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Lava Lava Law: Law student "externs" in American Samoa By Kyna Taylor - 19 Mar 2008 By KYNA TAYLOR Flip flops and a lava lava, and on Fridays, a flowered shirt, were just one part of the job that John C. Boyle III enjoyed during his two-month stay in American Samoa. Getting off work and driving to the beach to play in the sand and waves with the sea turtles was another pleasant memory for him, but it wasn't the best part, he said. The combined effect of getting all kinds of practical legal experience on a beautiful tropical island was his favorite. "While working on the drug trial we got to see the guy get convicted," Boyle said, who is a second-year law student said. "I got to see some of the fruits of what I'd been working on." While on an externship sponsored by the J. Reuben Clark Law School in American Samoa, Boyle put into practice many of the things that he had been learning in the classroom and see them come to fruition in the real world. The motions that Boyle wrote were actually turned into the judge, not just practice. The witnesses he helped prepare really were going to trial. During the trials he was able to go into the judge's chambers and observe the interaction between the defense and the prosecution. These and other opportunities that this student was able to experience are not unique among BYU law students. The Law school's externship program has been operating for 16 years helping place students in various positions in private practice, government departments and courts. Externships are available to students after their first year of law school. There is no pre-law undergraduate program and so externship programs provide students with the possibility to see the many options that a law degree provides just like an internship does for undergraduate programs. The J. Reuben Clark Law School has the highest externship participation rate in the country, according to a study by Stephens L Richards law professor, Jim Backman. "Experimental learning is one of the best ways we learn, it is very motivating and confidence building," Backman said. "Students in externships are given good assignments; they do a lot of research, a lot of writing and get a lot of practice in their externship placement specialty." A student participating in an externship can do many things that they wouldn't be able to do in a paid internship because they can ask to do things that interest the, according to Backman. Students have the option of following an attorney into court or working on