Cecily Banks

Cecily Banks

Director, Corporate Counsel Externship Program

Senior Lecturer

BA, Sweet Briar College
JD, University of Virginia School of Law


Biography


Cecily Banks is a lecturer and director of the School of Law’s Corporate Counsel Externship Program. Banks joined the faculty in 2017 to launch the law school’s externship program devoted to corporate counsel placements.  Through this program, BU law students train for academic credit in the in-house legal offices of corporations in Boston and beyond.  Banks teaches a connected seminar on the modern role of in-house counsel and on professional development through practice.  Banks will also teach Contract Drafting as part of the law school’s Transactional Law Program.

Banks comes to this role after 15 years as a faculty member at Roger Williams University School of Law in Bristol, Rhode Island. While there, she created, launched and directed the law school’s first Corporate Counsel Clinical Externship Program and oversaw its growth through generous training partnerships with corporate counsel and through increasing student demand for these experiences.  She also served as a Professor of Experiential Education and taught Contract Drafting and Transactional Lawyering, teaching students the foundations on how to draft, negotiate and analyze business contracts and on how to represent business clients.  To enrich the law school’s transactional skills curriculum, Banks also created a number of programs, including a transactional law speaker series and a “business for lawyers” workshop. In addition, Banks taught as a Professor of Legal Practice, immersed in the first-year legal writing, research, and advocacy curriculum.

Prior to Banks’s law faculty positions, Banks represented business and corporate clients as an attorney in the Litigation Practice Group of the law firm of Hinckley Allen, in both its Providence and Boston offices.  Prior to that, Banks represented business and corporate clients at the law firm of Richards, McGettigan, Reilly & West in Alexandria, Virginia, in commercial litigation matters in the state and federal courts in Virginia, as well as in establishing business entities, and negotiating and advising on commercial leases, all in a wide variety of industries.

Banks is a long-time volunteer to support the social justice and public interest missions of legal education and within the practice of law.

Activities & Engagements

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Courses

Contract Drafting: LAW JD 788

3 credits

This course is the foundational skills course within the Transactional Law Program. It teaches students basic principles and skills of drafting and analyzing commercial and transaction agreements, with a focus on recognizing, and addressing through contractual provisions, key business issues in transactions. Although the course will be of particular interest to students interested in a corporate or transactional law practice, since most practicing attorneys will need to work with contracts at some point in their career, the concepts and skills which the course conveys are applicable to virtually all practice areas and specialties. While the course utilizes lectures to introduce various contract concepts and techniques essential for drafting and reviewing commercial and transaction agreements, it also requires that students complete both in-class exercises and out-of-class assignments as a means of building basic drafting skills and a solid understanding of the structure and operation of contractual provisions in a business transaction. The course also considers various ethical issues that may arise in the contract drafting and review process and in transactional practice generally. Grades will be based on class participation and graded drafting assignments. CLASS SIZE: 12 students. UPPER-CLASS WRITING REQUIREMENT/EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING REQUIREMENT: This course is a designated Professional Writing Course which may be used to partially satisfy the Upper-Class Writing Requirement (with a grade of B or higher) or the 6-credit Experiential Learning Requirement, but not both. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option. ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENT: A student who fails to attend the first class or to obtain permission to be absent from either the instructor or the Registrar will be administratively dropped from the course. Students who are on the wait list are required to attend the first class to be considered for enrollment. Because the course involves regular in-class exercises, some of which are done in teams, and class participation is a significant component of a student's final grade, regular class attendance is essential and thus the course cannot accommodate flexibility in attendance.

FALL 2025: LAW JD 788 A1 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue 4:20 pm 6:20 pm 3 John F. Cohan
FALL 2025: LAW JD 788 B1 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Wed 8:30 am 10:30 am 3 Yael D. DeCapo
FALL 2025: LAW JD 788 C1 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
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Wed 6:30 pm 8:30 pm 3 Bill Lundregan
FALL 2025: LAW JD 788 D1 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
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Thu 10:40 am 12:40 pm 3 Cecily Banks
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 788 A2 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
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Tue 8:30 am 10:30 am 3 Elizabeth Brody Gluck
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 788 B2 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue 4:20 pm 6:20 pm 3 John F. Cohan
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 788 C2 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Wed 4:20 pm 6:20 pm 3 Bill Lundregan
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 788 D2 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Thu 10:40 am 12:40 pm 3 Cecily BanksHaefner

Corporate Counsel Externship: Fieldwork: LAW JD 954

Var credits

This CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have received permission from the Clinical and Experiential Programs Office to enroll. This is the companion fieldwork component for students enrolled in the Corporate Counsel Externship: Seminar. Students will work at legal offices of for-profit and nonprofit companies in unpaid or paid placements. Students will receive 3-9 variable P/F credits for working at their placements. Each credit requires 50 hours of work over the course of the 13-week semester (averaging 4 hours per week). COREQUISITE: Corporate Counsel Externship Seminar (JD 896). NOTE: Students who enroll in this externship may count the credits towards the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement.

FALL 2025: LAW JD 954 A1 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Cecily Banks
FALL 2025: LAW JD 954 A2 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Cecily Banks
FALL 2025: LAW JD 954 A3 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Cecily Banks
FALL 2025: LAW JD 954 A4 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Cecily Banks
FALL 2025: LAW JD 954 A5 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Cecily Banks
FALL 2025: LAW JD 954 A6 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Cecily Banks
FALL 2025: LAW JD 954 A7 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Cecily Banks
FALL 2025: LAW JD 954 AA , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
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ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 954 B1 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
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ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Kate Devlin Joyce
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 954 B2 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Kate Devlin Joyce
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 954 B3 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Kate Devlin Joyce
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 954 B4 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Kate Devlin Joyce
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 954 B5 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Kate Devlin Joyce
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 954 B6 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Kate Devlin Joyce
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 954 B7 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var Kate Devlin Joyce
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 954 BB , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
ARR 12:00 am 12:00 am Var

Corporate Counsel Externship: Seminar: LAW JD 896

2 credits

This CLASS IS RESTRICTED to students who have received permission from the Clinical and Experiential Programs Office to enroll. This is a 2-credit graded seminar for those students doing fieldwork in Corporate Counsel offices that meets every week for 1.5 hours. The seminar will cover a range of topics and competencies essential to the day-to-day role of a lawyer in the corporate counsel offices of for-profit and nonprofit companies, such as: understanding the modern and future role of corporate counsel offices, on a global scale; exercising executive leadership; representing a business entity through its constituents; becoming both a trusted legal advisor and strategic business partner to the corporate client; upholding confidentiality and ethical standards; learning the client's business; understanding the role of regulatory compliance; communicating effectively in a business setting; managing priorities and crises; collaborating with multi-disciplined teams; and solving problems with workable solutions that enable the client's objectives. To maximize the students' growth over the semester, the seminar will also teach students how lawyers learn from practice, build strong supervisory and mentorship relationships, build cultural competence, reflect and self-assess, and set and measure progress on professional development goals. Students will write reflective papers, make oral presentations, and complete other work as required by the instructor. COREQUISITE: Corporate Counsel Externship Fieldwork (JD 954). NOTE: Students who enroll in this externship may count the credits towards the 6 credit Experiential Learning requirement.

FALL 2025: LAW JD 896 A1 , Sep 2nd to Dec 19th 2025
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue 4:45 pm 6:15 pm 2 Cecily Banks
SPRG 2026: LAW JD 896 B1 , Jan 12th to May 8th 2026
Days Start End Credits Instructors Bldg Room
Tue 4:45 pm 6:15 pm 2 Cecily Banks