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I am considering an internship that would require more than 20 hours per week for next semester. I could feasibly make this work by taking night or Friday classes. I know the ABA recommends only 20 hours per week, but is there a tangible problem with doing this (i.e., could my school sanction me or stop me from doing this)?

I am glad that you provided the most important details that anyone needs in answering your question.

Your school won't try to lower its own "% students employed" reporting. Not in this climate. My school didn't.

As someone who works more than 20 hours a week and is a full-time student, I don’t think you will have a problem. In fact, I don’t think your school will even know. My school had no idea until I told an academic advisor. She did not care at all. You should think about whether it is smart to work over 20 hours a week as a full-time law student, however. It is hard. 20 hours does not seem like a lot, but it is when you are in law school. I have a girlfriend and other obligations and sometimes law school takes a backseat to other priorities of mine. I would not consider it unless you are going to be paid and paid well (at least $15 an hour, I’m doing it for $27 and would not suggest doing it for less then $20).

Anonymous User wrote:I am considering an internship that would require more than 20 hours per week for next semester. I could feasibly make this work by taking night or Friday classes. I know the ABA recommends only 20 hours per week, but is there a tangible problem with doing this (i.e., could my school sanction me or stop me from doing this)?

What year in law school are you? If 1L, do not do it (grades). If 2L/3L, do you already have an SA/full time offer lined up? Could this internship turn into a full time gig after law school?

I'm pretty sure the 20 hour cap is a firm rule and not a recommendation (although I'm not 100% sure). My school is very big on it--they make you sign a statement at the beginning of each school year that you will not work more than 20 hours per week, which obviously could have C&F implications if you purposefully violated it and they found out (although I don't know how they would). Is this a legal internship? If you're not getting paid, could you just try to get credit for it and obviate this whole issue?

In retrospect, I would have worked all throughout 2L and 3L.

OP here. To Pokemon: nice snark, but I did provide all the relevant details. Whether I am 2L/3L, what school I'm at, what my class rank is, where the job would be, etc., are all irrelevant. All I want to know is whether this would cause tangible problems, which would be the same regardless of the answers to the questions I've listed. What I wanted was to know if there would be issues like the potential C&F problems brought up by zomginternets. My school does not make me sign a statement saying I won't work more than 20 hours per week, I just know that it's a general recommendation. Therefore, I don't think it would implicate C&F issues in the way you imagine zomginternets.

So what I'm gathering is that regardless of whether it's a good idea, it's not something that'll cause me tangible harm. Right?

ABA Standard 304(f): "A student may not be employed more than 20 hours per week in any week in which the student is enrolled in more than twelve class hours."

This goes to whether the school gets ABA accreditation, which is why a school might care (i.e. it's an ABA rule, but it's up to the school to enforce). No one here knows whether your school cares about this kind of thing or not, but I think people do it all the time, if they know their school won't find out. I'm not sure what exactly a school would/could do if it did find out, but if they could bring some kind of disciplinary thing, that would be a hassle and potential C&F issue (even if you don't sign a form saying you won't do it). I also suspect that if you're doing a legal internship in your school's market, there's a reasonable possibility it would be discovered (but again, we can't know that as well as you can). I'm with the suggestion to do the internship for credit.

OP again. I can't get credit for the legal internship due to annoying school rules. Trust me, I've looked into it. If I'm reading the ABA standard correctly, however, I could work more than 20 hours per week if I am enrolled in only twelve credit hours. Correct?

What an extraordinarily stupid rule.

OP: I know several people who worked for a firm "part-time" during the school year. The job almost always ended up being more than 20 hours. Nobody cared.

timbs4339 wrote:What an extraordinarily stupid rule.

OP: I know several people who worked for a firm "part-time" during the school year. The job almost always ended up being more than 20 hours. Nobody cared.

Good to know! Thanks!

Go for it OP. Nobody will know unless you specifically make a point to tell them, and even then they won't care. Not like people put on their resumes how many hours per week they work next to the positions. That's just for school applications.