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Erika Pont

An Old Truth for a New Era: Professional Identity Is Formed in Relationship

by Erika N. Pont, Associate Director, Fundamentals of Lawyering Program; Coordinator of the Dean’s Fellow Program; Associate Professor of Fundamentals of Lawyering
George Washington University Law School

I’m writing this on the flight home from the first annual Holloran Center Conference & Awards Dinner. As I reflect on the weekend, I keep returning to something I’ve been learning since I first connected with the Holloran Center in 2019: formation happens in relationships.

We often talk about professional identity formation as something that happens inside a person—reflection, judgment, values, purpose. Of course it does. But people are shaped by the people around them too. Mentors matter. Classmates matter. Faculty matter. Communities matter. Much of who we become is formed in conversation with other people.

We talked about that frequently this weekend. But more importantly, I experienced it first hand.

In the formal sessions and in the in-between moments, people challenged and supported my ideas, sharpened my thinking, and offered kindness that meant more than they likely knew. More than that, I learned about people’s children, grandchildren, favorite music, travel plans, and beloved pets—all the ordinary details that make up a life. That kind of connection does not weaken serious work. It creates the trust and ease in which the best work happens and the sharpest ideas emerge.

What the Holloran Center has built is more than a conference or network. In the language associated with Professors Neil Hamilton and Jerry Organ, it is a community of care: a place where people are challenged and supported all at once. Mostly, it is a place where people can be seen as whole humans, not only as academics. That is rarer than it should be and especially important now.

In 2023, the Surgeon General warned of a new kind of public health crisis– an “Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” ^[1] Three years later, many students are coming of age in environments where connection is easier to simulate and harder to practice. They can outsource first drafts to AI, stay socially “connected” online, and move through school needing less from other people. But some important skills are developed only by depending on other people. Empathy, trust, collaboration, and asking for help are skills. And like any skills, they atrophy when underused.

Law has always been a deeply relational profession. Clients need people they trust. Colleagues need one another. Mentors shape careers. Reputation grows slowly. Relationships also sustain us when work and life get (inevitably) hard.

Legal education has something to learn from what the Holloran Center has built. As we all know, formation does not happen only through coursework or solitary reflection. It is cultivated through culture, community, and relationships over time.

If we are serious about well-being and professional identity formation, relationship-building deserves intentional design.

That means more than teaching students to “network.” It means helping them practice the ordinary habits on which good relationships actually depend: curiosity, reliability, generosity, vulnerability, collaboration, gratitude, and knowing when to ask for help. It also means building schools and programs where connection is possible and nurtured, not just discussed.

I’m heading home reminded that this work matters. Now, perhaps more than ever, our students need places where they can grow, be challenged, be supported, and be known.

So do we.

^[1] Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The US Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community, 2023, available at chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf (last accessed April 27, 2026).

Erika N. Pont is an Associate Professor & Acting Co-Director of the George Washington University Law School’s Fundamentals of Lawyering Program.

April 28, 2026 by hami3258

Jerome Organ

Law School Transfer Data and Professional Identity Formation

By: Jerry Organ, Bakken Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions, University of St. Thomas School of Law

This blog posting updates my blog postings over the last several years regarding what we know about the transfer market, for example 2024 and 2023. With the ABA’s posting of the 2025 Standard 509 Reports, we now have more than a decade of detailed transfer data from which to glean insights about the transfer market among law schools, which has been in decline for most of the last decade. This posting also includes a section on transfer “feeder schools” and some reflections on whether and how law schools might be providing opportunities for professional identity formation for their transfer students. In addition, it speaks briefly to how changes in federal lending might impact the transfer market this summer.

Numbers of Transfers and Percentage of Transfers Decline to the Lowest Levels in the Last Decade

As shown in Table 1 below, the number of transfer students received by law schools in 2025 decreased nearly 10% from 1194 to 1085, the smallest number of transfers in the last decade as well as the smallest percentage of transfer in the last decade, at 2.7%. Notably, these numbers/percentages are essentially half of where the transfer market was in 2014. Aside from slight bumps in 2017, 2020, and 2024, there has been a continuous gradual decline in transfers over the last several years – from nearly 2200 to less than 1100 and from 5.5% of first-years to 2.7%.

TABLE 1 – Number of Transfers and Percentage of Transfers from 2014-2025

Figure 2 shows this in graph form:

As noted in my previous blogs, I believe the consistent decline in transfers is directly related to the increase in scholarship assistance over the last decade, including the elimination of conditional scholarships at dozens of law schools, which has made the financial calculus associated with transferring much less attractive. (The ABA defines a “conditional scholarship” as any scholarship “the retention of which is dependent upon the student maintaining a minimum grade point average or class standing” other than good standing. The number of law schools with conditional scholarship dropped from roughly 140 in 2011 to fewer than 70 as of 2023.) If a student were going to be paying full tuition at a given law school either because they did not receive a scholarship or lost a conditional scholarship and could transfer to a much higher ranked law school in the region for only marginal additional cost (and perhaps without having to move), transferring might make sense. But if a student has to forego scholarship assistance and absorb significantly more financial cost to transfer, then staying at the student’s initial law school makes more sense.

In addition, with the dramatic improvement in employment outcomes across law schools generally, with 81% of May 2024 graduates landing full-time, long-term bar passage required positions, the likelihood of having significantly better employment prospects at a school to which one might transfer also seems less compelling.

Finally, with the change in federal direct lending under the Trump Administration, there may be another financial factor that functions to discourage transfers this coming summer. Under the federal lending rules presently being promulgated, the legacy provision for first-year law students who first borrowed prior to July 1, 2026, which allows them to remain under the prior direct lending regime rules will be lost if students transfer to another law school this summer or transfer or change programs at any time during their course work. For some subset of potential transfer students that shift might provide a sufficient financial disincentive to keep them from transferring. (I am grateful to Monica Konate at AccessLex Institute for this insight.)

SOME LAW SCHOOLS CONTINUE TO DOMINATE THE TRANSFER MARKET

Table 2 below lists the top 15 law schools participating in the transfer market in descending order in Summer 2022 (fall 2021 entering class), Summer 2023 (fall 2022 entering class), Summer 2024 (fall 2023 entering class), and Summer 2025 (fall 2024 entering class)

(Note that in Table 2, Table 4, and Table 5 the “repeat players” are bolded – those schools in the top 15 for all four years are in black, those schools in the top 15 for three of the four years are in blue.) Eight of the top 15 for 2025 have been on the list for taking in the largest number of transfers all four years: Columbia, George Mason, Georgetown, George Washington, Harvard, NYU, Northwestern, and UC Berkeley. Four others have been on the list for three of the four years: Arizona State, Florida, Florida International, and UCLA. Table 2 also shows that for 2025, the concentration of transfers in the top 15 law schools for transfers exceeded 50%, the highest percentage over the last four years.

TABLE 2 – Largest Law Schools by Number of Transfers from 2022-2025

As shown in Table 3 below, if we focus just on the top ten law schools for transfers in, the total number of transfers is 463 – 43% of all transfers – the highest percentage in the last decade.

TABLE 3 – Totals for Top Ten Law Schools for Transfers In as a Percentage of All Transfers for 2014-2025

In terms of law schools with the highest percentage of transfers in as a percentage of their previous year’s first-year class, as shown below in Table 4, seven law schools have been on the list each of the last four years – Florida State, George Mason, Georgetown, George Washington, Harvard, NYU, and Northwestern. Six law schools have been on the list three times in the last four years – Columbia, Florida, Florida Int’l, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Vanderbilt. The number of law schools welcoming transfers representing 20% or more of their first-year class has fallen from nine in 2013 (not shown), to only one in 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.

TABLE 4 – Largest Law Schools by Transfers as a Percentage of Previous First-Year Class – 2022-2025

It is also worth noting that in addition to having some regular “players” in the transfer market, there are a large number of law schools that are not meaningful participants in the transfer market. On average over the three years from 2023-2025, over half of ABA-accredited law schools (103) had two or fewer transfers in, while over 20% (42) had no transfers at all.

TRANSFER FEEDER SCHOOLS

There also are some law schools that appear consistently in the list of top feeder schools for transfers as shown below in Table 5. These fifteen schools have been responsible for roughly 25-30% of transfer students in each of the last four years.

TABLE 5 – Largest Law Schools by Transfers Out for 2022-2025

Five law schools have been on the list of top transfer out law schools in each of the last four years – American University, Brooklyn Law School, George Washington University, University of California College of the Law, San Francisco, and the University of Maryland. There are two additional law schools on the list in three of the last four years: Nova Southeastern and University of Miami.

Notably, one of these schools – George Washington University – shows up on both the transfer out in Table 5 and the transfer in list above in Table 2. They are losing students to higher-ranked law schools and then back-filling with their own transfers from lower-ranked schools.

NATIONAL AND REGIONAL MARKETS –

Starting in December 2014, the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar began collecting and requiring law schools with 12 or more transfers in to report not only the number of students who have transferred in, but also the law schools from which they came (indicating the number from each law school). In addition, the law schools with 12 or more transfers in had to report the 75%, 50% and 25% first-year law school GPAs of the students who transferred in. This allows one to look at where students are coming from and are going to, as well as the first-year GPA profile of students transferring in to different law schools.

Table 6 below focuses on the eight law schools in Table 2 that have been among the top 15 in terms of number of transfers in for each of the last four years, presented in descending U.S. News & World Report (U.S. News) rank. Table 6 indicates the extent to which these seven law schools were attracting transfers from the geographic region in which they are located and highlights that the transfer market, to some extent, is a set of regional sub-markets.

TABLE 6 – Percentage of Transfers from Within Geographic Region 2023-2024-2025 and Top Feeder School for 2025 at Each of the Eight Law Schools among the Top 15 for Transfers In for 2023, 2024, and 2025

Six of the eight law schools had at least 48% of their transfers from the region in which they were located in 2025, with UC Berkeley having at least 83% of their transfers from the geographic region within which the law school is located for the last three years. On the other hand, Harvard is the only law school to have 35% or fewer transfers from its own region all three years, while NYU is the only other law school to have less than half of its transfers from its own region all three years.

When one looks at the transfer out schools in Table 5 in comparison with the transfer in schools in Table 2, one can see some of the regional realities. In the Mid-Atlantic, American and George Washington, were the primary transfer feeder schools for Georgetown in 2025, with George Washington and George Mason receiving a number of transfers from American as well. In California, the University of California College of Law San Francisco, is the major transfer feeder school for the University of California Berkeley, whileUC Irvine, Loyola Marymount and Pepperdine were the primary feeder schools for University of California Los Angeles in 2025. George Washington in the Mid-Atlantic region, Fordham in the Northeast, and Loyola Marymount and UC Davis are the unique players in their respective regions as they tend to lose a significant number of transfers and also accept a significant number of transfers

Table 6 also identifies the law school that provided the largest number of transfers to each listed law school in 2025, as well as the percentage of transfers that came from that school. Four of the eight law schools had a significant percentage (more than 20%) of their 2025 transfers in from one feeder school – UC Berkeley with 36% from UC San Francisco, George Washington and Georgetown, with 33% and 24% of their transfers coming from American; and Northwestern with 21% of its transfers from Loyola Chicago.

Notably, six of the eight law schools that have been the most consistent players in the transfer market over the last four years are on the East Coast (Columbia, George Mason, Georgetown, George Washington, Harvard and NYU), while one is in the Midwest (Northwestern) and one is in California (UC Berkeley).

VARIED QUALITY OF THE TRANSFER POOL

Table 7 below shows the tiers of law schools from which these eight largest law schools in the transfer market for each of the last four years received their transfer students. Six of the eight law schools that consistently have high numbers of transfers in are ranked in the top 15 in U.S. News, while the other two are ranked 31 (George Mason and George Washington).

TABLE 7 – Percentage of Transfers from Different Tiers of School(s) for 2023, 2024, and 2025 at the Eight Law Schools Among the Top 15 for Transfers in 2023, 2024, and 2025

(Bolded data indicates the modal percentage response for each law school.)

Three of the eight law schools – Harvard (no lower than 78%), NYU (no lower than 60%) and Columbia (no lower than 57%) – have consistently had large percentages of their transfers from law schools ranked between 1 and 50 in the U.S. News rankings. By contrast, in 2024 and in 2025, two of these eight law schools had more than 50% of their transfers from law schools ranked 101 or lower (George Mason (70% and 81%, respectively) and George Washington (54% and 61%, respectively)).

TABLE 8 – First-Year Law School 75^th/50^th/25^th GPA of Transfers in 2023, 2024, 2025 at the Eight Law School among the Top 15 for Transfers in 2023, 2024, 2025

Table 8 above highlights the reported GPAs of transfers in for these eight law schools. In looking at Table 8, one quickly sees that of the five law schools ranked in the U.S. News top 15, only one – Harvard – has a 50th GPA for transfers that is consistently 3.9 or above, and a 25th GPA that is consistently 3.83 and above. Harvard also is accepting most of its transfers from top 50 law schools, making it clear that it is accepting transfers in who could have been admitted to Harvard in the first instance.

The other four top 15 law schools – NYU, Columbia, Northwestern, and UC Berkeley — are a step below in terms of the credentials of their transfers, with 50th GPAs between3.87 and 3.65, across the three years and with 25th GPAs between 3.76 and 3.50 across the three years. In 2025, over 65% of UC Berkeley’s, Northwestern’s, and Georgetown’s transfers were from law schools ranked 51 or lower. For these three law schools, with a majority of their transfers coming from law schools ranked outside the top 50, many of these transfer students may not have had the credentials to be admitted as first-year students at these law schools.

Once you drop out of the top 15, the other two law schools – George Washington and George Mason – each has had a 50th GPA well below that of the other law schools on the list and 25th GPAs that drop to 3.26 or lower with one exception. With 80% or more of these transfers coming from law schools ranked 51 or lower, these law schools clearly are welcoming a number of transfer students whose entering credentials almost certainly were sufficiently distinct from each of those law schools’ entering class credentials such that the transfer students they are admitting would not have been admitted as first-year students in the prior year.

STILL MANY UNKNOWNS

As I have noted for the last few years, these more detailed transfer data from the ABA should be very helpful to prospective law students and pre-law advisors, and to current law students who are considering transferring. These data give them a better idea of what transfer opportunities might be available depending upon where they are planning to go to law school (or are presently enrolled as a first-year student).

Even with these more granular data now available, however, there still are a significant number of unknowns relating to transfer students, particularly regarding gender and ethnicity of transfer students and performance of transfer students at their new law school (both academically and in terms of bar passage and employment).

With the increased emphasis on professional identity formation reflected in ABA Standard 303(b)(3) and (c), there may be questions about how law schools are addressing professional identity formation for transfer students, particularly at those law schools that have added a first-year course/program focused on professional development or professional identity formation.

Are these law schools requiring transfers to take these courses with their incoming first-year students? Are there specific professional development or professional identity formation courses structured for transfer students at those law schools with a significant cohort of transfer students (10-15 or more)? Are there better ways to address the professional identity formation of transfer students that would help them integrate into the law school community where they are transferring? These are questions for which additional research would be warranted.

Please feel free to contact me at jmorgan@stthomas.edu should you have any comments or questions.

Jerome Organ is the Bakken Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions at the University of St. Thomas School of Law

April 28, 2026 by hami3258

Jerome Organ

Continuing Strong Employment Outcomes for the Class of 2025

by Jerry Organ, Bakken Professor of Law and Holloran Center Co-Director

I am writing to follow up on my employment outcomes blog for the class of 2024 with an analysis of the employment outcomes for the class of 2025. The ABA will be releasing data on employment outcomes for 2025 graduates of all ABA-accredited law schools in the coming days. I went and gathered the data from those ABA-accredited law schools that have posted their employment outcomes on their website – comprising 185 of the 191 law schools outside of Puerto Rico. (Data were not available for Belmont, Emory, North Carolina Central, Northern Illinois, Ohio Northern and Texas Southern as of April 21.)

Increase in Percentage of Graduates in Full-Time, Long-Term Bar Passage Required Positions Despite Decrease in Number of Graduates in Such Positions

Across these 185 ABA-accredited law schools outside of Puerto Rico, the number of graduates between 2024 and 2025 decreased by 2,266, from 37,662 to 34,928, but the number of graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required jobs decreased by only 1,716 – from 30,934 to 29,218!

As a result, these 185 law schools once again saw the percentage of graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required positions increase from 82.1% to 83.7% — the highest rate since records have been maintained.

First Decline in Several Years in the Number of Graduates in Full-Time, Long-Term Bar Passage Required Positions

For the graduating class in 2014, nearly 25,000 graduates found full-time, long-term bar passage required jobs. For the next several years, from 2015-2020, the number of graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required jobs fluctuated between a low of roughly 22,800 and a high of 24,500.

Since 2021, the number of graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required positions has been on the rise – 26,500 in full-time, long-term bar passage positions for 2021 graduates, 27,700 for 2022 graduates, 27,900 for 2023 graduates and roughly 31,500 for 2024 graduates, the highest number ever, surpassing the previous high of roughly 30,500 for the graduating class in 2007, just prior to the great recession. While the class of 2025 reflects the first year-over-year decline in several years in the number of graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required positions, this is not surprising given that there was a significant decline (roughly 6%) in the number of graduates between 2024 and 2025.

Vast Majority of Law Schools and States Saw Increases in the Percentage of Graduates in Full-Time, Long-Term Bar Passage Required Positions

Across the 185 schools for which information is available, 120 saw an increase in the percentage of graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required positions, while 4 were flat and 61 saw a decrease. This means nearly two-thirds of law schools saw an increase in the percentage of graduates in full-time, long term bar passage required positions in the class of 2025.

For the class of 2023, 60 law schools had 85% or more of their graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required position. That number grew to 76 for the class of 2024, and to 85 for the class of 2025.

For the class of 2023, 20 law schools had 90% or more of the graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required positions. That number increased to 28 for the class of 2024 and to 37 for the class of 2025.

When one looks at this on a state-by-state basis, one sees strong results as well. There were 37 states that saw an increase in the percentage of graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required positions between the class of 2024 and the class of 2025, with one flat and 12 that saw a decrease. Seventeen states – one-third – had more than 85% of the graduates of law schools in each of those states in full-time, long-term bar passage required positions, up from eleven for the class of 2024.

Possible Explanations

What might explain this growing appetite for law grads in full-time, long-term bar passage required positions?

I think the most likely explanation is demographic. The attorneys that started the significant, sustained growth in the legal profession in the late 1970s and early 1980s are finally starting to retire or pass away in significant enough numbers to counterbalance new entrants into the legal profession, with new entrants also at a smaller number than a decade ago given the right-sizing of law school enrollment in response to the great recession.

It appears that the number of lawyers exiting the marketplace has increased sufficiently over the last decade that more full-time, long-term bar passage required positions were available to 2024 law school graduates than ever before with the demand remaining robust for 2025 law school graduates given the increased percentage of graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required positions.

While we may have reached a point where the market for lawyers has “matured” and reached a “new normal” in terms of having a number of annual exits from the legal profession that more closely equals the number of new entrants each year, after the class of 2026, the classes of 2027 and 2028 will see increases in the number of graduates (based on increased first-year enrollment in fall 2024 and fall 2025) that may not be matched by the available jobs in the legal services market particularly given the potential impact of artificial intelligence.

It is possible that the class of 2024 will be the high-water mark for the number of graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required positions while the class of 2025 will represent the high-water mark in terms of the percentage of graduates in full-time, long-term bar passage required positions.

Jerome Organ is the Bakken Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions at the University of St. Thomas School of Law

April 22, 2026 by hami3258

David Jaffe, Janet Stearns

Free (to Seek Help) at Last: Reflections on Years of Advocating for Law Students and Reforming the Bar Admission Character & Fitness Process

Janet Stearns, University of Miami School of Law
David Jaffe, American University Washington College of Law[1]

This month, the National Conference of Bar Examiners (“NCBE”) released the updated version of its Sample Character Report Application.[2] In doing so, NCBE significantly revised the character and fitness application. The application is currently used by about half of U.S. jurisdictions in screening applicants for bar admission. Until this revision, NCBE asked applicants a very problematic question in the screening process:

Do you currently have any condition or impairment (including but not limited to, substance abuse, alcohol abuse, or a mental, emotional or nervous disorder or condition) that in any way affects your ability to practice law in a competent, ethical and professional manner?

If an applicant responded yes and indicated that they received ongoing treatment or participated in a monitoring or support program, they were then asked to provide names/contact information of treating physicians, hospitals or treatment programs. Concerns about having to respond to these intrusive inquiries into personal medical information, not surprisingly, significantly impeded the willingness of law students to seek needed help and support.[3]

NCBE is to be commended for its support of updates to the application. During a three-year process, NCBE engaged in a comprehensive review, evaluating which questions were truly relevant and also whether “look-back periods” should be revised or limited.[4] This article highlights those changes relating to substance use and mental health, while recognizing the breadth of the overall reforms.

The updated application includes a Preamble page, for which the final paragraph is dedicated to substance use and mental health concerns and encourages students to seek the support that they need, when they need it.

Full disclosure is important. Should your candidate response(s) involve disclosures regarding mental health diagnosis/treatment, substance misuse, or other sensitive matters, be assured that the steps you have taken to address such matters, such as through counselling, treatment or other actions, is to your credit. The National Council of Bar Examiners and admission authorities of the jurisdictions strongly encourage applicants who may benefit from assistance to seek it.

The application now includes only two questions related to substance use and mental health and focuses on conduct/misconduct in limited time periods prior to bar admission, a substantial improvement over the prior open-ended questions focused on condition or impairment.

Question 28: Within the past three years, have you engaged in any misconduct as a result of consuming alcohol or drugs?

Question 29: Within the past five years, have you asserted any medical condition, mental condition, or addiction or misuse of alcohol or drugs as a defense, in mitigation, or as an explanation for your conduct in the course of any inquiry, any investigation, or any administrative or judicial proceeding by any educational institution, government agency, professional organization, or licensing authority; or in connection with an employment disciplinary or termination procedure?

These two narrowly tailored questions finally bring jurisdictions serviced by NCBE into substantial alignment with the spirit and law interpreting the Americans with Disabilities Act, as articulated by the Louisiana consent decree in 2014.

Years of advocacy have resulted in this sea change. Two national studies of law students have documented the extent of mental health and substance use in law school. The 2014 Survey of Law Student Well-Being first verified that students were reluctant to seek help as a result of fear of the impact on bar admissions.[5] The authors conducted a follow-up survey in 2021 evaluating students at nearly 20% of U.S. law schools, and found continuing reluctance to seek help because of fears associated with the impact on bar admissions.[6]

Working hand in hand with advocates in the American Bar Association Commission on Lawyer Assistance Program (COLAP), the authors mobilized to educate bar regulators, state Supreme Court justices, and others to reform the character and fitness questions. The context for these reforms was discussed in our 2020 Article Conduct Yourselves Accordingly: Amending Bar Character and Fitness Questions to Promote Lawyer Well-Being.[7] The pandemic brought a renewed focus on mental health and well-being, and saw some major states (among them New York, Michigan, Indiana, and New Hampshire) significantly amend their character and fitness questions. Three years later, the authors updated their findings and evaluated all states on a grading scale to highlight targeted areas for reform.[8]

The authors wish to highlight several important jurisdictional changes since our 2023 article:

Florida in 2024 removed questions probing troubling medical diagnoses in favor of a focus on conduct, with two specific inquiries (whether mental health has been asserted as a defense in any legal proceedings, and whether the applicant has been involuntarily hospitalized).[9]

Georgia, which also formerly focused on treatment among its C&F questions, within the last three years modified its question to a degree.[10] Although Georgia has not shifted to a focus on conduct and behavior, it does seek to narrow what must be reported and what does not.

In 2023, we identified a group of states in the “C” category that either used the NCBE questionnaire or modeled their questions on the NCBE questionnaire. Utah, which had previously aligned its questions closely to jurisdictions that received a “C” grade when using NCBE’s former questions, in 2023 removed questions related to condition or impairment.[11]

South Carolina and Alaska have since also made revisions to their character and fitness questions, but they are not yet fully aligned with where we feel they should be. Alaska continues to ask questions that will be problematic for some applicants.[12] While South Carolina has one question focused on conduct, the jurisdiction retains a second question that now has been removed by the NCBE.[13] We will continue to advocate that all states in the C category review the new NCBE template with their Bar Examiners and State Supreme Courts so that they can move towards alignment.

As we celebrate all of these fundamental changes, we remind our partners laboring in the critical work of supporting law students that we must lift our voices and broadcast these reforms. These positive changes to character and fitness questions enable us to double down on communicating to our students that they should seek help while in law school without fear that their condition or impairment, in and of itself, will delay admission to the bar. Deans of Students, Campus Counseling Centers, Lawyer Assistance Programs and Lawyers Counseling Lawyers Programs, and all members of our village who serve and counsel law students and bar applicants should be sharing this updated information through all means possible. We continue on our lifetime quest to encourage healthy law students to become healthy lawyers.

[1] The authors are grateful to a large village of colleagues. We want to thank the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLAP) and every state LAP and LCL director and staff member who helps heal our students on a regular basis; IWIL (the Institute for Well-Being in Law) for carrying forward important work that started in earnest a mere 12 years ago; NALSAP, and our brother and sister deans of students; and for those unnamed, keep carrying on your incredible work. Thank you to our respective law schools for granting us space to advocate through the years.

We acknowledge the critical grant funding for the two national surveys of law students: AccessLex; the ABA Enterprise Fund (with sponsorship from the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs and the support of the ABA Law Student Division, the ABA Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division, the ABA Young Lawyers Division; and the ABA Commission on Disability Rights), and the Dave Nee Foundation.

We are indebted to our law students, who shine light in our lives every day and inspire our work. You are our legacy.

[2] https://www.ncbex.org/sites/default/files/2026-04/NCBE-Sample-Character-Report-Application_0.pdf, available at https://www.ncbex.org/character-fitness.

[3] David Jaffe, Katherine Bender and Jerome Organ, ‘It is Okay to Not Be Okay’: The 2021 Survey of Law Student Well-Being, 60 University of Louisville Law Review 441 (2022) (indicating that nearly 60% of respondents believe seeking help for substance use would be a potential threat to bar admissions; and 44% believed seeking help for mental health would be a potential threat to bar admissions); see also Janet Stearns and Jerry Organ, Well-Being and Professional Identity: Inextricably Linked, Holloran Center Professional Identity Implementation Blog, September 14, 2023 https://blogs.stthomas.edu/holloran-center/well-being-and-professional-identity-inextricably-linked/ (reflecting that law students in jurisdictions with less invasive Character & Fitness (C&F) questions as related to substance use and mental health were less likely to keep their problems hidden).

[4] Suzanne K. Richards, Hon. Phillis D. Thompson, Danette Waller McKinley PhD and Penelope J. Gessler, Focus on Diversity: The NCBE Character and Fitness Application: First Steps in a Thorough Review of Application Questions (Bar Examiner, Spring 2023); Lisa Perlin, Penelope J. Gessler and Suzanne Richards, The Journey to a Revised NCBE Character and Fitness Application (Bar Examiner, Fall 2025).

[5] Jerome M. Organ, David B. Jaffe and Katherine M. Bender, Ph.D., Helping Law Students Get the Help They Need: An Analysis of Data Regarding Law Students’ Reluctance to Seek Help and Policy Recommendations for a Variety of Stakeholders, The Bar Examiner (December, 2015). Suffering In Silence: The Survey of Law Student Well-Being and the Reluctance of Law Students to Seek Help for Substance Use and Mental Health Concerns, 66 Journal of Legal Education, Autumn 2016 at 116-156.

[6] Jaffe, supra note 1.

[7] David Jaffe and Janet Stearns, Conduct Yourselves Accordingly: Amending Bar Character and Fitness Questions to Promote Lawyer Well-Being, The Professional Lawyer, Volume 26 (January 22, 2020).

[8] David Jaffe and Janet Stearns, Fixing a Broken Character Evaluation Process, ABA Law Practice Today (2023). Jurisdictions received an “A” where all questions to mental health were removed; a “B” where jurisdictions asked about conduct or behavior; a “C” where jurisdictions asked or referred to condition or impairment or disorder, rather than focusing on conduct; and an “F” for jurisdictions where questions posed significant concerns (updates for jurisdictions that received an “F” are also described in the text).

[9] “Within the past 5 years, have you asserted any mental health or substance-related condition or impairment as a defense, in mitigation, or as an explanation for your conduct in the course of: (1) any administrative or judicial proceeding or investigation; (2) any investigation, discipline or proposed termination by an educational institution, government agency, professional organization, employer, or licensing authority; or (3) any employment or disciplinary action?” “Within the past 5 years, have you been involuntarily hospitalized?”

(Florida Board of Bar Examiners; “Application and Conversion Checklists and Supporting Forms”)

[10] “Within the past two years, have you had any condition or impairment (including, but not limited to, substance use, alcohol use, or a mental, emotional, or nervous disorder or condition) that would substantially inhibit your ability to practice law in a competent, ethical, and professional manner? If you have been or are being treated for a condition so that it does not currently affect your ability to practice law in a competent, ethical, and professional manner, then you need not disclose it.” (Supreme Court of Georgia Office of Bar Admissions; Browse Forms”)

[11] The sole related question: “Within the past five years, have you exhibited any conduct or behavior that could call into question your ability to practice law in a competent, ethical, and professional manner?” (Utah State Bar; “Application Information”)

[12] “Are you currently using narcotics, drugs or intoxicating liquors to such an extent that your ability to practice law would be impaired?”

“Are you currently suffering from any disorder that impairs your judgment or that would otherwise adversely affect your ability to practice law?” (Alaska Bar Association; “Information and Applications”)

[13] “Within the past five years, have you exhibited any conduct or behavior that could call into question your ability to practice law in a competent, ethical, and professional manner?”

“Do you currently have any condition or impairment (including, but not limited to, substance abuse, alcohol abuse, or a mental, emotional, or nervous disorder or condition) that adversely affects your ability to practice law in a competent, ethical, and professional manner? (“Currently” means recently enough that the condition or impairment could adversely affect your ability to function as a lawyer.)” (Supreme Court of South Carolina

Office of Bar Admissions; “Applications and Information”)

Janet Stearns is Lecturer at the University of Miami School of Law and Chair of the ABA COLAP Law School Committee.

David Jaffe is associate dean for student affairs at American University Washington College of Law. Jaffe is recognized as one of the leading experts in the U.S. on law student mental health, having focused on wellness issues over the last two decades through his scholarship and presentations. He says he practices mindfulness by being present with his daughters whenever he can.

April 21, 2026 by hami3258

Kathleen Luz, Marni Caputo

Marni Goldstein Caputo and Kathleen Luz to be honored with The Neil Hamilton Professional Identity Formation Distinguished Scholar Award

By Felicia Bennett

The Holloran Center is pleased to recognize Marni Goldstein Caputo and Kathleen Luz as the recipients of the Best Article Relating to Professional Identity Formation by a Senior Scholar award for their article, “Boundary-Setting and Choice-Making with No ‘Adult’ in the Room: Professional Identity Formation Opportunities for 1Ls in the Transactional Context,” published in the Virginia Law & Business Review in Summer 2025.

In this article, Caputo and Luz make an important contribution to scholarship on professional identity formation by focusing on the transactional context, an area often overlooked in the first-year law school curriculum. The authors highlight that many law students will practice in transactional settings, where professional identity formation presents distinct challenges.

Their article explains that transactional lawyers often work without the structure of a courtroom or the oversight of a judge. In that environment, lawyers must rely more heavily on their own judgment, values, and sense of professional responsibility. Caputo and Luz argue that this independent setting, with no “adult” in the room, makes professional identity formation especially important for students preparing for transactional practice.

The article also offers a practical model for teaching these lessons in the 1L curriculum. Through transactional simulations, students are introduced to skills such as boundary-setting, choice-making, and reflection, and are given opportunities to practice those skills in context. In this way, the authors show how law schools can help students begin developing the internal compass needed to navigate the ethical and professional complexities of legal practice.

Caputo and Luz’s scholarship reflects the Holloran Center’s commitment to advancing thoughtful and innovative approaches to professional identity formation. Their work broadens the conversation about how law schools can better prepare students for the realities of modern practice and the responsibilities of the profession.

April 15, 2026 by hami3258

David Grenardo

Civility Under Attack: Responding With… Civility

Professor David Grenardo has published a timely new article examining the role of civility in today’s legal profession. Amid declining social cohesion, heightened political tensions, growing mental health strain, and a constant stream of negative news, uncivil behavior has become an increasingly visible challenge. In such an environment, it is easy to become discouraged and to question how to respond to attacks on human dignity and professional decorum.

In this article, Professor Grenardo argues that the answer lies in a renewed commitment to civility itself, rather than resorting to escalation or retreat. He explores what incivility looks like in practice, engages with existing scholarship that critiques civility, and analyzes the tension between the First Amendment and efforts to uphold civility within the legal profession. The article offers a thoughtful framework for responding to incivility with principled, deliberate, and sustained civility.

The abstract of the article follows below.

Civility faces attacks on several fronts. First, civil conduct in society continues to erode. Incivility appears to be increasing in the workplace, and incivility also remains prevalent in the legal profession. Second, legal scholarship has set its sights on attacking civility, calling civility in the legal profession oppressive and racist. Third, the First Amendment has been weaponized to attack civility rules and norms in the legal profession. How should supporters and believers in civility respond to these attacks? The answer is with civility.

This Article argues that the various attacks on civility require a response embedded in civility. When incivility continues to ravage the legal profession, mandatory civility remains the answer. When legal scholarship attacks civility, the response needed includes a thoughtful, respectful, and civil retort. And when the First Amendment clashes with civility in the form of personal insults and attacks against individuals, civility should tend to prevail.

Part I of this Article provides an overview of incivility in the workplace, the legal profession, and society, and discusses the necessary response in the legal profession, mandatory civility. Part II discusses and responds to scholarship that directly attacks civility in the legal profession. Part III examines the intersection of the First Amendment and the regulation of lawyer speech. This Article concludes that as attacks on civility continue to mount, responding with civility remains the best solution.

You can read the full article on SSRN here.

David Grenardo is a Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

April 9, 2026 by hami3258

Katya Cronin

Katya Cronin to be honored with the Neil Hamilton Professional Identity Formation Emerging Scholar Award

By Felicia Bennett

The Holloran Center is pleased to recognize Katya Cronin, Associate Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School, as the recipient of the Neil Hamilton Professional Identity Formation Emerging Scholar Award. Professor Cronin is honored for her article, “Value-Centered Lawyering: Reshaping the Law School Curriculum to Promote Well-Being, Quality Client Representation, and a Thriving Legal Field” (published 2024), which offers a thoughtful and timely contribution to the growing body of scholarship on professional identity formation.

In her work, Professor Cronin examines a central challenge within legal education and the profession: the disconnect that often develops between lawyers’ personal values and the work they are asked to perform. She argues that traditional law school messaging can unintentionally encourage students to set aside their own beliefs and measure success primarily through external markers such as prestige and financial reward. Over time, this misalignment can lead to burnout and diminished wellbeing – an issue that affects individual lawyers as well as the quality of client representation and the health of the profession as a whole.

As a response, Professor Cronin proposes a shift toward “value-centered lawyering,” an approach that integrates regular self-reflection and intentional engagement with personal values into the law school curriculum. By encouraging students to align their career paths, client choices, and professional goals with their sense of purpose, her work highlights how legal education can better support the development of whole, self-aware professionals. This approach reflects a broader understanding of professional identity formation that recognizes lawyers as individuals whose integrity and wellbeing are essential to ethical and effective practice.

Professor Cronin’s scholarship connects with the Holloran Center’s mission to advance innovative, research-based approaches to professional identity formation. Her emphasis on wellbeing, reflective practice, and values integration reflects evolving expectations in legal education, including the increasing focus on forming lawyers who are both competent and committed to the value of serving others. Through this work, she offers a vision for how law schools can help shape a more sustainable and values-driven future for the legal profession.

Katya Cronin is a Associate Professor of Fundamentals of Lawyering at the George Washington University Law School.

April 8, 2026 by hami3258

Colette Schmidt, Stephanie Kupferman

Holloran Center Professional Identity Formation Outstanding Blog Award: “Silent Struggle”

by Felicia Bennett

The Holloran Center is pleased to recognize Stephanie Kupferman (Vermont Law) and Colette Schmidt (Paul Frank + Collins, formerly Vermont Law) as recipients of the Holloran Center Professional Identity Formation Outstanding Blog Award for their blog post, “Silent Struggle: Navigating Eating Disorders in the Legal Profession.” Their work shines a light on a frequently overlooked dimension of lawyer wellbeing and addresses the personal challenges that can shape professional identity, performance, and longevity in the legal field.

Kupferman and Schmidt’s blog post reflects the Holloran Center’s commitment to highlighting the importance of wellbeing in professional identity formation and aligns with the profession’s growing recognition that effective lawyering is strengthened by self-care and personal resilience. By examining the hidden pressures within legal culture and encouraging greater awareness, compassion, and institutional support, their post reinforces the importance of forming lawyers who are not only skilled and ethical, but also supported as whole persons.

This focus resonates strongly with the Center’s mission to foster intentional, values-based development of law students and lawyers alike.

Read the award-winning post: https://blogs.stthomas.edu/holloran-center/silent-struggle-navigating-eating-disorders-in-the-legal-profession/

March 31, 2026 by hami3258

Aric Short

Holloran Center Excellence in Teaching Award to be Presented to Aric Short for Difficult Conversations Class

By Felicia Bennett

On April 25, 2026, at the First Annual Holloran Center Conference and Law Journal Symposium, Professional Identity Formation – Looking Back and Looking Ahead, Aric Short will receive the Holloran Center Professional Identity Formation Excellence in Teaching Award for his class exercise, Navigating and Excelling in Difficult Conversations. A professor of law and Director of the Professional Identity & Leadership Development Program at Texas A&M University School of Law, Professor Short has developed this learning experience within his 1L Professional Identity Formation course that aims to equip law students with an essential, and often overlooked, professional skill: the ability to engage thoughtfully and constructively across disagreement.

In his class activity, Short highlights how lawyers routinely navigate emotionally charged disputes, conflicting values, and polarized viewpoints in their work with clients, colleagues, courts, and communities. Through guided reflection, structured dialogue exercises, and small-group discussion, students learn to shift from reacting defensively to responding with curiosity and respect. The activity emphasizes practices such as empathetic listening, asking questions of understanding rather than persuasion, and recognizing how emotions and identity shape the lenses through which we communicate. By creating space for students to share experiences, examine how conflict affects their thinking, and practice respectful dialogue on complex issues, the exercise helps future lawyers develop the judgment, humility, and interpersonal awareness necessary for effective and ethical practice.

Professor Short’s work reflects the mission of the Holloran Center to advance innovative approaches that help law students develop a strong professional identity grounded in integrity, self-awareness, and service to others. At a time when the legal profession—and society more broadly—faces deep polarization, teaching future lawyers how to foster constructive, respectful dialogue is central to forming ethical leaders in their communities. By equipping students with the tools to navigate disagreement with professionalism and empathy, Professor Short’s teaching exemplifies the type of intentional professional formation the Holloran Center seeks to promote across legal education.

You can find materials for this classroom exercise here: Short Classroom Materials

March 23, 2026 by hami3258

Felicia Bennett, Todd Peterson

Holloran Center Signature Program Award to be Presented to GW Law for their First Year PIF Experience

By Felicia Bennett

On April 25, 2026, at the First Annual Holloran Center Conference and Law Journal Symposium, the George Washington University Law School will be honored with the Holloran Center Professional Identity Formation Signature Program Award for their three-part 1L professional formation experience.

The upcoming conference will convene scholars, educators, and practitioners committed to advancing professional identity formation in legal education—and GW Law’s integrated first-year model has been selected as a leading example of that work in action.

The award recognizes GW Law’s comprehensive 1L professional identity formation programming, which is composed of three complementary initiatives:

Fundamentals of Lawyering: A required two-semester course which introduces legal analysis and writing, communication and interpersonal skills, and professionalism through the lens of PIF and using experiential learning opportunities.
The Inns of Court Program: Small, structured community groups that support connection, critical skills development, and individualized career exploration.
Foundations of Practice: A voluntary (and heavily attended) program that includes workshops, one-on-one conferences with different support areas, and informational interviews.

Together, these programs embed professional identity formation across the entire first year—placing students “in role” as client-centered advocates, surrounding them with faculty and practitioner mentors, and guiding them through structured reflection on values, professionalism, wellbeing, and career purpose. At GW Law, identity formation is woven into skills training, community building, and career development, ensuring students begin law school with a shared vocabulary and framework for ethical, intentional practice.

This work aligns closely with the Holloran Center’s mission to advance innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to forming law students and practicing lawyers into ethical leaders in their communities. As the Center continues to shape the national movement toward greater intentionality in professional formation, GW Law’s model demonstrates how a law school can take concrete, scalable steps to foster each student’s growth in competence, autonomy, integrity, and service. The April 25 conference and symposium will celebrate not only this achievement, but also the broader commitment across legal education to cultivating purposeful, reflective professionals for the future of the profession.

March 16, 2026 by hami3258

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