Some courts allow law students to act as "attorneys" after the satisfactory ending of their first year of law school and the conclusion of particular second- and third-year courses with subjects such as evidence. Clinical legal education programs allow law students to provide lawful help to persons and groups usually too poor to hire lawyers. Law school clinic students learn how to practice law and solve client problems while providing access to the courts for those in need.
Bar leaders and judges also support clinical legal education because it is one of the most effective ways of teaching law students lawyering skills and the values of the legal profession.
Clinical legal education is experimental learning. Many educators believe that experimental learning is one of the most effective means of adult learning, and this is particularly true for learning most professions.
Law student’s interview clients and witnesses to gather facts, study client problems and offer legal advice, perform lawful research and plan legal pleadings and documents, conduct business work for clients, and do most of the legal work on client cases.
 Externship is the second type of live-client clinical course, the students work in offices outside of the law school that are run by others. In these courses, law students work with lawyers in different law offices and do many of the same types of legal work as do students taking in-house clinical courses. A main difference between most in-house clinical programs and some externship programs is that fewer students in externship programs have limited licenses to practice law and therefore represent clients in court.
Students in externships usually work in legal assistance and public defender offices, prosecutors' offices, and other law offices providing services to the poor or representing the government. Students have the opportunity to work as judicial clerks under the supervision of judges in some private law offices and judicial externship programs. Law Faculty usually have lessons to discuss questions arising out of the externship practice experiences and guarantee that the lawyers and judges are providing quality supervision to law students working with them.
| 
