The Center for Tax Law and Employee Benefits offers a student externship program with the PSCA (Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America). The PSCA is a national, non-profit association of 1,200 companies and their 4.5 million plan participants, created to inform, educate and support federal policymakers, third party administrators, and plan sponsors. In exchange for work assignments with the PSCA, students will earn law school credit (either 3 or 4 hours). The purpose of the PSCA externship is to provide employee benefits students with a blend of theory and practice of law that would assist them in their later practice of law. One of the Employee Benefits Advisory Board members, David Wray, is President of PSCA and an attorney, in the PSCA Chicago office and willing to supervise our students during as semester externship.

Details of this PSCA externship program include:

(1) It is supervised by Professor Kathryn Kennedy, a full-time faculty member (referred to as the program director) in conjunction with David Wray, President of PSCA, in its Chicago Office.

(2) Students in the PSCA externship program will receive a copy of the Student Handbook prepared by the school’s Clinical Externship Program and must abide by its requirements. Students are required to keep a journal regarding the types of projects engaged in, to be submitted to the program director at the conclusion of the semester.

(3) Students interested in applying to the program must have taken Fundamentals I and II courses (EB 361 and EB 362) and be enrolled as a candidate for a joint degree or LL.M. degree program in employee benefits. Students with a quantitative undergraduate degree (e.g., accounting, math, finance) are preferred. Students must be in good academic standing in order to apply. The PSCA requires students to forward a copy of the student’s law school transcript, a writing sample, and three professional recommendations. Interviews will then be scheduled with David Wray before he selects a qualified extern.

(4) An initial on-site visit will be conducted by the Program Director prior to selecting the first Extern. On-going visits will be made on as-need basis; the program director will be in email or phone contact with Mr. Wray.

(5) The classroom component consists of meeting with the program director weekly or every other week to update him/her on the student’s progress in the program. Other educational experiences consist of assisting PSCA attorneys on current employee benefits issues and in their preparation of legislative and regulatory advice.

(6) Summaries of the students’ assignments will be placed in the student’s file. At the conclusion of the semester, the student’s PSCA supervisor will prepare a formal written evaluation (sample copy attached) of the student’s proficiencies and deficiencies in legal skills and general traits, to be placed in the student’s file.

(7) Each extern is assigned to a PSCA supervising attorney, who is responsible for the extern’s orientation; verification of hours worked; introduction to other PSCA attorneys, paralegals and clerical/administrative staff; assignment of work; and final evaluating of performance (listing of responsibilities attached).

(8) Formal written evaluation of the student’s performance is made at the end of each summer and forwarded to the program director. Students also must meet with the program director for an exit interview to assess the student’s extern experience. Copies of the student’s formal evaluation and the results of the exit interview are kept in the student’s file.

(9) Students are expected to be afforded a variety of writing experiences (e.g., memorandum, client letters, and policy guidelines) in their assignments.

(10) Students are required to complete 150 hours per summer for 3-semester hours of school credit, or 200 hours per summer for 4-semester hours of school credit.

(11) The number of students participating in the PSCA externship will vary depending on the PSCA’s needs. We expect one student for the fall of 2007.

(12) List of current field placement supervisor with addresses and phone numbers:

David Wray

President, PSCA

20 N. Wacker Dr., Suite 3700

Chicago, IL 60606

312.419.1863

(13) The educational objectives of this externship are as follows: to provide students with practical experience in a specialized area of employee benefits law by becoming thoroughly familiar with the legal and policy implications of the PSCA employee benefits practice; to further develop research, writing and drafting skills; to learn practical lawyering skills of document review and application of law and policy.

(14) Program director will keep in phone contact with the applicable PSCA supervisor on a regular basis during the term of the externship, as well as periodic email/phone meetings with the student during the summer and a final exit interview. At the conclusion of each semester, the program director reports to the Dean and Professor Kandaras (director of the Clinical Education Program) by a written memorandum as to the results of the student’s experience.