Katya Cronin – Holloran Center Professional Identity Implementation Blog

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Katya Cronin

Ben Rigney, Daisy Floyd, Elisabeth Kincaid, Janice Craft, Katya Cronin, Kenneth Townsend, Leah Teague, Louis Bilionis, Neil Hamilton, Timothy Floyd

Leadership, Character, and Professional Identity: New Scholarship in the Journal of Legal Education, Volume 74, Number 1

By Felicia Bennett, Holloran Center Coordinator

The latest issue of the Journal of Legal Education offers a rich collection of articles addressing professional identity formation, leadership, and character development. Developed as a follow-up to the 2025 Leadership and Character in the Law Conference at Wake Forest University School of Law, this issue brings rising and distinguished scholars together to examine an increasingly central question of legal education: How can law schools form the leadership and judgment skills of law students so that they enter the profession with a values-driven approach to their role as both lawyers and citizens?

Readers of the Holloran Center’s blog will be familiar with the themes covered in these articles. Authors explore professional identity formation as a theory, the role and importance of virtues and values, leadership and character formation, the responsibilities of lawyers in times of institutional change, and the challenge that generative AI poses to the development of professional judgment skills.

This is the first of two posts that will highlight the scholarship in Volume 74 of the Journal of Legal Education. Today’s post contains the themes of professional identity formation as a theory and leadership and character development. We present these two themes together because they are at the core of the questions faced by legal education today: what are the human-centered skills and traits that law students need to acquire as they prepare to enter society as leaders, and how do law schools shape curricula and pedagogies to support this formation process?

The next post will cover articles on the topics of legal education during times of institutional change and generative AI and professional formation.

Below you will find article summaries with links to the scholarship and suggested, related reading on the Holloran Center Blog.

The Theory of Professional Identity Formation

Louis D. Bilionis & Neil W. Hamilton, “Professional Identity Formation As Theory and As Practice for the Education of a Lawyer,” Journal of Legal Education, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Summer 2026).

This article examines the value of professional identity formation as a unifying theory of legal education that ties academic performance and bar passage, meaningful employment, and a client-centered mindset into the same pedagogical package.

Character, Values, and Leadership Development

Kenneth Townsend, “Leadership and Character in the Law: An Introduction From Kenneth Townsend,” Journal of Legal Education, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Summer 2026).

Townsend introduces the importance of addressing leadership and character development in the face of internal and external pressures in the legal profession.

Leah Teague, “Fostering Future Difference-Makers: The Integration of Leadership Training in Law Schools,” Journal of Legal Education, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Summer 2026).

This article highlights the critical responsibility that law schools have for developing character, professionalism, and ethics in students. With lawyers heavily represented in leadership positions across sectors, Teague argues that including training that prepares students to “serve and lead with integrity” is not optional.

Elisabeth Rain Kincaid, “Practicing Pietas: Character Development for Lawyers as Citizens,” Journal of Legal Education, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Summer 2026).

This article draws connections between the trait of patriotism and the Augustinian/Thomist theory of piety, establishing a positive framework for a lawyer as a virtuous and engaged citizen.

Katya S. Cronin, “Conviction, Character, Courage: The Case for Integrating Values into the Professional Identity Formation of Tomorrow’s Lawyer-Leaders,” Journal of Legal Education, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Summer 2026).

This article explores the role of leadership in the law and argues for the importance of reworking law school curricula to foster moral growth.

Timothy W. Floyd, “Moral Virtues, Professional Identity, and Leadership,” Journal of Legal Education, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Summer 2026).

This article focuses on how the professional identity of lawyers can be framed as the front line of defense for the preservation of a societal commitment to the rule of law. Floyd posits that lawyers are uniquely positioned to serve as ethical leaders, provided they are formed to center values and virtues as part of their professional identity.

Benjamin Rigney & Janice Craft, “The Large Impact of Small Groups on the Character-Based Leadership Development of Law Students,” Journal of Legal Education, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Summer 2026).

This article highlights the role of lawyers as change agents and proposes that small-group work can play a vital pedagogical role in the formation of law students as future ethical leaders.

September 17, 2026 by
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
Katya Cronin

Value-Centered Lawyering: Reshaping the Law School Curriculum to Promote Well-Being, Quality Client Representation, and a Thriving Legal Field

By Felicia Bennett, Holloran Center Coordinator

Katya Cronin, Associate Professor in the George Washington University Fundamentals of Lawyering program, recently published, “Value-Centered Lawyering: Reshaping the Law School Curriculum to Promote Well-Being, Quality Client Representation, and a Thriving Legal Field.” She has written on similar themes in the past (see “The Intentional Pursuit of Purpose: Nurturing Students’ Authentic Motivation for Practicing Law”). In “Value-Centered Lawyering”, she explores one cause of the diminished health, well-being, and professional dedication of lawyers: the disconnect between lawyers’ personal values and the interests they are asked to represent. Seeking answers as to why this disconnect exists, Cronin highlights the negative impact of a law school curriculum whose hidden message is to seek “extrinsic rewards” over “intrinsic values”. Finally, she presents suggestions around ways to integrate a focus on values into the legal curriculum.

Here is the abstract of Cronin’s article:

For three long and harrowing years in law school, students learn to think like lawyers, to put their clients first, to interpret the law as it stands, to deftly advocate for positions they do not believe in, and to strive for successful and prestigious careers. These lessons help them develop analytical and advocacy skills, creativity and perseverance, a strong work ethic, and ambition. But there is a darker side to these learning objectives. What law students often take away from their time in law school is that their own personal beliefs, values, and experiences are irrelevant to the practice of law. They quickly learn that they must serve clients and employers, however personally distasteful or damaging it may be to them. And they begin to measure their worth and success by the yardsticks of prestige and money. Hearing these consistent albeit subliminal messages, law students frequently disassociate from the expectations that their future careers should reflect their inner selves, and they soon find themselves trapped in jobs they consider morally taxing or meaningless. When faced with such recurring conflicts between their work obligations and personal values, or with an overarching feeling of professional meaninglessness, most lawyers experience chronic cognitive dissonance, turn to alcohol or controlled substances for comfort, or develop anxiety, depression, and a host of other emotional, mental, and physical ailments. They lose interest in their work, perform worse, and experience burnout, thus jeopardizing not only their own well-being, but also client outcomes and the stability of the legal field in the long run.

Tragically, such scenarios are the norm, not the exception. Something needs to change. This essay explores what and how in three parts. Part I examines the symptoms of an ailing legal profession. Part II traces the root cause of lawyer unhappiness and aimlessness to the law school curriculum and its shortcomings in supporting law students’ and lawyers’ burgeoning professional identities. This section challenges the choice to de-emphasize personal values in the classroom, the unquestioning and unqualified insistence on client- centered lawyering, and the system of external rewards and validation as the predominant law school narratives. Finally, Part III argues that, alongside teaching students to think like lawyers, to serve their clients, and to work hard, we also need to teach them how to fulfill a paramount duty to themselves—to choose careers, job opportunities, and clients aligned with their values and sense of purpose. This section proposes simple modifications to the legal curriculum that would promote frequent value-focused self-reflection and reinforce the perception that lawyers are not merely instruments of client service, but people with unique backgrounds, experiences, and personal values that can and should factor in building their professional identities.

 

We encourage you to read the full article here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5034763

Should you have any questions or comments about the article, please feel free to contact Professor Cronin at katya_cronin@law.gwu.edu.

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

February 7, 2025 by