hami3258 – Holloran Center Professional Identity Implementation Blog - Page 10

Holloran Center Professional Identity Implementation Blog

All Posts By

hami3258

Christopher Corts

Seeking Wisdom in the Counsel of Many

By: Christopher Corts, Professor of Law, Legal Practice, University of Richmond School of Law

Today I am writing to offer some practical suggestions for how you can actively, intentionally seek—and find—wisdom in the counsel of many.

I am no expert on this. To be clear: there is nothing in my natural inclinations that would suggest I would ever seek out the wisdom of the many. Left to my own devices, I would be tempted to say: the “wisdom of the many” is not even a thing. I am an introvert…with some misanthropic tendencies. I love “people”— in the abstract. The idea of “humanity” inspires me. I always try to respect “human dignity” as I work my way through life.

But, too often, as soon as I have to deal with real, live, messy human beings in all their glory—like, say, during a faculty meeting—I quickly lose faith in “humanity” and start ruminating on how people around me can’t seem to do much of anything effectively, except make me miserable.

It’s not that I think relying on myself is any better. It is more like: I have more comfort and confidence in my own ability (than others) to survive the many failures and messes I create in the world. To “go it alone” feels pragmatic—doable, if not exactly wise.

Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, an expert on the science of human emotion, has described the paradox like this: the best thing for our nervous systems is another person; the worst thing for our nervous systems is…another person.[1]  I read that and think: Ok, so maybe just avoid people!

But my better, more reflective, and growth-oriented self is drawn to two maxims found in wisdom literature from the Hebrew Bible. One adage warns that “[w]ithout counsel, plans go wrong, but with many advisors they succeed.”[2]  Another maxim, similar to the first, goes like this: “Where there is no guidance, a nation falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.”[3]

These warnings challenge me to move away from solitude and toward the counsel of (not just some select chosen few, but) many others. This requires intention, commitment, and skill. So in today’s post, I want to share with you some of the facilitation techniques I have come to find useful for teaching and modeling a form of public dialogue as part of a larger, more inclusive process of collective decision-making.

File this one away in your “how to lead like a lawyer” files. The techniques shared below are premised upon two value statements:

  1. The best kind of public conversation about a topic of shared concern is one that includes participation from the greatest number of people present.
  2. In a public conversation about a topic of shared concern, the best kind of participation is a statement that accurately represents the speaker’s deepest, truest, most meaningful viewpoint on the matter at issue.

In short? I want everyone speaking, if they wish to speak—and, when they do, speaking courageously—from the heart. Five basic techniques, elaborated in more detail below, can help facilitate a public conversation like that. Here are the five in summary form:

  1. As facilitator, sit in a circle with everyone else.
  2. At the start of the conversation, collaboratively create clear, explicit rules of engagement for speakers and listeners to follow.
  3. At first, use open-ended questions to facilitate a more inclusive conversation.
  4. Once trust is established, have courage to directly invite participants to share their deepest hopes or deepest concerns on the subject.
  5. Throughout the conversation, take care to make public displays of valuing statements of difference and disagreement (and not just statements of unity and consensus).

In the paragraphs that follow, I will give suggestions for how to implement each one of these five techniques for discourse. As may already be obvious: there is a sizing issue here. Every one of these suggestions presumes a kind of public conversation that can be held using one or more small groups (with each group facilitated by at least one facilitator).

I accept that it will not always be possible to go small, but I suggest that you always ought to make every effort to make this kind of small-group interaction possible. Even if practicalities force you to speak in a mass group, at least some of the techniques described below can be implemented or adapted to fit the constraints of that kind of larger public conversation.

  1. As facilitator, sit in a circle with everyone else. In a previous post, I explained why this practice is so important. I won’t repeat myself here, except to remind the reader that a circle is an iconic representation of the values you are seeking to promote and achieve in this conversation. By eliminating (front and back) rows and (literally) de-platforming the speaker, by staging your conversation using a circle, you place speakers and listeners in the same position relative to each other. A circle creates a non-hierarchical, equitable configuration that makes broad, consistent, active participation—as both speakers and listeners—more likely.
  2. Collaboratively create clear, explicit rules of engagement for speakers and A feature of mindful or non-violent communication is to ask each member of the conversation circle to collaboratively establish conversation norms—norms of speaking and listening. This approach is most inclusive and organic to that particular group for that particular conversation on that occasion. As part of the process of building a set of shared norms to which every participant can agree, do not just dictate the norms you want to use without also inviting each participant to share what they need —as a speaker and listener—in order to productively engage in the conversation that is about to occur.To be sure: this takes time. But it is time well spent. It gets people talking. It builds trust and solidarity. It powerfully communicates one of your core values and objectives: you sincerely do want everyone to speak.As facilitator, you can compile the list of norms on a white board, blackboard, piece of paper, etc. That will create a transparent, easily-accessible published record of what everyone agreed to do as speakers/listeners at the very start of the conversation.The following subparts of the second technique provide additional clear, explicit rules for speakers and listeners:
    • From the start, get collective buy-in from all participants that speakers will be given freedom to speak and be heard as individuals. Facilitators should take care to explicitly release participants from the burden of speaking for others. For example: in an inter-faith dialogue, an Episcopal clergy should not be heard to speak for all Christians, all Protestants, all Episcopalians, or even all members of her parish! She is a singular individual. She speaks only for herself.This same concept applies to any group that any speaker might be identified with along the lines of race, gender, sexuality, nationality, political identification, whatever. We are a circle of individuals representing only ourselves.To make this even more concrete: you can invite and encourage speakers to use subjective “I” statements whenever possible. “I think, I worry, I see, I hope, I wonder, I feel, It seems to me, etc.” When we describe something we have individually experienced or observed as if it were universal, absolute fact, we threaten to make our one experience the absolute, definitive, only account of that thing—and that can unwittingly erase or de-value the (different) perspectives of others on that same subject.The practice of speaking for one’s self can be especially important in situations where you might want to welcome comments from someone who holds an official title. You want to create space and freedom for them to speak in their capacity as an individual member of the community—not just in an official capacity. (They are of course free to decline to do this! What matters is that you made the effort to make it possible, if they so desired).
    • Explicitly keep (and build) a sense of privacy and confidentiality. At the start, before any question is asked: assure participants that whatever is shared in the conversation will be kept confidential. You want to build a circle of trust. Make sure everyone understands that by continuing in the circle and engaging in the conversation, every member is agreeing to keep the conversation amongst ourselves, and to not broadcast any particulars outside of this context. Similarly, assure everyone that the session will not be recorded. Or, if you have an important reason to record, inform everyone that it will be recorded and put them on notice that they might want to say “pass” instead of sharing (since they will also know that they are free to say “pass” at any time).Don’t just assume that everyone consents to a recording, or that gaining consent is not important. It is! Recording can have a chilling effect on conversations. It cuts against the twin purposes (participation and quality) that guide the public conversation we aspire to facilitate.
    • Use a talking stick. The beauty of a talking stick is that it comes with rules of discourse attached. And the rules are designed to slow down the conversation—which makes off-the-cuff, emotionally-reactive responses less It creates space, air, and light for deeper and more authentic speaking, listening, and thinking. Rule number 1 is that only the person who is holding the talking stick may speak. When she is done speaking, she either places the talking stick in the center of the circle, or passes it to the left or right. The talking stick prevents cross-talk and interruption. It helps to prevent a debate. It facilitates slowness and reduces the likelihood that someone will blurt out a response in the heat of the moment, before it has been fully thought through. When it comes to selecting the talking stick: don’t be too literal; it does not have to be an actual stick. Make it meaningful! Be creative and use the talking stick convention to help you to convey value and create meaning to your group. For example: when convening a hard, heart-to-heart conversation about well-being with a small group of (struggling, for different reasons and in different ways) 1Ls, I once used an Apple Air-Pods case as the talking stick. When I introduced the convention of using the case as a talking stick with the group, I told them: “The Air Pods case is a symbol of distraction and disconnection in everyday life. But I want us today to re-claim it as an object that can facilitate deeper connection and engagement with each other.” By framing something as banal as the choice of a talking stick as an act of counter-cultural resistance, I helped spark their creative/abstract imagination, played to their counter-cultural inclinations, and helped to create ritualized meaning in what could have just been presented as a mindless everyday object selected for the sake of bland convenience.
    • Keep giving clear, explicit procedural guidance about what you expect to happen next with the talking stick. Each time you ask a question and invite everyone to respond, set clear guidelines for how you expect the conversation to proceed. You can start with person X and go clockwise or counter-clockwise from there; you can place the talking stick in the center of the circle and let anyone who wishes to pick up the talking stick do so in whatever order they prefer. But the key here is: no individual can speak a second time until everyone has had a chance to speak. If you elect not to use a talking stick, you can still integrate equitable rules of procedure. Each time you ask a question, you can start with a different person in the circle, and move in a different direction (clockwise, counter-clockwise, whatever). The goal would be to make sure that the same voices are not being heard first or last; you do not just want a diversity of voices being heard—you want them to be heard in a different order.
    • Adopt an opt-out rule that liberates everyone to participate at any time simply by saying “pass.” I like to establish this rule at the outset of a conversation. And then, every time I ask a facilitated question and invite each person to speak in response, I remind everyone that they are always free to simply say “pass.” This serves at least four purposes. (1) It ensures that every voice will be heard, even if only to say “pass.” (2) It reinforces how valuable hearing every voice is to the conversation. (3) It minimizes coercive social pressure, so that participants who do not yet feel safe or able to speak candidly and sincerely about the guided prompts are still able to hold attention and bring their voice into the room. And (4) it helps to prevent insincere responses, because people know that “pass” is a credible, respected alternative to saying something simply for the sake of fulfilling a formal participation requirement. (Frequently, at some early point in a conversation that I am facilitating, I will say “pass” myself, to model that it really, truly is ok to just say “pass.”)
  1. At first, facilitate a more inclusive conversation by asking open-ended questions. Embedded in this suggestion is an invitation to practice a radical form of hospitality. As facilitator, you hold power to welcome and bless every person present. Use it! Artful public conversations that include everyone—especially those who are not inclined to speak in public settings, or about certain selected topics—merit light-touch structure. With thoughtful planning and intention, an artful facilitator will pose an open-ended question…and then invite each participant to respond in a way that person prefers. These open-ended questions are especially important at the start of a conversation. They break the proverbial ice. They build comfort, encourage trust, and create a tone and atmosphere for the proceedings. They help to get people comfortable sharing, because they give each person the most freedom to speak to whatever aspect or dynamic of the chosen topic matters most to them. Here is one concrete example of how you might develop a hospitable, open-ended question to elicit deeper engagement that can help build a conversation space: “We gathered today for the purpose of talking about [describe the topic]. To start our conversation together, I want to first give each one of you an opportunity to share what is on your heart or mind as you entered today’s circle of conversation.What have you directly observed or experienced about [the issue]? What do you see with respect to [the issue]? What are your thoughts, feelings, or reactions to what you’re seeing? Whatever you want to share—share it. Good, bad, inspiring, upsetting, ambiguous, whatever; we welcome any comment that accurately captures your point of view, whatever that might be. So long as it respects the dignity of others, we welcome it. We need to hear from everyone so we can more clearly understand what is really going on in our community, what the stakes of this conversation are, and how we can move forward together from here. Every perspective matters, because we all have blind spots. There is no shame in that. Each one of us might be seeing or experiencing something that someone else in this circle needs to see or understand. We cannot arrive at a full, shared version of the truth if we do not have the benefit of every individual perspective. So let’s start helping each other figure this out.

    One at a time, as you see fit, please share what is on your heart or mind with respect to [the issue].”

    Or, to give a simpler version (without so much wind-up to the pitch):

    “For our first round of responses, I welcome each one of you to share anything you wish to share about this topic: [Frame and ask the question].”

    As these two examples suggest: whether you want to invest heavily in framing or keep your question short, use the wind-up to explicitly voice the values you wish to nurture. Words matter. Don’t just ask a question…invite and welcome a response. Make it safe for each speaker to share what they most want to say. Don’t just assume everyone will speak…make sure everyone knows you want or need them to speak. Appeal to peoples’ sense of hope and duty. So long as you sincerely want to hear from everyone, say so. The key here is to be authentic, open, and vulnerable.

    Any time you ask for everyone to participate, you risk the humiliation of no one listening to what you have to say. That’s ok. Risk it! It is the only way. There is no shame in giving a warm welcome, whatever the response.

  2. Once trust is established, have the courage to directly invite participants to share their deepest hopes or deepest concerns on the subject. Once people get comfortable responding to these broad, open-ended questions, a baseline of trust will be established. From there, if you wish, you can narrow the focus of your questions, make them less open-ended (more targeted to achieve your particular purposes), and invest more in framing the question in a particular way that is designed to elicit the information you (as facilitator and planner) most want and need to hear from the participants. One concrete way to think about crafting a narrower, more focused kind of question is to think about how you can inspire participants to speak in a way that reveals their personal, subjective experience: their perceptions, beliefs, commitments, and values. An artful question inspires a speaker to share something about her unique way of looking at the world, her unique way of valuing the world, the particular way she hopes the world can be made better, and her ideas and intuitions about how to make that more beautiful world possible. Don’t be afraid to play around with crafting questions designed to elicit value statements. On this view, a well-crafted question is one that can help invite a speaker to voice something personally meaningful about what she perceives, believes, desires, values, wants, or fears. Framing the question in terms of “hopes” or “fears” can be a good way to elicit both a statement of fact (about what we want or dread)—and a value (a why to make meaningful our description of what we factually hope for or fear most in the current debate).Here is an example of that kind of question:
    What about our law school’s current approach to[Issue X] concerns you most? Why?And then, something like:

    As we work out [Issue X], do you see anything in our law school’s community that gives you hope that we can do better and get to where you want us to be? What would “doing better” look like, from your point of view? Why do you feel that would be better than the current state of things?

    Crafting questions is an art. Try, fail, try again, fail again, and on and on. The keys to creating questions are to learn what works (and what doesn’t) and keep trying.

  3. Throughout the conversation, take care to make public displays of valuing statements of difference and disagreement (and not just statements of unity and consensus). There is a beautiful human tendency to steer toward unity and consensus as soon as division and disagreement surface—especially when we are in a circle of conversation with colleagues, peers, friends, students we care about. But that caring impulse can choke prophets, silence critics, and chill authentic engagement in the group. The true test of a healthy community is not converting everyone to some bland, watered-down uniformity that enables us to market a fake, superficial unity at the cost of authenticity and truth. It is cringe-inducing and actually damaging when kind-hearted, well-meaning voices try to gaslight us into convincing everyone that, despite perception or appearances, we are not as divided as we seem. We are. It’s probably worse than we imagine. The truth, no matter how unpleasant or difficult, is worth hearing. A healthy community does something brave every time it gathers together, gives voice to disagreement, and collectively stares down the awesome chasms of separation and division that (in part) define it.

So there you have it: five simple, concrete suggestions (with rationalizations and specific examples included) for how you, too, can model and teach a kind of public conversation in small groups that can include the greatest number of voices and elicit the most authentic viewpoints possible. Over time, I have come to sincerely believe that—against my personal preferences—the best counsel really does live in the spaces where the most counselors are (1) given a voice and (2) use it to share their unique point of view.

In that same spirit, I invite you to help me. If you have any ideas, thoughts, concerns, or suggestions that you would like to share on these or related topics: please do! I can’t even hope to be wise without you.

Email me at ccorts@richmond.edu. (Thank you in advance!)

Christopher Corts is Professor of Law and Legal Practice at the University of Richmond School of Law.

[1] https://ideas.ted.com/author/lisa-feldman-barrett/  (“It’s ironic but true: The best thing for your nervous system is another human and the worst thing for your nervous system is another human. Neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett tells us why.”) Feldman Barrett is the author of two books I enthusiastically recommend to legal educators, How Emotions are Made and Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain.

[2] Proverbs 15:22, New Revised Standard Version.

[3] Proverbs 11:14, New Revised Standard Version.

February 7, 2023 by
Linda Sugin

A Peer Mentoring Program For 2L Students that Teaches Leadership and Creates Community

By: Linda Sugin, Professor of Law & Faculty Director for the Office of Professionalism, Fordham Law School

At Fordham Law School, we have a program that supports vulnerable second-year students, fosters cross-cultural understanding, builds friendships and professional networks, and teaches leadership skills.  Since its launch five years ago, hundreds of students have chosen to participate.  The premise of the program is simple: law students can support each other and achieve professional and personal growth if law schools provide a modicum of institutional support.  We have designed a professional identity formation course that equips 3L mentors with the skills and confidence they need to provide meaningful support to the 2L students they mentor.  Through collaboration with Fordham’s student affinity groups, the program also contributes to the law school’s DEI efforts.

In this article, published last spring in the NALP Bulletin, I described our program’s key elements.  Jordana Confino, Fordham’s Assistant Dean for Professionalism, and I are happy to share our syllabus and answer any questions you have about our program.  Feel free to contact me at lsugin@fordham.edu and/or Jordana at jconfino@fordham.edu.

Linda Sugin is Professor of Law & Faculty Director for the Office of Professionalism at Fordham Law School in New York.

February 2, 2023 by
Aric Short

The Power of Pivoting (Part I of II)

By: Aric Short, Professor of Law & Director of the Professionalism and Leadership Program,
Texas A&M University School of Law

The Spring semester in law school is a new beginning for students, staff, and faculty, but it can be extremely difficult for 1Ls who have just received their first semester grades. It’s normal for law students, most of whom have achieved consistent academic success over the years, to experience a range of emotions when they receive grades that don’t match their expectations. Disappointment, frustration, and even anger are common initial reactions. But throughout the years I’ve taught 1Ls, the reaction I’ve observed most of all is bewilderment. Exploring this reaction of bewilderment fully would require more than a blog entry. But for now, I think this general reaction signals a fundamental difficulty some students experience in knowing how to move forward productively in the face of unexpected feedback that is inconsistent not just with their past grades, but with their deeply-rooted sense of identity.

To help students “right the ship” in the early Spring, three core lawyering competencies can be especially important: grit, resilience, and strategic pivoting. This powerful triad of competencies provides a key to succeeding with difficult challenges. Lawyers face difficult challenges on a daily basis—demanding schedules, difficult personalities, and regular setbacks and even losses—so learning and internalizing these competencies in law school can help students with their longer-term careers. But 1L students may be especially receptive to exploring them in the first weeks of the Spring semester as they struggle to process Fall grades and figure out a strategic path forward in the Spring.

Grit. Most law students don’t struggle with grit. In fact, they’ve achieved academic and other life successes largely because of grit: the ability to work very hard, over a sustained period of time, to achieve long-term goals. Gritty people passionately pursue their goals, tirelessly, recognizing that consistent hard work will separate them from the pack. Long-term grit can be difficult to maintain. Focusing on the “why” underlying the pursuit can help motivate students to continue working hard, day after day. Not surprisingly, people who are generally successful in academic and professional settings rate high when it comes to grit. So it might be considered a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for success. Anyone who works with 1Ls knows that the vast majority of them enter law school already possessing this competency, and they work very hard during their first year.

Resilience. In the course of pursuing difficult goals, there will be setbacks, roadblocks, losses, and other adversities. Continuing the chase, and even growing through those challenging times, requires resilience. Being agile and “bouncing back” are both ways of articulating aspects of resilience. Michael Jordan famously described his own resiliency when he said that he had “missed more than 9,000 shots . . . lost almost 300 games . . . ”  and missed the game-winning shot twenty-six times. “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” Resilient people persist despite results that might cause others to stop.

Grit and resilience are both critical to long-term success. If we don’t work hard, or if our response to the first signs of adversity is to give up, we won’t make it very far. We know this intuitively, and we see it play out in all aspects of our lives. But to succeed at difficult things, we often need more than hard work and the ability to bounce back. We need to know when and how to strategically pivot in an effective manner.

Strategic pivoting. Pivoting is simply changing—direction, strategy, or area of focus. Pivots can be big (“I’m quitting my job as a teacher to go to law school”) or smaller (“I’m going to start going to the gym twice a week”). We change direction in our lives all the time, often without giving it much thought. But we don’t always realize the power of strategic pivoting: intentionally changing direction in the face of feedback and after deliberate and calculated reflection on what it will take to improve. Pivoting in a strategic way can be extremely liberating, and it makes great sense. Yes, we should work hard and reasonably bounce back, but it should appear fundamentally unreasonable for us to continue the same strategies going forward when we have clear evidence that those strategies have not led to the desired outcome in the past.

In my experience, while 1Ls are relatively strong at grit, they are relatively weaker at resilience—perhaps because many of them have not faced exceptionally hard challenges before law school (although clearly there are many exceptions to this rule). So bouncing back from adversity may be a new competency for some of them to develop. But within this triad of competencies that helps us succeed at difficult tasks, strategic pivoting is by far the least familiar to students, and it is the most difficult for them to implement. But if mastered, it can be extraordinarily powerful.

Why is strategic pivoting a difficult concept for students to implement? One reason may be, as just mentioned, that while 1Ls have a track record of working hard before law school, most of them have been largely successful in school and outside activities because of that hard work. “Failures” have been relatively minor, and often working a little harder or being more consistent with hard work was enough to then achieve success. For many students, law school is a different beast. Fifty percent of students will be in the bottom half of their class—a reality that most law students probably do not fully absorb before they start. Resilience and strategic pivoting are theoretical concepts, at best, for many students, because they just haven’t needed to rely on them.

Strategic pivoting is also a challenging concept for students because embedded in this concept is the idea of quitting. Changing direction requires pursuing a new path while abandoning an old one that wasn’t effective. And many students have an uneasy relationship with the idea of quitting. Society tells us all that “quitters are losers.” And the very concept of grittiness seems to be in tension with quitting. How can we continue to work hard (and thereby achieve our dreams) while also giving up?

This last question is hopefully rhetorical. Wise law students know, at some level, that if their first grades in law school don’t meet their standards, they will need a new and different strategy moving forward. But it can be helpful to make this explicit for students: I know you worked extraordinarily hard in the Fall, and I am not asking you to work harder in the Spring. For most of you, doing so would be unhealthy and detract from your well-being. What I am suggesting is that there are some things you can do differently to more effectively pursue your goals. The strategy you come up with will likely involve some additional tasks; but if you’re thoughtful about this process, that strategy will also involve eliminating some less-effective activities that you engaged in last semester. Quitting, or strategic pivoting, is critical to this process. It can free up time and energy for more useful work.

How can students work to develop this new strategy for academic success? A helpful orienting concept in this regard is the “mother of all competencies”: being self-directed. Students can remind themselves that there are four connected steps to achieving their goals: (1) Identify their goals with specificity; (2) Create a plan of specific steps that must be completed to be successful; (3) Execute; and (4) Monitor and reflect: what adjustments need to be made to be more successful next time? Return to Step 1. Repeat as necessary.

That self-directed cycle provides just the basic framework for developing a strategy for academic success—or a strategy to be successful in any endeavor. In Part II, we’ll explore some specific suggestions and practical tips on exactly how to strategically pivot to greater academic success in the Spring, using a student’s experience in the Fall as a springboard.

Please feel free to reach out to me at ashort@law.tamu.edu if you have any questions or comments.

Aric Short, Professor of Law and Director of the Professionalism & Leadership Program, Texas A&M University School of Law

January 31, 2023 by
Megan Bess

Goal Setting Across the Law School Experience: a Simple and Powerful Professional Identity Formation Tool

By: Megan Bess, Director of the Externship Program and Assistant Professor of Law,
University of Illinois Chicago School of Law

I have spent a good amount of time over the past few months reflecting on how to best incorporate professional identity formation in my teaching and across our law school’s curricular and extracurricular programming.  Like many of us, I wear many hats at my institution, some with easier connections to PIF than others. For instance, in my role overseeing externships I have been able to craft a curriculum centered on reflection, self-assessment, and professional identity formation. Nearly everything students do in their externship experience furthers the development of their professional identity. But when I teach a large section of Professional Responsibility, my interest and desire to incorporate professional identity formation often conflict with the pressures to cover as many Model Rules and PR concepts as I can. I have been asking myself which of the PIF-related activities I utilize in the externship program could I easily incorporate into other classes and activities. And then I had a realization: I can work goal setting into almost anything I teach.

More than three years into my role directing my school’s externship program I have now seen hundreds of student goals for their externship experiences. Many follow common themes of improving specific research and writing skills and participating in lawyering activities. Some of the best goals I have seen, however, demonstrate strong self-awareness and a desire to improve professional behaviors. For example, one student set a goal to develop a system to better manage their school, work, and personal obligations so that they could be more fully present in each rather than multi-tasking. I’ve seen students set goals for increasing and managing their physical and mental health or strengthening their understanding of, and connections to, their legal community.

While an externship, clinical, or other real-world lawyering experience easily lends itself to goal setting, I believe that students can and should be encouraged to set goals across their entire law school experience. Goal setting is especially powerful if introduced early in law school. For example, UIC Law has a one-credit required first-semester course, Expert Learning, that introduces students to study and exam-taking strategies, lawyering skills, resilience and mindset, and other professional skills and behaviors important for success in law school and in law practice. The course covers goal setting and requires students to set a goal for the course itself.

Goal setting empowers students to take charge of and responsibility for themselves and their experiences. Studies show that rigorous and specific goal setting correlates with higher performance.[1] And feelings of success in the workplace derive from pursuing and attaining meaningful goals.[2] In short, setting goals is a habit that will aid students in their legal careers. And the very act of setting goals requires some self-reflection that aids in professional identity formation.

Most students are familiar with the concept of goal setting. A popular framework is SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely). Encouraging students to set goals for the courses you teach and activities you oversee is a simple tool to encourage their reflection and self-assessment with a framework that is familiar to them.

The good news is that this can be incredibly easy to do. There are numerous goal setting lessons and resources available. When I first sought to incorporate goal setting in the externship program, a simple online search turned up numerous videos (I selected a simple SMART goal overview from LinkedIn Learning) and written materials. One of my favorites is this simple worksheet from Baylor University that explains SMART goal setting and walks the user through a goal setting process.

If you are worried about the labor required with providing feedback on student goals, consider asking students to share their goals with and elicit feedback from their peers. My students have shared that they enjoy this goal setting method. I give students time to brainstorm one goal and then have them share in small groups with instructions to offer suggestions for making the goal “SMARTer.” In my experience, law students are amenable to suggestions from their peers who are proud of themselves when they can offer helpful feedback to their classmates.

I can easily envision students setting goals related to course performance and grades. But we can encourage our students to think of goals from a broader perspective. Students can set goals for a course that relate to organizational skills, time management, study habits, understanding and applying course material in real-world context, the contributions they make to their group, and/or class participation. If we provide them some examples along these lines, then they will feel like they have permission to identify and work on these skills. Imagine the power we have to help students commit to and practice goal setting habits in as few as ten (10) minutes at the start of our courses.

If you have questions, comments, or ideas for improvement, please reach out to me at mbess@uic.edu.

Megan Bess is the Director of the Externship Program and Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Law.

[1] Edwin A. Locke & Gary P. Latham, New Directions in Goal Setting Theory, 15 Current Directions in Psychological Science, 265-268 (2006).

[2] Barbara A. Blanco & Sande L. Buhai, Externship Field Supervision: Effective Techniques for Training Supervisors and Students, 10 Clinical L. Rev. 611, 642 (2004); Laurie Barron, Learning How to Learn: Carnegie’s Third Apprenticeship, 18 Clinical L. Rev. 101, 107 (2011).

January 26, 2023 by
Leah Teague

Baylor Law’s Professional Identity Formation History and the Influence of the Carnegie Report and the Holloran Center on Baylor Law’s Continual Professional Identity Formation Efforts

By: Leah Witcher Jackson Teague, Professor of Law & Director of Business Law Program and Leadership Development Program, Baylor Law School

Thanks to Robin Thorner, Assistant Dean, Office of Career Strategy, at St. Mary’s Law School, law faculty and staff interested in professional identity formation efforts gathered twice in the fall to converse. The next conversation is scheduled for this Thursday, January 26, at 3:00 p.m. Central using the following link via Zoom. I plan to join and hope you will too!

During the fall gatherings, a common request was for more information about law schools’ processes for addressing the recent amendments to ABA 303 and descriptions of programs, events, and activities. In this post, I offer some insight on the background for our work at Baylor Law and also thank the Holloran Center for encouraging us, and so many others, in our work in the areas of professional development and leadership development. In a future post, I will describe Baylor Law’s ongoing review process of our professional identity formation efforts in response to the amendments to ABA Standard 303.

At Baylor Law, professional identity formation efforts have been part of the fabric of our program throughout our 165-year history, but not by that name. As I recently wrote in a post, professional development and leadership development, in an informal manner, have been “baked” into our program from the beginning. Baylor Law’s mission statement expresses a desire to “develop lawyers who are able to practice law with competence, serve with compassion, and provide effective and ethical leadership.” We strive to prepare our students for the demands they will face as members of the legal profession. We also want them to be better equipped to use their legal education and training, along with their status in society as lawyers, to serve effectively and be difference makers.

Our approach to legal education (which incorporates legal analysis, practical lawyering skills, and professionalism) aligns with the scaffolding approach advocated in Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law (more commonly referred to as the “Carnegie Report”). The Carnegie Report, published in 2007, described the three dimensions of professional education that are necessary to adequately prepare students for their careers and professional obligations. The three dimensions for legal education were described as:

  1. Critical thinking skills and legal knowledge that have been the traditional focus of law schools.
  2. Practice application and skills development through experiential education as mandated in the ABA Standards beginning approximately 2005.
  3. Professional identity formation defined as “effective ways to engage and make their own the ethical standards, social roles, and responsibilities of the profession, grounded in the profession’s fundamental purposes.”

This scaffolding approach to legal education aligns perfectly with the practical, values-based, and service-oriented approach to legal education at Baylor Law. When the Carnegie Report came out in 2007, I admittedly did not give its findings and recommendations the attention it deserved, that is, not until hearing presentations and reading articles from our friends at the Holloran Center (specifically Co-Directors Neil Hamilton and Jerry Organ and Holloran Center Fellow Lou Bilionis) and others who devoted years to improving the professional development and ethical leadership of our law students.

Before meeting these dedicated teachers and scholars, we had already begun our own efforts at Baylor Law to enhance and incorporate more emphasis on professional identity formation and professional development of our students, including the creation of our Professional Development Program and Leadership Development Program in 2014. Validation that we were on the right track with our approach to legal education came for us in the fall of 2016 when Neil Hamilton and Lou Bilionis traveled to Waco, Texas to lead our Baylor Law faculty and staff in a workshop. The Holloran Center team complimented us on our multi-dimensional, multi-year approach. Baylor Law professors were encouraged to better communicate to our students the efforts already in place to teach and enforce professionalism. I offer my perspective of fundamental aspects of our approach to teaching and training Baylor Lawyers:

  • teach students to think like lawyers;
  • offer a variety of practical skills training opportunities;
  • require a rigorous practicum in the third year;
  • insist upon professionalism (work ethic, respect for one another, integrity, etc.) in all interactions inside and outside the classroom; and
  • encourage students to adopt a service orientation in their professional and personal endeavors.

The Holloran Center initiatives continued to inform and inspire our work in the summers of 2017 and 2019, when Baylor Law faculty and staff joined teams from other law schools to attend Holloran Center summer workshops. Again, we were encouraged to compose a description of our professionalism training that spans from orientation through graduation. As part of our work in response to the 303 amendments, we are making a conscious effort to do so. More detail of our work in this area will be shared in a future post.

The Holloran Center’s work on professional identity formation continues to influence and inspire us as we seek to improve and enhance the “whole building” approach (as described by Dean Emeritus Bilionis) to teaching, training, and inspiring Baylor law students. Thank you!

I am always happy to visit further with anyone who desires additional information. Feel free to reach out to me at Leah_Teague@baylor.edu.

Leah Witcher Jackson Teague is the Professor of Law and Director of Business Law Programs at Baylor Law School.

 

January 24, 2023 by
Patrick Longan

Developing Professional Identity By Aligning Personal Values and Professional Life and Following the Four Steps of Discernment: Using A Distinguished Judge’s Life as a Guide

By: Pat Longan, William Augustus Bootle Chair in Professionalism and Ethics, Director of the Mercer Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism, Mercer University School of Law

All of us who teach professional identity are constantly on the lookout for useful resources. A new book that you will find to be valuable is The Significant Lawyer: The Pursuit of Purpose and Professionalism, by the Honorable William S. Duffey, Jr. (Mercer University Press (2022)).

Judge Duffey comes to the topic of professional identity with long and varied experience in the law. He served in the Air Force JAG Corps, as a private practitioner for 22 years with King & Spalding, as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and as a United States District Judge. Judge Duffey has reflected deeply on his experiences in the profession and provides powerful insights into how lawyers can find meaning and satisfaction in their careers.

The central thesis of the book is that lawyers must align their lives in the law with their personal values. When lawyers allow their careers to become misaligned with their values, they sacrifice their integrity, with the result that they find themselves unhappy, even lost, in their professional lives. In Judge Duffey’s experience, such misalignment is all too common. For lawyers in private practice, especially at the large law firms whose “profits-per-partner” metrics are routinely published, Judge Duffey blames the misalignment on the pivot of law firms away from service toward the pursuit of more and more profit.

In his reflections, Judge Duffey does not spare himself. For example, he notes that one of his personal values is not to be overly concerned with money or status. He describes how he and his wife, acting consistently with that value, resolved not to change their lifestyle when he became a partner. Yet soon he was driving a new BMW “partner kind of car” and moving to a new house. He had the self-awareness to know he was being pulled out of alignment by money and status. To try to counteract that tendency, and to put his professional life back into alignment with his personal values, one year he resolved not to compare his share of King & Spalding’s profits with those of his partners. He resolutely looked only at his own compensation and decided it was fair. A few days later, he succumbed to the temptation to know what the other partners made. Then his compensation seemed less fair. Judge Duffey found himself less satisfied when he kept score of his professional success by comparing his compensation to the compensation of others.

Judge Duffey also describes the effects of misalignment on his personal life. His personal values include deep love for his family. But when he had reached the litigation “fast lane” at King & Spalding, he realized that the priority he gave to his professional life had caused deterioration of his marriage and estrangement from his children. He carefully reviewed his calendars for the past few years and discovered to his surprise very few entries related to events with his family. Judge Duffey resolved to realign his professional life so that he could give “equal dignity” to his commitment to his family.

There came a point when Judge Duffey decided that he needed a change. Although the work at King & Spalding was complex and challenging, he found that his professional life was significantly misaligned with his personal values. He made the courageous decision to leave a lucrative private practice for public service. As he writes, he then found his professional life to be “abundantly satisfying.”

Judge Duffey’s book is an excellent primer on the cultivation of a healthy professional identity. When we teach our students about professional identity, we ask them to take four steps of discernment. Judge Duffey’s story illustrates all four.

First, students need to reflect on their personal values and motivations and define their personal ethos. One cannot align one’s personal values with professional practice without knowing what those personal values are. Taking the time to reflect is far too rare these days. It takes effort, self-awareness, honesty, and humility. Judge Duffey is an inspiration in this regard. As his book reveals, he is a deeply introspective man who has throughout his life regularly examined and reexamined his most important beliefs and values.

The second step of discernment is to question whether one’s personal values and motivations are likely to be associated with happiness. Not all personal values are created equal. Positive psychology has shown that work that is done for intrinsic rewards rather than extrinsic ones is more likely to yield satisfaction. One is intrinsically motivated to engage in activities that are fulfilling for their own sake or that serve a fundamental purpose. Extrinsic motivations seek rewards that are external to the activity, such as the money one earns for it. Judge Duffey appears to have learned this lesson early in life. As he describes his personal values, over and over he writes about things that are intrinsically rather than extrinsically rewarding. He notes that what he enjoyed about his high-stakes civil litigation private practice was that it was complex and challenging. That is an intrinsic reward of that type of work. When Judge Duffey writes of the rewards of service as a prosecutor or a judge, he describes the fulfillment of fundamental purposes such as fairness and justice. Despite his honest descriptions of the allure of money, status, and power, Judge Duffey never adopted those extrinsic values as his own.

I should note in this regard that Judge Duffey does not contend that lawyers should not seek material success. There is nothing inherently wrong with prosperity. Especially at this time of year, I am reminded of one exchange in the Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey, desperate because his Uncle Billy has lost $8,000, hears from his guardian angel that they don’t use money in heaven. George’s response is, “Comes in pretty handy down here, bub. I found it out a little late.” Money does come in handy, and material success is not inconsistent with a meaningful life in the profession. Judge Duffey makes that point several times. But when an extrinsic motivation such as the accumulation of money predominates over intrinsic ones, the lawyer is on a path to dissatisfaction in the law and in life. Law students need to appreciate that. It is not obvious, or even intuitive, but Judge Duffey somehow internalized that lesson early in life.

The third step of discernment is to consider how one’s personal values can be integrated with the non-negotiable norms of the legal profession. It is necessary, but not enough, for lawyers to be able to say that their personal values align perfectly with how they practice law. But what if those values and the conduct that flows from them violate the shared values of the profession? For example, imagine a young lawyer whose personal values include winning at all costs; that goal might be served by ignoring the rules of conduct. Cheaters sometimes win. That lawyer would enjoy a perfect alignment of personal values with his mode of practice, yet of course it is unacceptable. The legal profession exists to serve public purposes and not just the happiness of its members. Judge Duffey’s book shows a deep appreciation for the shared values of the profession. He writes about the eight oaths he has taken over the course of his career. Judge Duffey understands, and appears always to have understood, that lawyers must align their conduct not just to personal values but also to professional standards.

The fourth step of discernment is for lawyers to find the place in the law where their values and the practice can align. No one is born knowing what it is like to be a lawyer in different parts of the profession or how to conduct oneself in all contexts to align personal and professional values. Judge Duffey’s book helps here in several respects. First, he describes his wide range of experiences in the law and provides insights for his readers about life as a prosecutor, a big firm litigator, and a judge. He also relates how the lives of lawyers he has known sharpened his understanding of how to be a happy and successful lawyer. I am pleased to report that two of the lawyers he describes—Griffin Bell and Frank Jones—were proud alums of the Mercer University Law School. More generally, those passages of the book alert law students and young lawyers to the importance of role models and mentors as they find their places in the profession.

This spring, for the 20th year, all first-year Mercer Law students will take a course on professional identity. A generous alum has purchased copies of Judge Duffey’s book for all those students, and we will be using the book in the course. Judge Duffey has made a major contribution to the emerging field of professional identity instruction in law schools, and I commend his book to all readers of this blog. You will find it, as I did, both instructive and inspirational.

Should have you any questions or comments about this post, please contact me at longan_p@law.mercer.edu.

Patrick Longan is the William Augustus Bootle Chair in Ethics and Professionalism in the Practice of Law at Mercer University School of Law and is Director of the Mercer Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism.

December 15, 2022 by
Janet Stearns

Insights From the Field Concerning Well-Being and Anti-Racism

By: Janet Stearns, Dean of Students, University of Miami School of Law

2022 has been an eventful year. If you are like me, you may be focusing on completing critical year-end projects and starting to set your New Year’s resolutions. One of my ongoing objectives for the New Year, as it relates to professional identity work, is finding critical synergies between (1) the mental health and well-being agenda and (2) the diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda. Some mistakenly tend to consider these in separate silos rather than embracing the complex duality of these pillars of our professional identity agenda.

I invite you to read, or perhaps reread, an article I published in January 2022 for the AALS Student Services Publication Insights from the Field. My article speaks to some specific experiences from the 2020-2021 school year in programming at the intersection of law students’ well-being and diversity initiatives. This publication, under the guidance of Student Services Chair Maria Saez-Tatman (University of Tennessee College of Law) and Current-Elect Chair Jeffrey Dodge (The Pennsylvania State University-Dickinson Law), includes a number of provocative articles from my colleagues, with a particular focus on an anti-racist agenda in law schools.

Wishing you all a peaceful and joyful holiday season!

Please feel free to reach out to me at jstearns@law.miami.edu if you have any questions or comments.

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

December 6, 2022 by
David Grenardo

A Behind-The-Scenes Look at the Holloran Center that Provides Guidance to All Law Schools Implementing Professional Identity Formation

By: David A. Grenardo, Professor of Law and Associate Director of the Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions, University of St. Thomas School of Law

Ever since I attended my first Holloran Center Workshop in 2016 and read the powerful materials provided by Neil Hamilton and Jerry Organ, I always wondered how those two operated the Holloran Center. What were they doing at their own law school to implement professional identity since they were the ones giving others ideas of how to do so? What were their personalities like given their considerable influence and impact in legal education?

After joining the University of St. Thomas School of Law and the Holloran Center as its Associate Director this past fall, I can finally answer these questions and share those answers with you. The answers provide an incredible amount of knowledge and wisdom that any law school can use to implement professional identity formation for its students.

Raw Self-Reflection

Professional identity entails continuous self-reflection that allows law students to develop into the professionals they can and want to become. Neil and Jerry strongly encourage this aspect of professional identity for students, and they demonstrate it themselves.

The University of St. Thomas School of Law requires that all 1Ls take three one-credit classes, Moral Reasoning for Lawyers (MRFL), Serving Clients Well, and Business Basics. The concept of professional identity is introduced and reinforced in these courses, particularly MRFL and Serving Clients Well. When St. Thomas Law first introduced some of these ideas, they were included in one three-credit course, Foundations of Justice (Foundations). The three-credit course format was not well received by students. Jerry spearheaded efforts to improve each part of the course, which included commissioning a focus group of students who previously took Foundations to learn what the class did well and not so well.  Those conversations resulted in splitting Foundations into two courses— MRFL (one credit) in the fall and Foundations of Justice (two credits) in the spring. Eventually, the two-credit Foundations of Justice course in the spring also was divided and renamed Serving Clients Well (SCW) and Business Basics (BB) to give students exposure to client-service competencies they will need to be successful in practice.

I am now part of this evolutionary process myself as we revisit the design/implementation of the BB course, which I will co-teach with Jerry. Despite being an accomplished and elite teaching professor and scholar, Jerry once again has invited students to share their concerns about the design and content of the course, which has generated some brutal honesty from the students. Jerry has taken the critique and reflected on his own execution and design of the class. We are presently redesigning the class to make it more effective and to engage students where they are.

I also have witnessed Jerry’s and Neil’s honest self-reflection in our weekly Holloran Center meetings where they admit something could have been done better or acknowledge something went well. The vulnerability and candor in which they approach their own self-reflection allow them to truly understand and see where improvements can be made and success has been achieved. This leads to my next observation – they exhibit a growth mindset.

We Will Continuously Try New Things, and When We Fail, Which is Good, We Will Make Them Better

I sometimes feel like I am in the middle of the “Meet the Robinsons” Disney movie when I am working with Neil and Jerry. In that movie, the great inventor, genius, and orphan Lewis goes into the future as a young boy and unknowingly meets his eventual family. As he attempts one of his inventions, it fails horrendously and his future family cheers and congratulates him, “You have failed! From failure we learn, from success. . . not so much.” With Neil and Jerry, there is a humble joy in them when they speak of attempts at implementing professional identity with little or no success. Each of them will say something like, “We tried, but it didn’t work the way we expected or not at all.” They make statements like these without remorse or regret; instead, they do so with humility, pride, and hope. They would probably not call their efforts failures, but instead would likely characterize their attempts as Thomas Edison did, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

They attempt new things knowing that they will not be perfect and actively seek out ways to improve what they have done.

The tinkering and re-jiggering of MRFL, SCW, and BB, led to the inclusion of Roadmap into SCW. Now SCW includes one-on-one coaching of students in January and February of the 1L year using the Roadmap in SCW.

Roadmap, for the uninitiated, is a book written by Neil Hamilton that guides a law student “to prepare and implement a successful plan for meaningful employment.” Neil won the prestigious E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award from the ABA in 2015 based on the Roadmap and his efforts to improve professionalism in the legal profession. Neil is currently finishing up the third edition of the book to make it even more accessible and helpful to law students. The revised Roadmap will be ready for students to utilize this spring in SCW.

Over the last two decades, Jerry and Neil also have played a role in developing and implementing the classroom component associated with the law school’s distinctive Mentor Externship program in which all law students have a mentor for each of their three years in law school. A law student can change mentors during that time, but each law student is guaranteed a mentor throughout every year of law school. This program has also evolved and changed over time to better meet the needs of our students.  Presently, in the second year and third year, there is a classroom component with students earning one pass/fail credit in each year. The classroom component involves both small group conversations and also one-on-one coaching with each student three times over the course of the academic year. The Mentor Externship program includes a good deal of professional identity formation, such as self-reflections by the students based on the work they do and their experiences in the program. In addition, each student must develop a networking plan designed to support the individual student’s professional development as reflected in the student’s work with Roadmap.

Neil, through trial and error, even added coaches to his Professional Responsibility course. Now, his class not only teaches the basics of what law students need to understand and apply the rules of professional conduct, but it also explores aspects of professional identity formation as students learn from local practitioners.

Whatever Neil and Jerry do (or try to do), their focus is always on the students—learning about where the students are and searching for the most effective ways to help each student grow. Their thoughtful and creative approach entails a constant loop that involves trying something, seeking feedback, reflecting, improving the exercise, lesson, or class, and then repeating those steps.

Whole-Building Approach

Neil and Jerry have been working for several years towards a whole-building approach to professional identity. They preach it to other law schools, and they are living it out themselves. They have been working diligently to create a “one file” system that allows many departments of the law school to add feedback and notes on each student. The Roadmap coaches from SCW, Mentor Externship professors, the Office of Career & Professional Development (CPD), and Lawyering Skills (aka legal research and writing at some law schools) professors would each add their notes, thoughts, and work relating to professional identity formation into a file for each student so that when faculty or staff meet with students they could see the evolution of the student’s professional identity and the student’s professional development plans over the course of law school.

In particular, Jerry and Neil worked with our law library and IT experts to create a “one file” system that is scheduled to begin operation next semester, starting with the Roadmap and the Roadmap coach observations that will go into that file for each student. Jerry and Neil believe that we will be able to train the 2L and 3L Mentor Externship faculty on how to use the “one file” system by contributing their observations on professional identity formation learning outcomes into an efficient form for gathering insights after each of the six one-on-one meetings that occur throughout the 2L and 3L years. Additionally, notes from the one-on-one meetings with CPD staff will also be added to each student’s file. Neil and Jerry also plan on providing our required curriculum colleagues with some positive and reinforcing language on professional identity to cross-sell the value of these professional identity formation efforts to the students.

Planting Seeds

Jerry and Neil are always anticipating the needs of law students and law schools in the future. They look ahead to try to bridge the gap between what will be needed and what is currently offered. The Holloran Center’s next step will be hosting a symposium/workshop in the spring of 2023 in conjunction with casebook publishers focused on 1L and Professional Responsibility casebook authors (and possibly law professor adopters of those casebooks). It will be the first time the Holloran Center intentionally seeks out casebook authors and 1L/Professional Responsibility professors to convene in a single setting where they can learn, share, and generate ways to help law students develop their own professional identities within these required courses.

Neil and Jerry have done so much amazing work in the legal academy and professional identity formation in particular. I continue to learn from their fearlessness, humility, optimism, and apparent clairvoyance. Even though I was their twentieth choice to serve as Associate Director—I was actually their tenth—I feel honored and humbled to serve alongside them as they continue their phenomenal work.

Please email me at gren2380@stthomas.edu if you have any questions or comments about this post.

December 1, 2022 by
Neil Hamilton

The Profession Has Core Values the Students Can Explore in Guided Reflection

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

Accreditation Standard 303(b) asks legal educators, including faculty and staff, to engage students in “an intentional exploration of the values, guiding principles, and well-being practices considered foundational to successful legal practice.”  Some legal educators may be asking whether the profession has core values and guiding principles and whether the new standard requires imposing these values and principles on our students.  This essay focuses first on what are the core values and guiding principles of the legal profession?  The essay then turns to a second question of how most effectively to engage students in an intentional exploration of the core values and guiding principles.

What are the legal profession’s core values and guiding principles?

In my experience, many legal educators have not done an in-depth exploration leading to a clear definition of the core values and guiding principles of our profession.  They are in fact living into a set of professional values and guiding principles, but it may be challenging to write them down.  The values and principles may seem inchoate initially when written down.  This exploration was not part of our law school experience.

Reflecting on my own law school experience many years ago, I remember that the major core value modeled in every course was that I should strive to become a craftsperson of the law, demonstrating the highest level of all the technical skills of being a lawyer, as my professors both modeled and asked me to demonstrate.  I don’t remember any discussion or guided reflection on this or other core values.

I think many legal educators today, especially in experiential education, engage students on core professional values and principles, but my experience is that few law schools as a community of practice together have reflected on, discussed, and agreed upon the core values and guiding principles of that school’s community of practice.  Standard 303(b) is inviting the faculty and staff of each law school to engage collegially in intentional exploration of that community of practice’s understanding and definition of the core values and guiding principles of the profession.

As a starting place for this collegial intentional exploration of the core values and guiding principles of the profession, the Holloran Center has synthesized a succinct definition from the Preamble to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the four major reports on professionalism from the ABA and the Conference of Chief Justices, and Holloran Center research.[1]  There are two foundational core values that law students and lawyers must understand, internalize, and demonstrate:

  1. a deep responsibility and commitment to serving clients, the profession, and the rule of law;
  2. a commitment to pro-active continuous professional development toward excellence at all the competencies needed to serve others well in the profession’s work.

These are the same foundational core values for all of the peer-review professions, such as medicine, nursing, and engineering.[2]

For a longer definition of the profession’s core values and guiding principles, Holloran Center borrowed directly from the Preamble to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, adopted by all 50 states.

Law students and lawyers should understand, internalize, and demonstrate:

  1. a deep responsibility and service orientation to others, especially the client, whom the student serves in widening circles as the student matures including a commitment to:
    • zealously protecting and pursuing a client’s interests within the bounds of the law while demonstrating respect for the legal system and a courteous and civil attitude toward all persons involved in the legal system;
    • improving the law, providing pro bono service to the disadvantaged, developing cultural competence, and promoting a justice system that provides equal access and eliminates bias, discrimination, and racism in the law;[i]
    • developing and being guided by personal conscience—including the exercise of “sensitive professional and moral judgment” and the conduct of an “ethical person”—when deciding all the “difficult issues of professional discretion” that arise in the practice of law; and
    • developing independent professional judgment, including moral and ethical considerations, to help the client think through decisions that affect others;
  1. pro-active continuous professional development toward excellence at all the competencies needed to serve others in the profession’s work well; and
  2. compliance with the minimum standards of competency and ethical conduct in the Rules of Professional Conduct.

How do we most effectively engage students in an intentional exploration of these core values and guiding principles?

New Interpretation 303-5 emphasizes two of the most important curricular principles to engage students in an intentional exploration of these core values and guiding principles.

  1. Each student should have frequent opportunities for reflection on these core values and principles in courses and co-curricular and professional development activities; and
  2. Each student’s growth toward later stages of development regarding these core values and guiding principles will occur over time.

My earlier blog post on the Standard 303 revisions emphasized that the new standards require law schools to move toward a coordinated progression of guided reflection modules in the curriculum to foster each student’s growth in exploring these core values and principles.

Law Student Professional Development and Formation: Bridging Law School, Student, and Employer Goals (2022) outlines eight additional curricular principles that will foster each student’s exploration of these core values and principles.

The core values and principles discussed in this document come directly from the legal profession’s own rules of conduct, studies conducted of lawyers, and extensive research regarding the values and principles exhibited in the legal profession.  It is important to understand that professional identity formation does not involve legal educators “instilling” or “inculcating” these core values and principles into students.  Rather, professional identity formation entails explicitly and intentionally identifying and sharing these values and principles with law students.  Each student then engages in an exploration of and guided reflection upon the core values and guiding principles of the profession that lead to successful legal practice. It is a life-long exploration for each lawyer.

If you have any questions or comments about this post, then please contact me at NWHAMILTON@stthomas.edu.

Neil Hamilton is the Holloran 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 in Minnesota.

[1] See William Sullivan et al, EDUCATING LAWYERS: PREPARATION FOR THE PROFESSION OF LAW 128-40 (2007); Neil Hamilton, Professionalism Clearly Defined, 18 THE PROF. LAWYER 4-20 (No. 4, 2008); Neil Hamilton, Assessing Professionalism: Measuring Progress in the Formation of an Ethical Professional Identity, 5 U. ST. THOMAS L.J. 470,482-83 (2008); Neil Hamilton, Fostering Professional Formation (Professionalism): Lessons From Carnegie Foundation’s Five Studies on Educating Professionals, 45 CREIGHTON L.R. 763-97 (2012).

[2] See Neil Hamilton, The Core Values of the Service Professions and an Effective Curriculum to Help Students Internalize Them, in EDUCATING ETHICS ACROSS THE PROFESSIONS: A COMPENDIUM OF RESEARCH, THEORY, PRACTICE, AND AN AGENDA FOR THE FUTURE (R. Jacobs ed., 2022).

[3] Note that new interpretation 303-6 provides that the core values and responsibilities of the profession should include the importance of cross-cultural competence and the obligation of lawyers to promote a justice system that provides equal access and eliminates bias, discrimination, and racism in the law.

November 22, 2022 by
Janet Stearns

Teaching “Reflection & Growth” Through Mindfulness

By: Janet Stearns, Dean of Students, University of Miami School of Law

In this past year, I enjoyed some significant opportunities to advocate, negotiate, and study the new ABA standards. I return often to the text and context of the Standards and interpretations and consider how this language is challenging us in our critical roles in law schools today. In review, the comment to Standard 303 guides us:

The development of professional identity should involve an intentional exploration of the values, guiding principles, and well-being practices considered foundational to successful legal practice. Because developing a professional identity requires reflection and growth over time, students should have frequent opportunities for such development during each year of law school and  in a variety of courses and co-curricular and professional development activities.(emphasis added).

How do we teach the foundational skills of ‘reflection and growth” as part of well-being practices in law school? One very significant contribution to answering this question is through the teaching of Mindfulness in law schools.

My colleague and friend Professor Scott Rogers has written a fabulous and important resource—The Mindful Law Student: A Mindfulness in Law Practice Guide. Scott serves as Lecturer in Law and Director of University of Miami School of Law’s Mindfulness in Law Program and Co-Director of the University of Miami’s Mindfulness Research and Practice Initiative. Scott is also a co-president of the national non-profit Mindfulness in Law Society. Scott has spent more than a decade collaborating on peer-reviewed neuroscience research assessing the efficacy of mindfulness training and shares a series of core practices that have been part of this research and are among those found in many well-respected mindfulness training programs. This Practice Guide was published in September by Edward Elgar publishing and is thus a very new tool in our toolbox for teaching mindfulness.

Overview: The Mindful Law Student

The Mindful Law Student is both profound and concise. The materials build upon Scott’s teaching at the University of Miami for the past 15 years. I have been blessed to have a “front row seat” and observe the evolution of Scott’s teaching from his first arrival at Miami Law. Having seen and heard many of his presentations over this time, I was tremendously impressed by Scott’s ability to pull together this complex body of work into such a focused and readable text.

The book is divided into three parts, each consisting of 5 chapters. The first part is called “Mindfulness Elements” and includes a discussion of Leadership, Attention, Relaxation, Awareness, and Mindfulness.  This material is foundational and elucidates the relevance of this topic to every aspect of our personal and professional lives. Part II is “Mindfulness and You” and features specific strategies relating to Solitude, Connection, Self-Care, Movement, and Practice. As Scott tells us:

The chapters in Part II can be read in any order, and you may find them to be useful interludes that complement the readings in Part I.

(I will admit that I read them “in order” the first time but see the opportunities to return to them in different orders, and that this would be welcoming to students.)

Part III, Mindfulness Integrations, raises our awareness of the ways that Mindfulness can affect our lawyering in the areas of Listening, Negotiation, Judgment, Creativity, and Freedom. This section included some very significant “aha” moments for me. For example, in Chapter 11 on Listening, Scott talks about the tendency of lawyers (and physicians) to interrupt their clients and patients. He then offers very specific guidance on how to transition to a mindful listener. Chapter 12 on Negotiation highlights the value of mindful attention to understand better our counterparties and moving beyond self-centered thinking to productive negotiation strategies. Returning to our main theme of professional identity, Part III makes clear the integral role of a mindfulness and reflective practice in performing key elements of our work as lawyers.

Some Special Gems in The Mindful Law Student

Each chapter skillfully integrates scholarship and key teachings on Mindfulness with elements that make this particularly accessible to law students. For one, Scott features seven fictional, diverse law students who face academic and professional challenges and find a pathway for Mindfulness to assist each of them. Each chapter also includes some insightful visualizations and images that capture main concepts. As a visual learner myself, I find these images particularly captivating. Scott is most adept with his key “metaphors”—a reader of the book will quickly understand the images of the flashlight (of attention), the snow globe (of life’s confusing moments), the lightbulb (for awareness), and the spirals (of over-reaction). These images return throughout the book.

Most chapters introduce readers to a different mindfulness practice that connects to that chapter’s subject matter.  A website for the book offers a series of 6-, 12-, and 18-minute versions of each practice, which students can also access via a free app. Scott provides access to practice scripts for those faculty who may wish to offer live guidance in class.

The text skillfully integrates the teachings of many great thinkers, from Rumi and Buddhist devotees to musicians like Herbie Hancock and Supertramp, from civil rights leaders like W. E. B. Du Bois to contemporary lawyers and judges who practice mindfulness.

The Mindful Law Student includes specific exercises and probing questions for meditation and self-reflection at the end of each chapter. Mindfulness requires practice and this is a practice guide. Each chapter also highlights key Trials and Takeaways, which are summaries of main concepts and areas for future work. Finally, each chapter has a concise but helpful list of references and resources for those who might want to dig deeper into any subject.

Chapter 14, “Creativity,” challenges the reader to connect with one’s creative soul through art and poetry. I felt the need to accept that challenge and take the “first step” on that “journey of a thousand miles.” The text discusses the Haiku structure, composed of three-line stanzas of 5, 7 and 5 syllables. I took the plunge, and so here I share my first mindful Haiku with you, inviting our readers to consider your own creative endeavors.

Haiku #1

Powerful Law profs

Changing the world mind by mind

Moment by moment

 

Guiding law students

Capable of breath, thoughts, dreams

The key: mindfulness

 

Reflective lawyers

Navigating this world with

Equanimity

 

Strategies for Using The Mindful Law Student

This Practice Guide can be integrated in a number of productive ways into the law school experience of teaching professional identity. Some options might include:

-A stand-alone course on Mindfulness. The fifteen chapters would be a successful outline of a weekly course dedicated to exploring the practice and applications of Mindfulness in the Law.

-The book, at just over 200 pages, could be on a recommended summer reading list for new law students, and then form the basis for well-being and orientation programming.

-The sections of the text that focus on listening, negotiation, judgment (and ethics), leadership, and creativity could be part of courses that focus on these particular skills, or included in law clinics, externships, or other experiential learning classes where these skills are taught.

As we explore new curricular options and models around professional identity in 1L and upper-level courses, consider whether The Mindful Law Student would be an appropriate addition to your curriculum.

For More Information:

Contact Elgar Publishing for a copy of The Mindful Law Student so that you can consider strategies for integrating this practice guide into your professional identity teaching.

www.themindfullawstudent.com

Other useful resources include:

Mindfulness in Law Society website:
https://www.mindfulnessinlawsociety.org/

UMindfulness at the University of Miami
https://umindfulness.as.miami.edu/

Mindfulness in Law Program at the University of Miami School of Law
https://www.law.miami.edu/academics/programs/mindfulness/index.html

Please feel free to reach out to me at jstearns@law.miami.edu if you have any questions or comments.

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

November 17, 2022 by