By Barbara Glesner Fines, Rubey M. Hulen Professor of Law, Dean Emerita of UMKC School of Law

The occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Holloran Center provides an opportunity to review the Center’s twenty years by the numbers.

First, let’s just count heads at Holloran:

One. Neil Hamilton, whose interest and concern for professionalism and the development of ethical leaders has been the centerpiece of his work since the beginning of his career.  A prodigious, thoughtful, humble, and generous scholar, his humility, wisdom, and collaborative spirit set the Center up for success from day one.

Two. Jerry Organ, with Neil, a founding member of the University of St Thomas School of Law. Also an influential scholar, Jerry has brought an indefatigable energy and a brilliant talent at convening and communication that ensured that the Holloran Center would never be a best kept secret.

Three. A magical number, that magic came together when Tom Holloran gave his time, talent, and treasure to ensure that the Holloran Center would have strength, stability, and impact. His spirit continues to animate it.

Four. By joining the Holloran leadership team, David Grenardo has broadened the focus and reach of professional identity formation.  His scholarship’s focus on inclusivity and civility (not to mention his kindness and good humor) not only makes faculty want to be part of the Holloran Center mission, but also lets them know that they are welcome.

Five. Felicia Bennett, and Brady King before her, are the extraordinary assistants who have lent their own unique perspectives and skills to make sure that the Center gets the work done.

What happens when you add together a team like this?  Addition becomes multiplication.

Let’s just consider publications.

Neil and Jerry have published eight books (and counting) that focus on some aspect of professional identity formation (PIF).  Since then, at least fifteen other faculty members have published ten textbooks that also focus on this theme.

Neil, Jerry, and David have published over 120 law review articles, book chapters, or other academic monographs, not to mention over 100 blog posts, focusing on PIF.  The multiplication is evident from a Lexis search identifying over four hundred law review articles that discuss professional identity formation; 139 of those have PIF in the title.

Then there are the Holloran Center’s workshops, conferences, and programs. By my count, over 300 faculty have attended a Holloran Center workshop.  The leadership team also takes PIF on the road, with over 30 presentations annually at an alphabet soup of national and international organizations from pre-law advisors to the practicing bar and everywhere in between.

The consequence? Over 100 law schools have first-year required courses or programs on professional formation.  With the passage of ABA accreditation standard 303(b) more will come, and they will look to the Holloran Center for leadership and guidance.

Three of the earliest of these law school programs prove how much impact on students this can mean:

The University of St. Thomas School of Law has a 1L course entitled “Serving Clients Well”. The program introduces students to the profession and its values and gets the students started on the law school’s Mentor Externship program. Serving Clients Well was started in 2018 with over 150 students having completed it each year. Many of these graduates have gone on to serve as mentors to the next generation of students in the program.

Another early example of a first-year PIF course can be found at Mercer Law in their 1L “Legal Profession” course, developed by Daisy Hurst Floyd, University Professor of Law and Ethical Formation; Patrick Longan, William Augustus Bootle Chair in Professionalism and Ethics; and Timothy Floyd, Tommy Malone Distinguished Chair in Trial Advocacy and Director of Experiential Education.  The course was established in 2004 and is taught using Professors Floyd, Longan, & Floyd’s text, The Formation of Professional Identity: The Path from Student to Lawyer, now in its second edition. Mercer’s 1L class size has stayed consistent at about 150 students a year over those twenty years since the course was founded.  That means about 3,000 Mercer graduates began their law school journey immersed in virtue ethics and reflection on what it means to be a lawyer.

This year the Holloran Center recognized George Washington Law School for its signature PIF program.  GW established its Fundamentals of Lawyering program in 2019. The required 1L course integrates PIF principles and is taught by a team of faculty members led by its Director, Professor Iselin Gambert, and by Associate Directors Professor Anita Singh and Associate Professor Erika Pont.  The Fundamentals Program is part of a comprehensive program including the school’s Inns of Court and Foundations of Practice programs, directed by Carville Dickinson Benson Research Professor Todd D. Peterson. These programs were conceived and planned in part through GW faculty attendance at multiple Holloran Center workshops.  With GW’s average annual matriculation of about 600 first-year students, that adds up to 3,000 graduates impacted by the program to date.

Just these three courses, pioneered by leaders connected to the Holloran Center, have introduced over 7,500 students to the fundamental values of the profession and provided students opportunities for mentorship and reflection.

The Holloran Center’s broader impact shows that educational change does not happen because of one article or one speech. It happens when scholars name an important idea, develop it repeatedly, support it with evidence, build organizations and tools around it, bring other people into the work, and stay with it long enough for the idea to move from innovation to best practice.  It happens when no one person owns an idea and early entrants are flexible enough to support and encourage the broadening of their ideas. It shows that real reform in legal education is not only intellectual. It is strategic, collaborative, and persistent.

The numbers make it clear that in twenty years of leadership, the Holloran Center has embodied the twin values of PIF: a continual striving for growth and excellence, and a deeply embedded value of service in ever widening circles.

Congratulations to the Holloran Center and to the hundreds of faculty, staff, students, attorneys, and judges who count themselves part of this extraordinary organization.