) allows a student to propose their own placement and follow a separate approval process with different deadlines. The Student-Proposed Internships (SPI) are offered under the course code CML3171.
• A Law-Related Internship  is a placement already created and organized by the CDC, with a centralized application process and fixed deadlines. The Law-related internships are offered under the course code CML3173.

The Student-Proposed Internship Program offers you an opportunity to gain hands on experience in a practical setting and to explore different legal fields and work environments.  These internships may be completed during the summer, fall, January or winter term after first year. Internships may be undertaken abroad during the summer and the January term.

Internship Abroad

Terms (January or Summer):

Students may only complete a Student-Proposed Internship (SPI) abroad during the summer or the January term. The number of hours to be completed is 115 hours.

For more information, please consult the Application Procedures and Form guidelines.

Be creative! This is your opportunity to work in a law-related field that is of interest to you.  You can work in a non profit or non-governmental organization, an international organization, a small to medium sized firm, or with a sole practitioner, to name a few. There are many possibilities out there; however the work must be of legal nature and under the direct supervision of a lawyer or someone who has received legal training (holds a J.D. or an LL.B.).

The work schedule is at the discretion of the host employer and student intern. That said, students are expected to complete their internship hours during the host employer`s regular business hours.

Yes, it is possible to complete an internship during the summer at the same time as you are working another full- or part-time job.

However, it is essential that you ensure that you have sufficient time to complete 115 hours of the unpaid student-proposed internship to satisfy the requirements to secure credits for this internship. That means planning out in-advance, with your own calendar and that of your internship supervisor, when you will be completing your 115 hours so as your other full- or part-time (paid or unpaid) job does not impede on these hours. 

This same concept also applies to SPI positions completed in other semesters, to ensure that you have sufficient time to complete the required hours in addition to your prior commitments (e.g. courses, job, volunteering, extra-curriculars).

Network, network, network and use your imagination! Do you know a lawyer? Do your parents or friends know a lawyer? Look in the yellow pages, conduct a Google search, look at the Peer to Peer Survey in The Source, do some research and you will eventually find an organization or firm that will interest you. Call them or email them and explain the program to them. Not many people will refuse volunteer work offered by an eager law student. The experience is mutually beneficial, to both you the student and the organization or firm you will intern with.

The supervisor is either a practicing lawyer or someone who has received legal training (holds a J.D. or an LL.B.) who works at the organization or the firm in which you will be completing your internship and who is responsible for supervising your work. The supervisor must have a minimum of 3 years law-related work experience after graduating law school or 2 years experience as a lawyer after their call to the bar. 

Before starting your internship, it must be approved by the Professional Development Counsellor.  You must submit an application package through Brightspace which consists of these three (3) documents:

1. Student-Proposed Internship - Proposal Form - signed by you and your supervisor; as an alternative, your supervisor may send you an email approving your proposal;
2. Agreement for Experiential Learning Internship: You must present this Agreement to the employer and submit a signed copy. The Faculty will then sign and return the executed Agreement to the employer.
3. Modification/Cancellation Enrollment Form 

Guide – Internship Proposal Form :For examples of what you could include in your Proposal Form, you can consult this Guide. The Guide is meant to be used as an aid and should not be copied. Your Proposal Form must be written in your own words and reflect the work that you anticipate completing during your internship.

Remember! If a signature is missing or if your application package is incomplete, your internship will not be approved. Your application will only be processed for approval once it is complete, therefore make sure that the forms are properly filled out and signed before submitting them. You will not be enrolled in the internship course (therefore it will not appear on uoCampus) until you submit your complete application package including all of the signed and completed forms.

For more information, please consult the Application Procedures and Form guidelines.

The course code and title of your Student Proposed Internship will appear on your transcript.

The Internship Proposal Form is self-explanatory but you must provide the objectives of the internship, the skills you plan to develop and the tasks you will be accomplishing in order to develop the skills you wish to hone.  If you are still unsure of the tasks you will be completing after having spoken with your supervisor, elaborate on what the organization or firm does (areas of practice) as well as provide an outline as mentioned above.  The Internship Proposal Form must be signed by you and your supervisor.

Students can complete a number of law related tasks such as legal research, legal drafting (such as memoranda, notes to file, etc.), observe lawyers litigate in court or during mediations and negotiations, meet with clients, to name a few.  However, students may not give legal advice or legal opinions as they are not yet called to the bar.

Remember! This is the only written work (besides the final report) that you will have to submit in order to gain 3 academic units.  Therefore, you must approach these documents with the same level of professionalism and seriousness as when preparing and submitting a class assignment or term paper.  Pay attention to detail and make sure that the final copy is professional-looking and neat.  The Professional Development Counsellor may request modifications in order to improve your Proposal Form or Final Report if she is not satisfied with the quality of your work.

Guide – Internship Proposal Form: For examples of what you could include in your Proposal Form, you can consult this Guide. The Guide is meant to be used as an aid and should not be copied. Your Proposal Form must be written in your own words and reflect the work that you anticipate completing during your internship.

For more information, please consult the Application Procedures and Form guidelines.

The University of Ottawa Office of the Chief Risk Officerand the Faculty of Law have prepared the Agreement for Experiential Learning Internship. The internship supervisor or a representative of the organization or of the firm must sign the Agreement. The student must then submit the executed Agreement with the Student-Proposed Internship application on Brightspace by the application deadline. When organizing your internship, please make sure to present the Agreement to the potential supervisor as soon as possible. The internship will not be approved without the signed Agreement. As well, keep in mind that some organizations or government departments will request more time to review the Agreement internally and potentially propose amendments to the Faculty. This process can take some time. We encourage students to organize their internships ahead of the Faculty’s internal application deadlines especially if applying with an employer that may need more time to review the Agreement. If the employer and the Faculty are still in discussions, the internship will not be approved. The student will have to consider completing the internship during a different semester after the Agreement has been finalized and executed.   

Your final report must be 7 pages in length, double spaced, including a cover page.  The final report is a self-reflective piece of writing and brief paper where you describe an experience and how it has changed you or helped you to grow. Self-reflective reports require students to reflect on their growth from specific experiences, projects or assignments, though others might require you to think about the impact of a specific event in your life. By describing your overall experience for readers, discussing your current strengths and weaknesses as they relate to the experience you wrote about and sharing your future plans for using this new information, you can paint a vivid picture of how you have grown and changed.

You might want to address a specific way an experience changed your attitudes or actions, a significant challenge you faced or things you would do differently if given a second chance. You might start by considered what your experience taught you and how it has changed you as a student or person. Specific details and anecdotes from the experience will help to clearly demonstrate your areas of growth.

Do not include your evaluation form or your timesheet as being part of your final self-reflective report.

The report must be submitted by the deadline, which is indicated on the Student-Proposed Internship web page.

Remember! This is the only written work (besides your initial proposal) that you will have to submit in order to gain 3 academic units. Therefore, you must approach this report with the same level of professionalism and seriousness as when preparing and submitting a class assignment or term paper. The Professional Development Counsellor may request modifications in order to improve your report if she is not satisfied with the quality of your work.  

Please consult your internship course syllabus for additional information. You will be required to submit all final internship documents together, by the specified deadline, through Brightspace.

The Student Guide - Student Proposed Internship (SPI) has been carefully prepared to provide comprehensive assistance with any questions you may have.  

You must submit a completed Supervisor Evaluation Form with your other required final documents. Your supervisor must complete the Form, and you both have to sign and date the Form.

Please note that the following deadlines are firm and that there is no possibility of extension for any of the internship terms. We thank you in advance for your cooperation in observing these deadlines.

However, the deadlines might be subject to review for the following reasons:

1. a request for an extension on the submission of the internship Application due to equity reasons;
2. a request for adaptive measures during the Student-Proposed Internship; or  
3. a request for an extension on the submission of the Final Report due to equity reasons.

A student that requires any of the above listed extensions or adaptive measures must contact Jessica Simon, Equity and Wellness Counsellor by sending an e-mail to [email protected]. The academic file of the student requesting any of the above listed extensions or adaptive measures will be reviewed in order to evaluate the specific needs of the student and make a final decision regarding granting an extension of time or providing adaptive measures. We strongly recommend that you contact us well in advance of any deadline that would be impossible to comply in order to allow us ample time to have your student file reviewed and implement any extension of time or adaptive measures.

It is the student’s sole responsibility to become familiar with their specific internship requirements. Late submission of documents will be subject to a penalty of 10% per day in line with Academic Regulation 9.4 "Penalty for Late Submission"; after a delay of 6 days students will receive a grade of "Non-Satisfactory".

No, this does not preclude you from having to submit your report, regardless of the work you accomplished during the internship.  Whether you prepared a thorough document such as a memorandum, a research paper or a report for your supervisor, you are required to submit to the Professional Development Counsellor a final report consisting of 7 pages in length, double spaced, including a cover page. The Career Development Centre cannot assess the type of work you accomplished without this report and the report provides a fair grading system in which all students are evaluated on equal grounds.  Furthermore, your self-assessment portion of the report is an important part of your own learning process.

The internship is graded on a “Satisfactory/Non-Satisfactory” basis. Therefore “Satisfactory” is one of two options and there are no options that go above and beyond “Satisfactory”.  You cannot receive a letter grade for your internship. 

Your grade is determined at the faculty (not by your supervisor), based on the content of your proposal along with your final report, the supervisor internship evaluation form, the Timesheet, the Course Evaluation, the Peer to Peer Survey (P2P), the CBA certificate - Mental Health and Wellness in the Legal Profession and the nature of your work accomplished, and the fact that you have completed 115 hours of supervised unpaid work.

What exactly does this statement mean?  What if they hire me once I’ve started or once I have completed my internship?

This means that you cannot do an internship with an organization or firm that has already offered you full-time or part-time work, a summer position or an articling position prior to you applying for the internship.  If you have accepted a job offer from an organization or firm to work part-time during the academic year, or as a summer student or an articling student, you cannot complete your internship there.  The rationale for not allowing you to do an internship in a work place where you already have a job lined up is to encourage you to gain as much practical law-related experience as possible in a variety of different work settings.  In addition, students cannot receive units for paid work.

An exception may be granted if the student intends to intern in a different department or with a different supervisor and will thus develop skills different from his past, present or future employment or volunteer experience. Please contact the Career Development Centre if this is your situation.

However, if the organization or firm you are interning at offers you a job during your internship or after you have completed your internship, that’s wonderful!  This is what we support, and it is one of the internship program’s objectives.  Students have the opportunity to meet and work alongside lawyers and professionals within the legal community and make connections that may assist them to secure a summer job or articling position.

Is there a maximum number of courses I can take throughout my law degree that are graded on the basis of Satisfactory/Non-Satisfactory (pass/fail)?

Currently, students are permitted to undertake two (2) Student-Proposed Internships in total.  Generally speaking, we encourage students to take no more than 3-4 S/NS courses throughout their law degree (this may include a Student-Proposed Internship or a School-Sponsored Internship).  If a student has too many S/NS courses and not enough courses with letter grades, it makes it difficult for future employers to evaluate the student’s academic strength.  You will want to have a sufficient amount of letter grades on your transcript to enable employers to evaluate your candidacy in applying for a summer job or an articling position.  However, on the other hand, it is advantageous to have internships or S/NS courses listed on your transcript as it may help strike up a conversation with future employers during an interview.  Employers might ask you to explain what these courses entailed which would give you the opportunity to elaborate on your internship experience and how it has benefited you and the invaluable contribution it made to your academic development.

If you are a second or third year student and you already have an articling position secured once you graduate, then the 3-4 S/NS course recommendation is less strict.  Your transcript may not be scrutinized as closely anymore; therefore, you can afford to accumulate another S/NS course.  However, if you do not have an articling job secured yet, it is recommended that you do not take more than 3-4 S/NS courses as mentioned above. 

No, there is no guarantee that your second internship will be approved. The second internship will only be approved if you show that you will be learning new skills and competencies in your second internship compared to your first one. This must be clearly indicated in your Internship Proposal Form.  

Students are encouraged to diversify their experiences and therefore complete internships in different organizations or law firms in order to learn different areas of the law, to obtain constructive feedback from various professionals, and to experience working in new work environments. 

It is not possible for you to complete an internship for only 2 units or 4 units. The requirement is to complete 115 hours of unpaid law-related work in order to receive 3 units only. There is no flexibility to do a 2 unit or 4 unit internship.

No, students are not permitted to have a family member act as their supervisor or work with a family member in his or her law firm. 

Yes, during the summer and the January term.  You are responsible for meeting any necessary requirements to comply with any relevant labour laws or visa requirements, and for covering any travel-related expenses.

Internship Abroad

Terms (January or Summer):

Students may only complete a Student-Proposed Internship (SPI) abroad during the summer or the January term. The number of hours to be completed is 115 hours.

For more information, please consult the Application Procedures and Form guidelines.

A student proposing to complete an internship abroad must comply with the following conditions set by the International Experience Office.

Please consult the Government of Canada - Visas, biometrics and electronic travel authorizations website.

For more information, please consult the Application Procedures and Form guidelines.

The units you accumulate while doing an internship during the summer are applied in either the fall term immediately following the summer or the winter term of that academic year.  The units cannot be allotted to the January term – you must actually undertake your internship during the January term in order for the units to count towards your January term.

Students are allowed to do two (2) separate internships for 3 units each over the summer. If a student chooses to complete two (2) Student-Proposed Internships over the summer, one will be applied to the following Fall term and one will be applied to the following Winter term.

No, not necessarily: students may do an internship in either a Common Law jurisdiction or a Civil Law jurisdiction.

It depends on how many English courses you have taken so far.  As a student enrolled in the French Common Law Program, you can only take 25% of your courses in English and the rest of your courses must be in French.  If you haven’t taken any English courses yet, you may do an internship in English.  Often internships will be conducted in both official languages.  In order to be considered an internship for French units, more than 51% of the work must be done in French while the correspondence and written documents must also be in French.

Students in the National Program must undertake an internship in a Common Law jurisdiction.  As indicated on the National Program website, National Program students are not permitted to enroll in Student-Proposed Internships and School-Sponsored Internships, except where, in the opinion of the Director of the National Program and the Professional Development Counsellor, the student can provide evidence that Common Law content exists in the internship.  The concern is not so much the geographical jurisdiction, but the substance of the internship.  For instance, an internship in Québec or in a Civil Law country would be acceptable if the internship consists of Common Law content (for example, an internship at the Canada Revenue Agency or an internship in Cameroon, Africa).

The Faculty will allow students to receive a stipend from their host organization or firm so long as it is not a salary and that it only covers costs that would not normally be incurred by a student (due to distance, for instance). Also, the stipend must be reasonably tied to the internship, ie: you are receiving the amount of money to help pay for your plane ticket or living expenses while living in the city/country you will be living in for the duration of the internship. Make sure to let the Professional Development Counsellor know in writing (an email will suffice) declaring the amount that you will be receiving and copy your supervisor on the email.

Yes, you can complete an internship if you are a part-time student; you do not have to be enrolled as a full-time student in order to do an internship.

All of the internship requirements will be available in your Brightspace – Virtual Campus account.

Brightspace – Virtual Campus will be the online resource to assist students as they take part in their internship. Log in and review all the important information. It is the student’s responsibility to make sure that they respect all deadlines as well as submit all of the required internship components to receive credit.

Please submit all your final internship documents simultaneously by the specified deadline through your Brightspace – Virtual Campus student account.

Yes.

Students must be enrolled in either the 2nd, 3rd or 4th year of a JD program and in good academic standing. Please consult the Academic Regulation – Rule 19: Passing.

All students must have a minimum cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 5.0 at the time of submitting the application package to the Student-Proposed Internship Program.

If you are considering dropping out of your a Student-Proposed Internship (SPI), you are required to discuss the situation with the Professional Development Counsellor and/or the Common Law Student Centre prior to taking this action.

Once the internship has been confirmed and finalized, the regular add-drop rules no longer apply (the student cannot withdraw from the internship).

Yes.

The importance of preserving your documents for your own personal records.

The Career Development Centre recommends that you keep a copy of your Student- Proposed Internship documents for the management and preparation of your personal files and recruitment process for your future employers.

Recommended documents:

• your internship proposal form (signed by you and your supervisor)
• your final report
• your internship evaluation form (signed by you and completed and signed by your supervisor)
• your time sheet
• your Mental Health and Wellness in the Legal Profession certificate
• your official transcript
• organize your letters of reference  (if applicable)  
• prepare other documents and applications (if applicable)