Batavia High School · Work-Based Learning
Exploring — and developing — the next generation of legal professionals.
We're looking for attorneys, paralegals, courts, and legal-adjacent employers in the Tri-Cities willing to let a Batavia student see the real thing.
Why this pathway
Ask a high school student what a lawyer does, and you'll get a scene from television.
The students who know better are almost always the ones whose parents already practice. They've been in the office. They've heard the dinner-table version of a bad deposition. Everyone else is choosing a college major, and years of their life, based on a guess.
We can place students in health care, manufacturing, IT, finance, and the trades. Law is the hardest field in our program to open — and for a defensible reason. Confidentiality makes attorneys cautious about outsiders in the office. That caution is professionally correct.
But the result is a profession that stays open mostly to the students who were already connected to it. This page is our attempt to fix that without asking a single attorney to compromise their obligations.
Introducing us
Not a district office. Not a form letter. Two coordinators who place every student by hand, know each one personally, and answer their own phones.
What the program already is
7
Career clusters running
Health, IT, finance, manufacturing, agriculture, arts & communication, and human & public services — where law lives.
60+
Hours per placement, minimum
One semester, roughly 2–6 hours a week, scheduled entirely around your calendar.
4
Signatures before day one
Student, parent or guardian, you, and BHS. No student starts a placement without all four. No exceptions.
0
Paperwork on your desk
Liability documentation, agreements, and school-side compliance are handled by BPS 101.
Before any student reaches your door, they've completed a career-readiness bootcamp at BHS — resume, interview practice, workplace ethics, professional communication, and a set of ten employability skills we coach against all semester. They arrive prepared, and they keep being coached after they arrive.
The real objection
It's the first thing you thought of, and it's the reason most attorneys decline. We'd rather answer it plainly than have it sit unspoken.
Every student signs a confidentiality agreement
Before day one — and it's reviewed with the student and their parent or guardian, not just handed over for a signature. They understand what they're agreeing to.
You draw the line, and we write it down
Many legal placements involve no client file access at all. That is a completely acceptable placement — not a watered-down one. We document the boundary in the scope conversation so there's no ambiguity six weeks in.
We know Rule 5.3 puts the responsibility on you
Our job is to keep that responsibility small, bounded, and documented — not to hand you a liability and walk away. If your malpractice carrier or firm policy has requirements, tell us and we'll meet them.
You meet the student before day one
A short conversation, in person or on video. If the fit feels wrong at that point, we place them elsewhere and nobody is offended. We'd much rather learn that on day zero than in week six.
You can end it at any time, for any reason
No explanation owed, no awkwardness, no damaged relationship with the school. We would genuinely rather you stop than stay in something that isn't working.
In practice
Six shapes a legal placement can take. Most firms combine two or three. None of them require you to expose privileged material.
Observing open court proceedings
Public record, zero privilege concern, and often the single most clarifying day a student can have. Some decide immediately that this is the work. Some decide it isn't — which is just as valuable.
Shadowing a paralegal or legal assistant
Frequently the best entry point in the whole pathway. It also shows students the legal careers that don't require law school — something almost none of them know exists.
Non-privileged document work
Organization, indexing, exhibit prep, closing packets — supervised, and scoped by you. Real contribution without touching anything sensitive.
Learning the business of a practice
Intake flow, calendaring, billing, client communication, how a firm actually stays open. Students think law is arguments. It's mostly operations, and that's worth knowing at seventeen.
Introductory legal research
Public case law and statutes, with a working professional explaining how the reasoning actually holds together. This is the part that hooks the students who are built for it.
Closings, depositions, or client meetings
Only where you and your client choose to allow it. Entirely optional, and no placement depends on it.
Breadth
Most students only know the first one on this list. Half of these are strong, stable careers reachable without law school.
A student cannot choose a path they've never heard of. Simply putting a name to the work is part of what a placement does.
If a semester is too much
A semester is a real commitment and it isn't right for every practice. Any one of these still matters enormously to a seventeen-year-old.
One morning
Job Shadow
A student follows you for a few hours — court call, closings, whatever the day happens to hold.
One hour
Guest Speaker
How you got into law, what you actually do all day, and what you'd tell a student who thinks they want your job. In person or on video.
Twenty minutes
Mock Interview
Sit on a panel at BHS and give a student honest, professional feedback. We run these every semester.
Occasional
Mentor / Advisor
Guidance and project feedback for a career class, on whatever schedule works for you.
For a student who has never met a lawyer, one honest conversation can settle a question they've been guessing at for years — including “this isn't for me,” which is an equally valuable answer.
Next step
The interest form takes two minutes and commits you to nothing. We'll follow up within two school days, and a fifteen-minute conversation costs you nothing but fifteen minutes.
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What happens after you reach out
A 15-minute scope conversation. We agree on what the student will and won't do, and what they can and cannot see. You set all of it.
Schedule around your calendar. 2–6 hours a week, worked around court call, closings, or your busy season.
Paperwork — ours, not yours. Four signatures required before day one. Confidentiality agreement signed at the same time.
You meet the student. Before day one. No-fault exit if the fit isn't right.
Ongoing check-ins. A BHS staff member stays involved. You should never have to manage a problem alone.