Guarini Externship - Global Legal Practice in Digital Society and Advanced Guarini Externship - Global Legal Practice in Digital Society

Externship Overview

Digital technologies operate globally, under complex and often incomplete patchworks of legal regulation, and special skills are required of effective and creative lawyers in these contexts. This externship program helps students hone such skills while making innovative contributions.

Territorial boundaries and distinctions between domestic and international, private and public, technical and political are increasingly blurred by digital interconnectivity, proliferation and collection of data, the intertwining of transnational technology companies with multiple and divergent public domains, and creation of digitally and physically inter-connected spaces and places that facilitate flows of funds, goods, services, and information with consequences extending from the marvelous to the pernicious. Technological innovations such as artificial intelligence and blockchain are pioneered by private actors but also used increasingly by public and inter-governmental bodies. Technologies are in some cases used to innovate in local contexts, to be subsequently scaled up or transplanted; in other cases they arrive from outside and may radically change local circumstances with little preparation or planning or voice. Work on the legal and policy implications of this ‘New Global’ requires cross-disciplinary awareness and multivalent and global perspectives.  

NYU Law School now offers a wide set of courses and programs addressing ways in which proliferation of data, increasing digitization, growth of information economies, changing modes of communication and rapid development of computational tools are transforming the ways in which we study and practice law. This externship enables students to explore and in modest ways influence the global aspects of these transformations.

International organizations have been experimenting with leveraging technological innovations, such as blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence, to address a variety of problems, including human trafficking, delivery of medicine, refugee assistance, closing education gaps, securing land rights, among others. At the same time, lawyers within these organizations are confronted by legal, regulatory and compliance challenges accompanying these activities. The increasingly wide-ranging use of emerging technologies raise questions about data ownership, permissible use, jurisdiction, privacy, ethics, and liability, among others. Often, these questions are not readily addressed by the existing legal and regulatory frameworks. In many instances, standards and practices are shaped and re-shaped by large technology corporations, as well as by interactions between international and national public and private regulatory regimes. As international organizations (as well as their member states) are increasingly partnering with private actors in provision of public services, lawyers in both private and public sectors must also grapple the changing nature of state and international organizations’ responsibility and accountability.

Through a combination of a seminar and a practicum, the Guarini Global Legal Practice in Digital Society Externship offers students an opportunity to develop a set of skills required to address complex global problems and prepare them for challenges and opportunities that technology innovation holds for laws and legal practice. The externship may be of particular interest to students whose interests intersect the fields of law, technology and transnational legal practice, whether in pursuit of private practice or public interest careers, students who aspire to a non-traditional career path (particularly in law and development, humanitarian and human rights fields) that requires knowledge of emerging technologies in addition to grounding in legal training, students interested in working at international organizations, and students who are interested in legal innovation and legal tech entrepreneurial ventures.   

Fieldwork

In 2024, the primary fieldwork site for most students will be the Global Law & Tech initiative of the Guarini Institute for Global Legal Studies. In addition, two to three students will work directly with attorneys at Access Now, a network-based NGO working on wide range of issues at the intersection of human rights and technology.

in 2024, students placed with the Global Law & Tech initiative will focus on legal and policy issues relating to the use of digital data and artificial intelligence by international organizations. Students will be assigned an international organization (IO) and will work with Professor Fisher to identify how the organization engages with digital data and/or artificial intelligence technologies, what are data sources, how data is being generated or accessed, what is the organizational structure within the IO that is involved in data production, processing, and use, and/or in building and training of artificial intelligence models; and what challenges and uncertainties the IO is facing in its engagement with data or artificial intelligence technologies.  This will involve desk research and structured interviews. In some instances, travel to the IO might be possible. Drawing on insights from global data law, students will engage with attorneys and other staff at the IO to develop legal and policy analysis addressing some of the priority challenges.

Students working with Access Now could be placed with the organization’s institutional counsel, the UN advocacy team, and/or with staff working in the intersection of humanitarian law and technology.  Students should expect to conduct research on a wide range of legal and policy issues, participate in meetings with organization’s partner organizations, prepare legal and policy memoranda, present on legal and policy issues to Access Now staff, and draft blogs and other forms of written communication.

Application Procedure

Students interested in applying for the clinic should submit an application, resume, and transcript using CAMS, the online application system. Applicants will be contacted to schedule an interview.

Preference will be given to candidates who have demonstrated interest in, knowledge of, or working experience with, digital data, data analytics, digital product development, earth observation technologies, or artificial intelligence technologies.  However, if you have no familiarity with digital data and technologies, but are very motivated to learn all about them, including the technical aspects, you should still apply!

Placement with Access Now is subject to the approval by Access Now.

Please note there is a separate application form for LL.M.s. The deadline is different from that for JDs and is posted on the Clinic Application Timelines page. The same criteria for selection will apply to LLMs as to JDs.

Upon consultation with students and taking into account feedback from project partners, students may have the opportunity to enroll in the Advanced Guarini Externship in the Spring 2025.

If you have questions regarding the externship, please email Angelina Fisher.

Student Contacts

Laura Winninger, LLM (humanitarian law & tech) (Access Now)
Elena Xiao, JD (in-house counsel) (Access Now)
Marina Garrote, LLM (UN advocacy) (Access Now)

* 4 credits include 2 clinical credits for the externship and 2 academic seminar credits for the Fall.

* 3 credits include 2 clinical credits for the externship and 1 academic seminar credit for the Spring.