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Exercises/Activities

Generative AI and Preparing Students for a Transformed Legal Profession

By: Barb Glesner Fines, Dean Emerita and Rubey M. Hulen Professor of Law,
UMKC School of Law

One of the reasons that artificial intelligence presents such a dramatic opportunity for the legal profession to increase efficiency and quality is the ability of generative AI to do some of the “dull and dirty”[1] work of law practice. We already use artificial intelligence to do document review, e-discovery, financial auditing, legal research, draft contracts, and more. Increasingly, it will be used to gain even more efficiencies in delivering legal services. We have seen the grossest of errors in using AI without supervision by experts, but problems of hallucinations and clear errors will decline as models improve. Yet, research also indicates that AI can produce these documents better than novices but not as well as experts.[2] Thus, we will still need experts to monitor the use of generative AI to ensure accuracy, fairness, creativity, and other values beyond simple win-loss metrics. We will still need experts to guard against abuses of AI.

The problem for legal education and for the formation of professional identity is that the profound expertise needed to be able to monitor generative AI requires professional judgment and deep mastery. Independent professional judgment and mastery are not acquired by classroom learning alone; they are acquired as an experiential matter through the process of trial and error, coaching, reflection, and feedback.

If novice tasks are undertaken by generative AI rather than novice attorneys, where will we develop the pipeline for the expert attorneys who will be able to supervise generative AI? This is a dilemma we face with each technology that frees humans from tasks. Calculators may not have had an overall negative impact on mathematics understanding and problem solving skills,[3] but it has undoubtedly decreased the skills of mental mathematics. Navigation skills have decreased with the introduction of GPS.[4] How will generative AI affect the development of new attorneys’ problem solving skills and independent judgment? How will legal education and the profession ensure that the next generation of attorneys have opportunities to develop these skills alongside the use of this powerful new technology?

This dilemma is yet another reason that intentional opportunities for professional identity formation are critical. The core pedagogies that develop professional identity are the pedagogies of apprenticeship. The challenge will be to design these experiences so that students learn not only how to harness the efficiencies of AI but also learn the skills to question and critique the products of AI while maintaining a commitment to the values of responsibility, service, and integrity. The answer must entail educators incorporating the use of generative AI into legal education and into the training of novices so that they can have the experiences of making mistakes and exercising judgment while also learning how to effectively use generative AI to assist them in those judgments. Kirsten Davis (Stetson University College of Law) and Carolyn Williams (University of North Dakota Law School) have been facilitating a “Legal Writing and Generative AI Convo Group” with over 450 law faculty to explore some of these issues. Undoubtedly each law school is having these same conversations amongst the faculty. Using the framework of professional identity formation to guide these conversations can help us think more deeply about how generative AI will affect the competencies our students need and the pedagogies that will best help them to acquire those competencies.

[1] Andrew McAfee & Erik Brynjolfsson, Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future 1498 (2017).

[2] Ethan Mollick, Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI, Chapter 8 (2024).

[3] Aimee J. Ellington, A meta-analysis of the Effects of Calculators on Students’ Achievement and Attitude Levels in Precollege Mathematics Classes, 34:5 J. Math Education 433 (2003).

[4] Lukáš Hejtmánek, Spatial Knowledge Impairment after GPS Guided Navigation: Eye-Tracking Study in a Virtual Town, 116 Int’l J. Human-Computer Studies 15 (August 2018).

Barbara Glesner Fines is the Dean and Rubey M. Hulen Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.

October 7, 2024 by hami3258

Debunking Common Misconceptions About Professional Identity Formation and Our Take on How to Incorporate it Into the 1L Skills Classroom

By: Marni Goldstein Caputo and Kathleen Luz, Senior Lecturers in Boston University School of Law’s Lawyering Program

Due to the American Bar Association’s (ABA) recent adoption of Standard 303(b)(3), the term “professional identity formation” is now used in a more widespread manner throughout law schools. But what, exactly, is it? And how, exactly, should it be introduced into the 1L curriculum? Further, why do law schools tend to downgrade the importance – or rigorousness – of professional identity formation? When they do so, they risk missing a critical opportunity to develop whole, purpose-driven, mindful future lawyers. We seek here to explain our unique take on professional identity formation, debunk some common misconceptions, and combat the relative institutional diminishment of the importance of 303(b)(3).

What is Professional Identity Formation?

ABA Standard 303(b)(3) mandates, somewhat vaguely, that “[a] law school shall provide substantial opportunities to students for: ….(3) the development of a professional identity.” ABA Interpretation 303-5 clarifies that vagueness, but only to a limited extent, stating:

Professional identity focuses on what it means to be a lawyer and the special obligations lawyers have to their clients and society. 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.

Thankfully, scholars have amply filled in the gaps with definitions like this one: “Professional identity is the way a lawyer understands [their] role relative to all of the stakeholders in the legal system, including clients, courts, opposing parties and counsel, the firm, and even the legal system itself (or society as a whole). Professional identity . . . encompass[es] the ideals each of us holds regarding our professional roles, and how we apply those ideals to the complex situations we encounter in our professional lives.”[1] Thus, professional identity formation involves looking inward and outward, reflecting not only on a student’s or lawyer’s own purpose, but on their role vis a vis others in the legal system. Below, we offer our take on what professional identity means and what formation of that identity entails.

Our Unique Take?

As 1L lawyering skills professors, we spend the majority of our time teaching “hard skills” – legal writing and analysis, oral communication skills, and others. But professional identity formation involves developing a different skill set — skills which have often been referred to as “soft skills.” We reject this nomenclature because it minimizes the importance of these skills. Thus, we refer to them as “character-based” skills, which are as critically important to the development of new lawyers and their professional identities.

Furthermore, we have coined unique terms to divide character-based skills into two categories:

Inward facing character-based skills are those necessary to the development of self, including a lawyer’s decision-making process, purpose, priorities, boundary-setting mechanisms, mindfulness, and well-being.[2]
Outward facing character-based skills are those necessary to interact with other stakeholders in the legal system like clients, colleagues, and judges; these skills include empathy, active listening, patience, and teamwork.[3]

Moreover, our unique perspective on professional identity formation rests on how we incorporate these skills into our 1L lawyering skills classroom. We believe that professional identity formation is not just a concept – it is an applied concept. Specifically, we teach it through the introduction, then practice, and then reflection of character-based skills. This process involves three steps:

Step 1 – Introducing the character-based skills: We introduce character-based skills through pre-reading and then a discussion of the reading in class. When possible, our discussion involves exploring the stories of real-life lawyers who either did – or did not – demonstrate these skills and the fallout from their successes or failures.
Step 2 – Practicing the character-based skills: We try to dive right into this stage as quickly as possible. We spend less time saying, “be an active listener” or “remember to know and protect your moral boundaries,” and more time connecting the use of these skills to graded research and writing assignments or simulations related to those assignments. For example, students may need to counsel a client who makes unethical suggestions after the student has researched and analyzed a core legal issue related to that client, as well as written a memo about that issue. Or students might be required to make choices and decisions in a pressurized lawyering scenario and use their discretion when choosing between two legally appropriate options. In the doing of these exercises, students practice the relevant character-based skills they just learned.
Step 3 – Reflecting on the skills: After students practice the skill, we reflect on what it felt like and how it went, and how they might improve that skill the next time they use it. Through this reflection, students finally connect their handling of this skill to the broader concept of their professional identity. For example, when they asked questions to their client, were they empathetic and/or did they actively listen? Do they feel comfortable with the power of discretion when making a choice? Where are their boundaries? What values shape those boundaries? How will they make difficult choices while honoring those values and boundaries? What is the state of the student’s current professional identity, and how will the student progress and grow?

In this way, we choreograph a progression in which students “back into” professional identity formation through learning character-based skills in a manner attached to graded assignments oriented around “hard skills.” Introducing these critical skills in this manner avoids amorphous discussions that serve to minimize their rigorousness. Rather, this method allows students to tie these character-based skills to other lawyering skills, hopefully causing them to draw upon those experiences in their future practice. Therefore, students begin the process of professional identity formation as early as the fall semester of their 1L year.

Why Are There Misconceptions About Professional Identity Formation?

The lack of clarity provided by the ABA’s standard and interpretation, and the ABA’s use of words like “values,” “principles,” and “well-being” to interpret it, can make professional identity seem less concrete, or even like an amorphous concept. As a result, it has sometimes mistakenly been perceived as a topic that can be addressed in a piecemeal, around-the-edges fashion. Or it can be erroneously cabined to the career office for 1Ls, to externships and clinics for 2Ls and 3Ls, and to a variety of summer jobs for all students.

Even further obscuring the perceived importance of 303(b)(3) was its concurrent inception with ABA Standard 303(c), which requires law schools to teach all students about bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism. Law schools properly viewed the critical 303(c) topics as intellectually rigorous. They charged ahead to tackle the 303(c) requirement, hired new faculty and staff, and created dedicated classes and graduation requirements. Though there are certainly some exceptions, 303(b)(3) was less at the forefront for most law schools. We believe that this relative backburner effect is the result of some common misconceptions.

Debunking Misconception #1: Professional Identity Formation is NOT the Same as Professionalism or Professional Responsibility

First, professional identity formation is not the same as professionalism or professional responsibility. “While there is some overlap existing between the two concepts, these concepts are separable, and there is value in articulating two separate definitions and goals in this work and in our teaching. . . .”[4] Moreover,“[t]he shift from ‘professionalism’ to ‘professional identity’ is far from semantic. Governed by ethical rules and bound by occupational decorum, professionalism is extrinsically oriented. By contrast, professional identity is internal and interwoven with one’s morals, values, and character–i.e., identity.”[5]

While we believe the word “professionalism” can be exclusive and alienating, and thus we avoid its use with students, that topic is for a different blog post. For our purposes here, we note that we do teach what is typically referred to as “professionalism” through our course policies and rules. We require timeliness, thoroughness, appropriate communication with our teams, attention to detail, and respectful email and communication etiquette. Though highly important for the formation of future lawyers, those skills are not innately tied to professional identity formation.[6] Though we deeply respect the work done by the career office to ready students for job searches (one of us was a career advisor for a decade), we also believe that instruction about attire, timeliness, cover letters, and interview tactics are not truly connected to professional identity formation.

Similarly, professional identity formation is not the same as the topics covered in professional responsibility class. Rather, “[i]t is no longer reasonable that a single, required course in professional responsibility will somehow suffice to instill the long-lasting and deep values in legal ethics expected by both the members of our profession, clients, and the American public.”[7] Thus, a single professional responsibility course cannot alone satisfy ABA Standard 303(b)(3). When professional identity is incorrectly combined with professionalism and professional responsibility, the importance and scope of professional identity formation as contemplated by ABA Standard 303(b)(3) are minimized. We believe that the teaching methods we described above counter these misconceptions and weave character-based skills into the core 1L lawyering curriculum in a way that showcases, rather than minimizes, the importance of 303(b)(3).

Debunking Misconception #2: Professional Identity Formation is NOT an Amorphous Concept

There is a common misconception that professional identity formation is best done through soul-searching and broad conversations about dreams, fears, identities, and purpose. We certainly have those amazing conversations with our students in office hours, at school activities, and in individual student conferences. However, they are meant to complement our curricular, in-class approach, which is highly structured and skills-driven. Notably, not all students are willing to participate in those types of broad conversations or internally reflect in that manner and thus, relegating professional identity formation to that space would be inherently exclusive.

Because we structurally and pedagogically tie professional identity formation opportunities to assignments and simulations, we reject the perspective that teaching professional identity formation is an amorphous endeavor. Rather, professional identity formation appears on our syllabus and arises in our classrooms like traditional lawyering topics. Students are aware at the outset that professional identity formation is part of our course, as it is listed in our outcomes on the syllabus. Our goal is for our students to place equal importance on developing “hard” and character-based skills.

Debunking Misconception #3: It is NOT Untenable to Add Professional Identity Formation to a Busy 1L Skills Curriculum

Yes, the 1L skills curriculum is packed and most of us have a laundry list of worthy skills we simply cannot cover. However, that does not mean there is no room for professional identity formation. Rather, as outlined above, it just means being more purposeful and strategic with the 1L skills curriculum and capitalizing on those potential opportunities. Further, the ABA requires “frequent opportunities for such development during each year of law school and in a variety of courses.” Therefore, there is really no room to skip 1L year in terms of creating these opportunities.

Additionally, the 1L lawyering skills class provides the perfect opportunity for this type of professional identity formation. “It is naive and unrealistic to assume that our students only begin to develop their professional identities when they enter the world of practice. In fact, students begin to develop their professional identities from the first day of law school . . .”[8] Through the use of carefully constructed assignments, replicating the representation of real-world clients, our students are pushed to “back into” professional identity formation. Attaching these opportunities to assignments allows for time within the curriculum, without displacing any other critical skills.

Conclusion

Our goal here is to convince the doubters that professional identity formation is meaty and meaningful, and that 303(b)(3) is just as important as 303(c). In so doing, we hope to dispel some of the common misconceptions and combat what we feel has been a certain degree of institutional diminishment of professional identity formation. Of course, as 1L lawyering skills professors we also hope to encourage our peers to strategically incorporate professional identity formation into their 1L lawyering skills courses and to consider the character-based “backing into” approach we outline above. Incorporating professional identity formation into the 1L skills curriculum is not difficult or distracting, in that it seamlessly complements and dovetails with skills they already teach. Further, developing exercises, simulations, and assignments that cause students to practice character-based skills, and thus contemplate their professional identities, is fun and allows for a tremendous amount of creativity in the classroom.

[1] Martin J. Katz, Teaching Professional Identity in Law School, 42 Colo. Law. 45, 45 (2013).

[2] Marni G. Caputo & Kathleen Luz, Beyond “Hard” Skills: Teaching Outward- and Inward-Facing Character-Based Skills to 1Ls in Light of ABA Standard 303(B)(3)’s Professional Identity Requirement, 89 Brook. L. Rev. 809, 817 (2024); see also M. Walsh Fitzpatrick & R. Queenan, Professional Identity Formation, Leadership and Exploration of Self, 89 UMKC L. Rev. 539 (2021).

[3] Caputo & Luz, supra; see also S. Daicoff, Law as a Healing Profession: The “Comprehensive Law Movement,” 6 Pepp. Disp. Resol. L.J. 1 (2006).

[4] David I. C. Thomson, “Teaching” Formation of Professional Identity, 27 Regent U. L. Rev. 303, 316 (2015).

[5] Eduardo R.C. Capulong, et al., Antiracism, Reflection, and Professional Identity, 18 Hastings Race & Poverty L. J. 3, 5 (2021).

[6] See Maureen R. Van Neste, Law Student Professional Development and Formation: Bridging Law School, Student, and Employer Goals, Neil W. Hamilton and Louis D. Bilionis (Cambridge University Press 2022), 167 Pages, 27 Legal Writing: J. Legal Writing Inst. 309 (2023).

[7] Miriam R. Albert & Jennifer A. Gundlach, Bridging the Gap: How Introducing Ethical Skills Exercises Will Enrich Learning in First-Year Courses, 5 Drexel L. Rev. 165, 169 (2012).

[8] Albert & Gundlach, supra.

Marni Goldstein Caputo (L) and Kathleen Luz (R) are a Senior Lecturers at Boston University School of Law, where they teach Lawyering Skills to first-year law students. Their scholarship focuses on professional identity formation, legal writing pedagogy, and learning science.

September 3, 2024 by hami3258

Barbara Glesner FInes

Drawing Pictures as a Professional Identity Formation Tool

By: Barb Glesner Fines, Dean Emerita and Rubey M. Hulen Professor of Law,
UMKC School of Law

As a new academic year begins, it’s that “fresh box of crayons” time of year. And so time for artwork to help us in understanding what it means to be a professional.

For over two decades, I have begun my Professional Responsibility (PR) class with a drawing exercise in which I ask students to “draw a picture of a professional.”[1] You could use this exercise in any course as we want our students to think about their professional identity formation throughout law school. Over the years, some things have remained constant with the pictures produced from this exercise – for example, briefcases still appear as the most frequent symbol of professionals.

Some things have changed. Women began appearing in about 2002 even though I had plenty of female students in my PR classes prior to 2002. Images of wealth and status waxed and waned. This year, after a six-year hiatus from teaching the PR course, I again repeated the experiment to see if new trends and assumptions were emerging. Here is my brief analysis of the new picture of professionals my students are bringing into the PR course.

It’s still hard work. Those briefcases are still there, this year with a litigation cart full of exhibits and a file cabinet stuffed full.
Technology is ubiquitous. Laptops, cell phones, smart watches… they haven’t quite replaced the briefcase, but they appear nonetheless.
Women are professionals. It’s hard to discern demographic data with stick figures (the artistic abilities of our students vary widely), but about 50% of the professionals appear to be women.
Not all professionals are attorneys. Professional athletes once again appeared as “bonus professionals”
Clients are in the picture! For nearly every year in which I conducted this exercise, the professionals in the picture were there alone. Occasionally a judge would appear. One-third of this semester’s students had a client in the picture (which is the punchline of the exercise – “a professional keeps the client in the picture”). The increased experiential opportunities (and requirements) of today’s students may explain why their picture of a professional reflects this vision of a service professional.

If you would like to see your students’ images of professionals, here are some suggestions.

Think about timing. I like to use this as an assignment on the first or second day. It’s a good ice-breaker, the students don’t have any preset notions of what they are “supposed” to draw, and you can use the pictures to develop themes you will emphasize during the course. For example, I always end the exercise by emphasizing to students that, as service professionals, we need to keep the client “in the picture” and remember that there are others in the picture as well for whom we have responsibilities.
Think about the image you are looking for. I start with “professional” because I use the exercise in professional responsibility, but you could ask for images of clients, lawyers, judges, or advocates… or even abstract concepts like justice or fairness.
Emphasize to the students that artistic talent doesn’t matter and that symbols are welcome. Discourage the use of words. Let students know that you will be showing some or all of the pictures to the class. Emphasize that the assignment is anonymous and they need not claim their artwork.
Collect the pictures and quickly sort through them for thematic elements. Use the document camera and just show one picture after another, noting the themes that jump out at you. Students will laugh and relax, which enhances learning. Difficult subjects can be raised without a lot of elaboration. I’ve had pictures raisestudent concerns about inclusion, wellness, workload, debt, and other deeply personal and difficult subjects. When students see they are not alone in these concerns, it opens doors for conversations.
I have never followed up the exercise with a written reflection, but one certainly could do so effectively.
Needless to say, while this exercise gives me a great deal of formative assessment of student attitudes and assumptions, it is not for a grade.

For ourselves, too, drawing exercises can be an excellent tool for capturing snapshots of perspectives and as a catalyst for reflection and conversation about professional identity. Recently, I had the opportunity to ask a group of legal educators to complete this same exercise but with the prompt to “draw a picture of a law professor.” [2]

How do you picture your professional identity?

^[1] To read more about this exercise and see pictures from students from 2007-2017, see Barbara Glesner Fines, Picturing Professionals: The Emergence of a Lawyer’s Identity, 14 U. St. Thomas L.J. 437 (2018) available at: https://irlaw.umkc.edu/faculty_works/94.

[2] My article exploring the identity of law professors based on this exercise is forthcoming in Volume 2 of the Journal of Law Teaching and Learning (forthcoming 2024) at https://lawrepository.ualr.edu/lawteachingjournal/.

Barbara Glesner Fines is the Dean Emerita and Rubey M. Hulen Professor of Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.

August 23, 2024 by hami3258

David Grenardo

Using Reflection to Add a Meaningful Professional Identity Formation Exercise to a Doctrinal 1L Class

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

It took me thirteen years of teaching to figure out how I could easily incorporate professional identity formation (PIF) for my 1L students into Contracts without taking up class time or sacrificing coverage. I should have thought of it much sooner, but I blame my ineptitude on the concussions I sustained while playing college football.

Revised ABA Standard 303(b) requires law schools to provide substantial opportunities to students to develop their professional identities. PIF needs self-reflection. Indeed, the revised ABA Standard includes Interpretation 3-303(5) that acknowledges PIF requires reflection (and growth) over time, and the frequent opportunities for reflection and growth should occur in a variety of places, including law school courses.

Moments of stress where a law student acts in the role of an attorney provide the best opportunities for law students to develop their professional identity. In other words, when law students perform as lawyers, such as in clinics, externships, or role-playing in classes, students begin to feel like lawyers and understand better what it means to be a lawyer while learning what type of lawyer they want to be.

When I call on 1Ls in my Contracts class, I have them stand up on either side of the room, typically four rows up in a stadium-style seating classroom, and each student represents the plaintiff or defendant in the cases assigned. The students do not know which side they will represent until class, and I use a wheel of names that chooses students randomly.

Arguing cases in the first semester or year of law school in front of 80 or more peers, when everyone is simply getting used to law school and learning the new language of law, is stressful. The way I conduct class also places the students in the role of lawyers. This is clearly a PIF moment, but I just needed to add one simple task to help 1Ls intentionally develop their professional identities in my class: self-reflection.

The rest of the blog will provide the exercise I added and the pedagogy I employ in the class.

The Exercise

Here is the language from my syllabus that describes the PIF exercise:

I plan to call on students randomly. You can be called on during any class, including more than once a semester. After you are called on, you will complete a reflection that is no fewer than 100 words. You will email me your reflection by midnight on the same day of your recitation. The reflection must include the following: what you did well; what you can improve on; and what, if anything, you will do differently in preparation for, and/or during, your next recitation.

Recitations in class are meant to help students develop into lawyers by providing them with opportunities to improve some of the skills they will need to be successful as lawyers. Please be supportive and encouraging to your classmates as they are called on in class.

I do not give the students grades on their reflections, but the reflections are mandatory, meaning a student’s overall grade can be reduced if they fail to turn in their reflection(s). Having finally realized all I needed to do was add a short reflection to provide an intentional and meaningful PIF opportunity, I found the benefits of the exercise (both intended and unintended) to be staggering.

I will discuss those benefits after I first explain how I set up my classroom and communicate my approach and expectations to the students.

Communicating Expectations

Creating a classroom environment where students feel free to make mistakes, experiment, and find their voice is critical. I explicitly tell students on the first day of class how we will be conducting class, with the wheel of names choosing who goes for the day, and students will be representing plaintiff or defendant. I tell them how what they are doing—arguing a case in front of 80 or more people when they find out only minutes before they argue—is not normal in the practice of law. Typically, as a lawyer, one writes the motion (and reply) or opposition, prepares for weeks, knows the issues, facts, and law backwards and forwards, and then goes to argue in court or on Zoom. As noted above, I tell them that this 1L process is even harder given that, particularly in the first semester, everyone is still learning the law and trying to understand how law school works.

I tell students that I do not want to find out any of them are making fun of any of their classmates for what their classmates have done when called on in this class. I urge them to be supportive and encouraging to their classmates. Most, if not all of them, are thinking the same thing when a classmate is called on, which is the same thing my college coach used to say, “Better you than me.” Students are just glad they are not called on; they are not dissecting every single word another student is saying and looking for mistakes.

I do allow them to make fun of one person in the class: me. If they feel an unyielding urge to criticize or mock someone, I invite them to target me and me alone in class. I have occasionally shown a picture of Vegeta, an anime character, whose receding and odd hairline apparently resembles my own, at least according to my two sons. I make plenty of jokes to let students know the practice of law can be enjoyable, and sometimes the jokes reduce the tension in the room. I often say that students should not worry about saying something stupid as I say many stupid things in class all the time.

Explaining the Pedagogy

When I call on students, we first start with the rules we studied for the day. For example, if we are discussing cases involving promissory estoppel, we go through each element of promissory estoppel with examples to understand what the rule is and how to apply it.

After we have covered the rule, I ask one of the counsel to tell me the facts. I then ask the opposing counsel to add any facts at this point that they think I should know.

Next, I ask about the legal issues involved, and we begin to apply the applicable rule(s) to the facts of the case for each issue. Once we determine the correct rule, I’ll ask plaintiff to make arguments on the first element of the rule. I will then ask defense counsel for counterarguments. And the parties argue each element.

I explain to students why I use this process. We start with the rule in class because if we do not know or understand the rule, then we cannot possibly analyze the case or fact pattern properly. In a case or on the exam, there will be facts or a fact pattern that they need to be familiar with, so that is why I have someone recite the facts (in a manner that advocates for their client).

When students become lawyers and they are making a closing argument, they might (as many attorneys do) use the jury instructions to show what they need to prove or disprove, and then go through each element and argue why they prevail based on the applicable evidence and why the other party should not. On my exam, I want them to argue both sides in their analysis.

Their exam answers in my class need to be written in IRAC form, which includes the issue, rule, analysis, and conclusion. Our class entails identifying the legal issue(s), stating and dissecting the rule, analyzing from both parties’ perspectives, and discussing the conclusion(s).

Put simply, what we do in class is exactly what they will be doing in practice and on my exam. I explicitly walk them through all of this to make sure they understand what I am doing and what I want them to accomplish.

Advantages of the Exercise

Several advantages, both expected and unexpected, came from the exercise. One, students were able to reflect on a formative experience that helped them understand what type of lawyers they were going to be and wanted to be. For example, those who were well-prepared discussed how much that meant to their performance, while those who were not as well-prepared lamented how they must improve in that area. The best lawyers are well-prepared.

Two, the exercise gave students something to feel positive about themselves. Most students recognized at least a few things that they did well, and I was able to affirm them through this exercise. Law school can often be devoid of positive reinforcement for law students during the 1L year. Early responses to students’ work in law school usually involve numerous red marks on their initial legal research and writing papers. By requiring each student to write a reflection, the students and I could recognize something positive they were doing as soon-to-be lawyers.

Three, I caught several people suffering from imposter syndrome. This was not my intent, but it was a positive unintended benefit. A handful of students reflected that they did nothing well, despite classmates telling them otherwise. Prior to doing this exercise, I did not always comment on how each student performed in class. I tried to catch students after class or in the hallway at some point, but I was not always successful. With the reflection, I make sure I respond to each student with some type of positive affirmation.[1]

For the folks who claimed they did nothing well, I gave them some tangible examples of what they actually did well—they had the facts down cold, meaning they were well-prepared, which is a trait of great lawyers; they analyzed certain rules or elements effectively; they showed poise and composure; they demonstrated professionalism throughout their recitation; they showed an amiable and/or likable personality, which will endear them to a jury or judge. Honest, positive critiques helped law students feel good about themselves and confident that they chose the right profession.

Four, law students in my class start to really feel like lawyers after they have stood up and argued in front of their peers. They have a sense of confidence that they can do the part of the job that requires them to advocate for their clients. And for the students who go twice, which was nearly all of them last year, they often reflected on how they appreciated the opportunity to improve with a second chance.

Finally, the last major benefit of the exercise related to jobs. When a student asked me to be a reference or write a letter of recommendation for them, I could go back to their reflection and my response to them to find solid evidence of something positive the student did (besides just their grade) that I could then relay enthusiastically to potential employers. I did not see this benefit coming, but it has been invaluable.

Advantages of the Wheel

The wheel removed bias from my cold-calling in class. In previous years, I would call on easy names to pronounce on the first day of class to avoid proving my stupidity too early in the semester. In the past, I might also be inclined to call on students I perceived to be smarter on harder cases, thereby precluding other students from the chance to show their abilities. The wheel possesses no bias, or at least it does not possess mine.

I also use the wheel to teach another valuable characteristic of a lawyer—being on time or, better yet, being early. When I attended a football camp at the University of Notre Dame when I was in high school, Notre Dame’s head football coach at the time, Lou Holtz, said that if you’re five minutes early, then you’re ten minutes late. As high school football players, it took us many weeks to decipher what Coach Holtz was trying to tell us. He meant that you need to be fifteen minutes early to be on time. Lawyers can be sanctioned for showing up to court late. In addition, showing up late demonstrates a lack of civility as it indicates to the client, opposing counsel, judge, or whomever you are meeting with, that you do not respect their time. I communicate this aspect of being a lawyer to the students, and I spin the wheel fifteen minutes before class. Students tend to arrive at least fifteen minutes before class starts.

You might be wondering what I call this magical wheel of names. I have two monikers for it—the wheel of fun, and the wheel of opportunity. Students, at the beginning of the semester, called it the wheel of death and the wheel of torture. This brings me to an important question: isn’t this wheel too stressful and anxiety-inducing for the students? In my class, I want to help prepare students for the practice of law. The practice of law can, at times, be extremely stressful and anxiety-inducing. I make a lot of (outstanding) jokes in class and try to create a fun, supportive environment, but make no mistake: I know this is stressful, and I want it to be stressful. When a student told me that the experience of the wheel helped them defend their client as a certified student attorney this past summer, that tells me this is all worth it. I am not trying to remove all stress from my class. In fact, I want students to expect stress, face it, and work through it, which is what they will need to do as attorneys if they want to be successful.

This exercise does not take away from class time or reduce course coverage. I highly recommend it, or some form of it, to anyone teaching a doctrinal 1L course.

Should you have any questions or comments about this post, please email me at gren2380@stthomas.edu.

[1] Two students (one representing plaintiff and the other the defendant) cover one case. We usually have one to three cases assigned for each class period. If we have three cases in a day, then I will receive six reflections. Thoughtfully responding to six students via email does not take a lot of time.

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

July 31, 2024 by hami3258

Rosa Castello

Helping Students Uncover Their Identities as Lawyers

By: Rosa Castello, Associate Dean for Assessment and Accreditation &
Professor of Legal Writing, St. John’s Law School

Last summer I started reading “Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights” by Kenji Yoshino. I wanted to read the book because I teach a course about perspectives on civil rights, and I thought it would be helpful and interesting. I didn’t think about it in the context of professional identity formation, but I couldn’t help but think about how some of the things Yoshino discussed were intimately connected with forming a professional identity. Through a personal narrative, Yoshino explains two sociology concepts about identity: passing and covering. Relying on work by Erving Goffman, he explains that passing is about the visibility of a trait while covering is about its obtrusiveness. When one attempts to keep a trait invisible from others, that person is “passing.” However, if the trait is visible or known, when the person attempts to downplay the trait then that person is “covering.”

When I read this part of the book, I thought about how these concepts come into play in the professional identity formation of our students. Who are our students when they enter law school? Are there parts of themselves that they cover? Do they attempt to “pass” as something other than what they are? If they don’t enter law school that way, does law school in some way make them feel that they must “pass” as a lawyer (with all the heteronormative androcentric whiteness that usually indicates) or “cover” parts of themselves to be a law student and lawyer?

As I was teaching Law & Literature for the first time last fall, these thoughts came back to me during discussions we had in class about how some of the characters in the books we read felt they had to hide parts of themselves from society, from loved ones, and even from themselves at times. It made me think about Yoshino’s discussion about passing and covering, and I wanted to incorporate parts of his work into our discussions. But I also wanted to broaden the discussion and have students reflect on their own professional identity formation. Thus emerged the PIF Venn Diagram exercise.

I assigned students portions of Yoshino’s book to read before class and asked them to think about Yoshino’s story and his explanation of passing and covering. I asked them to think about how the characters in some of the novels we had read so far might have been “passing” or “covering” and to reflect on their own identity traits and whether they ever felt they had to pass as something or cover an aspect of themselves. I told them we would discuss this in class the next time we met.

I began class by having the students break into small groups and discuss what I had asked them to prepare before class. Then we regrouped as a larger class and students shared thoughts from their discussions and from their own reflections. I then told students that I wanted them to take 10 minutes and think about their identity – who they were, what their traits were, how they identified themselves, what values they had, anything like that – and make a list.

Considering that list, I asked them to think about their identities in law school, outside law school, with their families, with their friends, and in any other setting or situation that was relevant to them. I distributed 8.5×11 paper and asked them to make a circle for each setting they identified and then within each circle list the different traits, values, etc., from their master list that they demonstrated and fully embodied in that setting and omit the ones that they covered. I then told them to draw a Venn diagram where the intersection of the circles would be the traits and identities they fully demonstrated and embodied in each setting and outside the intersection would be traits and identities they fully demonstrated in a particular setting.

We regrouped after students completed their Venn diagrams, and students had the opportunity to share thoughts about their identity inside and outside school and “the law.” Students discussed how their identity might be consistent or different and what they realized, felt, or knew that they covered in law school or attempted to “pass” as. This conversation was voluntary; students did not need to share their thoughts or diagrams. But most students did and were eager to discuss the parts of themselves that they didn’t bring to law school and why and whether after this exercise that might change. It led naturally to a conversation about being a lawyer, who is “a lawyer,” and what is expected from lawyers in the profession. We talked about the importance of authenticity and how being yourself would serve clients and justice and make you a happier lawyer.

For example, one Muslim student who wore a hijab discussed how she could not cover her ethnic and religious identity, but she did feel pressure to “pass” in law school by not openly discussing and sharing aspects of that part of herself that were an important part of her identity outside law school. Several students shared stories about passing or covering aspects of their identity connected to their culture or race. Some students talked about the pressures they felt to pass or cover their identity as a parent or older student. An openly gay woman shared how law school is actually an environment where she didn’t feel the need to cover her sexuality, but she has in other environments and experiences outside law school.

I would love to do this exercise again in other classes. What I learned from my students enlightened me. We make assumptions sometimes as professors about who our students are and what they should be like to enter the profession. This exercise showed me more clearly who our students actually are and what they cover or think they must cover to be law students and lawyers. It was an intentional and thoughtful way to think about and explore with them why we cover parts of ourselves or feel we need to “pass” in the legal profession. I shared with them my own reflections on what I covered in my identity as a law professor. They shared with me thoughts about what they valued in law professors. In the end, the exercise reframed my own professional identity, and I hope it helped students on their journey to developing their professional identity.

Please feel free to contact me at castellr@stjohns.edu if you have any questions or comments.

Rosa Castello is Associate Dean for Assessment and Accreditation and Professor of Legal Writing. She has presented at several conferences on topics including integrating skills and doctrine and assessment and law school culture, and her scholarship focuses on legal writing pedagogy and assessment.

July 23, 2024 by hami3258

Jamie Abrams

Inclusive Socratic Teaching: Why Law Schools Need It and How to Achieve It

By: Jamie R. Abrams, Professor of Law & Director of Legal Rhetoric Program,
American University, Washington College of Law

As scholars and teachers working in professional identity formation, blog readers may be interested to check out my recent book, titled Inclusive Socratic Teaching: Why Law Schools Need It and How to Achieve It, published by the University of California Press. The book issues a call to action squarely centered in the Socratic classrooms that still dominate so much of legal education’s curricular core. The book’s premise is that existing legal education reforms, including ABA Standard 303(b) governing professional identity formation, are happening around the architectural and structural core of Socratic classrooms.

The book traces enduring scholarly critiques over the past fifty years of Socratic teaching’s professor-centered and power-centered approaches. It layers onto these critical perspectives the alarming wellness concerns facing modern law students and lawyers that scholars, such as the Holloran Center’s Co-Director Jerry Organ, have been documenting for years. With this body of literature outlined, the book ponders why we continue to innovate in legal education around the dominant Socratic classrooms. It notes how these traditional classrooms are often in tension with professional identity formation to the extent they put students in competition to be racked and stacked against each other, skewing students’ self-efficacy and creating a narrow band of skills and values rewarded in the classroom.

Notably, the book does not abandon the Socratic method, though, for reasons of pragmatism, economics, and institutional will. Rather, it seeks to build shared pedagogical values that catalyze these classrooms to align with other institutional reforms. The book therein proposes a set of concrete pedagogical values that can govern Socratic classrooms: student-centered, skills-centered, client-centered, and community-centered teaching techniques.

It then provides a roadmap of how to implement these shared pedagogical values. Simple techniques, like shifting from “what are the facts of the case?” and “what was the holding?” to an exploration of who hired a lawyer, why they hired a lawyer, and the skills and values deployed by that lawyer can transform the Socratic classroom to be more skills, student, client, and community focused. The book sketches out techniques, using existing student-teacher ratios and casebooks, to position students as professionals navigating a string of cases on behalf of a host of diverse clients in a range of communities. While Socratic classrooms might not be the primary site for cultivating professional identity formation, these pedagogical techniques sensitize students to professional skills and values in ways that align with deeper dives into professional identity formation happening in specialized classes, professional responsibility classes, experiential courses, simulations courses, and clinics. I warmly invite this community’s ongoing dialogue with these ideas. I hope this book offers a springboard into holistic institutional discussions about the pedagogical values that shape our institutions and the arc of student development from first year to graduation.

Please feel free to reach out to me at jamieabrams@wcl.american.edu if you have any questions or comments.

Jamie R. Abrams is Professor of Law and Director of the Legal Rhetoric Program at American University Washington College of Law. She has published scholarly articles about legal education pedagogy and won numerous awards for pedagogy innovations.

June 21, 2024 by hami3258

Janet Stearns

Getting it Done, and On Time

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

Deadlines matter
Regardless of our practice area, job setting or employer, we are called upon to complete projects on deadlines set by clients, courts, and bosses. Our ability to manage competing projects and complete tasks on time is a fundamental professional skill.

In September, Nikki Beach, a renowned Miami Beach day spa, lost the right to remain on the property when their lawyers failed to submit a timely proposal to the city. According to the city attorney:

“…[Y]ou did not submit your proposal in Periscope by the deadline, as required by the RFP, and we cannot accept late submittals. Thank you and have a wonderful weekend.”[1]

Habeas petitions in death penalty cases have also found their way to the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue of missed filing deadlines.[2]

Law School & Deadlines
Deadlines produce anxiety and stress among our students. These situations present us with the opportunity to teach about the importance of deadlines, and the ways that we can respond and plan for them. For example, in the past week, our 1L Legal Communications and Writing Course had a memorandum due Monday night at 8 p.m. Meeting this benchmark demonstrated the ability of our students to work under pressure and complete a task on deadline. Some students completed the assignment well in advance over the weekend, others coming in just under the wire. Yet others were still reaching out after the deadline due to various technical and personal issues, asking for extensions and permission to submit late. Our student affairs team, working hand in hand with the Legal Communications and Writing faculty, needed to collaborate on our policies to determine whether to accept late submissions. We have also reflected hard on the lessons that we are teaching our students in these moments that they are confronting the challenges of meeting professional deadlines. At present, the grading deadlines are enforced, with significant penalties for late submissions.

We have the opportunity to teach about the importance of deadlines in other settings, too. Clinics and externships clearly give students some “real world” perspective on meeting deadlines. We also find that students engage with the University over various registration, financial payment, commencement application, and other administrative deadlines, and we do our best to send consistent messages about these activities. Extracurricular activities including Moot Court and Law Review involve submission deadlines, and we have historically construed these very strictly, along the way teaching lessons to our students about the value and necessity of completing tasks on time.

In some situations, we observe students who consistently face challenges in managing their time and meeting deadlines. We continue to explore options for additional training and coaching on executive functioning skills and time management for these students. In my opinion, barring an extraordinary medical or personal family situation, we should not be accommodating or extending these deadlines. We must not only continue to articulate the essential professional skill of learning to meet these deadlines, which students will confront in the “real world,” but we must also align our teaching and administrative practices with this reality.

Character & Fitness Considerations
The Florida Bar character and fitness questionnaire asks us to certify a number of issues, including the following:

Is the applicant thorough in fulfilling obligations?

Does the applicant meet deadlines?

For many years, our focus has been on conduct issues such as academic integrity and candor. Recently, however, we have found the need to disclose when students have chronic issues with fulfilling obligations and meeting deadlines. This semester, I have sent two letters to the Florida Bar relating to students in which, after multiple efforts at outreach from me and professors, we still saw a significant lack of responsiveness and attention to obligations in clinics, law review, and other law school obligations.

Following a brief survey,[3] we identified the following states that also asked character and fitness questions relating to these issues:

Maine Board of Bar Examiners Law School Certification (linked here) asks law schools to certify the following statement:
- “I certify that I am not aware of and my review of the record has not revealed any incident in which the applicant failed to meet a material obligation.”
Mississippi Certificate of Dean of Law School (linked here) asks:
- “Is the applicant timely and thorough in fulfilling obligations?”
Wyoming Bar Dean’s Certificate (linked here) asks:
- “While engaging in law school activities including, without limitation, clinical courses and student bar association activities, did the applicant breach any professional or fiduciary obligation or any duty or trust?”

I would invite all members of our Professional Identity community to consider how and where we have the opportunity to message and teach the essential professional skills around deadlines and obligations. Please feel free to reach out to me at jstearns@law.miami.edu if you have any questions or comments.

[1] Aaron Liebowitz, City rejects Nikki Beach bid to remain in South Beach due to missed proposal deadline, Miami Herald, September 02, 2023.

[2] https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/11/16/death-by-deadline-part-two.

[3] I am deeply grateful to Madeline Raine, Assistant Director of Student Life, for her survey of state character and fitness questions. She stands on the front lines of teaching students lessons about professional identity as they relate to the character and fitness process in Florida.

November 28, 2023 by hami3258

David Grenardo

A Review of Roadmap

James Leipold served as the executive director of NALP (National Association for Law Placement) for over 18 years. He now works as a senior advisor with the Law School Admission Council (LSAC). Leipold wrote a thorough review of Neil Hamilton’s Third Edition of the award-winning book, Roadmap: The Law Student’s Guide to Meaningful Employment, published by the ABA. Leipold’s detailed and insightful review can be found here.

September 26, 2023 by gren2380

David Grenardo

Kill 1L: A Realistic Look at Legal Education Reform

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

Prentiss Cox, a Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School, previously published Law in Practice, a casebook to teach lawyering skills to first and second-year law students. His latest article, Kill 1L, proposes a bold, yet practical approach to reforming the 1L curriculum and experience to help develop law students into lawyers.

Here is the abstract of Professor Cox’s article:

Law school education has been extensively studied for decades, but changes have been modest. This Article makes the case that fundamental law school reform will not occur until we abolish the central pillar on which it rests—the current conception of the first year of law school, the “1L” experience. Many studies of law school curricula and pedagogy are sharply critical of the education offered, but they pull a punch when it comes to 1L. This Article compares recent data on 1L curricula at almost every U. S. law school with ABA-required law school statements of learning outcomes. The comparison reveals two contrasts: the gap between what is promised students for their legal education and what 1L delivers; and the gap between what is promised students and the actual use of law by attorneys, judges and even law professors in the modern world. The Article proposes a new 1L curriculum that would engage students in the law used by courts and policymakers while decreasing the demands placed on law students by the repetitive, inefficient legacy 1L curriculum.

A link to the article can be found here.

Should you have any questions or comments about the article, please feel free to contact Professor Cox at coxxx211@umn.edu.

September 19, 2023 by hami3258

David Grenardo

Integrating Artificial Intelligence Tools into the Formation of Professional Identity

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

The Holloran Center and the University of St. Thomas Law Journal brought together for the first time 1L and Professional Responsibility casebook authors to discuss ways to implement professional identity formation into the 1L curriculum and Professional Responsibility at the University of St. Thomas Law Journal’s spring 2023 symposium. One of the major reasons for this seminal gathering was to share ideas about professional identity formation amongst law schools from all across the country. Another reason was to generate excellent scholarship that could guide law schools as schools must now comply with the new ABA Standard 303 that requires law schools to provide substantial opportunities for law students to develop their professional identities.

Colleen Medill, the Robert & Joanne Berkshire Family Professor of Law and Director of Undergraduate Academic Programs at the Nebraska College of Law, delivered an amazing presentation at the symposium titled “Writing a Demand Letter: Litigator or Mediator” on a panel that focused on putting students in the role of lawyers, which is one of the ways law students move from law student to lawyer. She also authored an excellent, timely, and innovative article for the symposium issue, Integrating Artificial Intelligence Tools into the Formation of Professional Identity.

Here is the abstract of Professor Medill’s article:

My claim in this Article is that a lawyer’s personal use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the practice of law is now an essential component of a lawyer’s professional identity that must be intentionally developed as a law student before entering the practice of law. After demonstrating the strong connection between the use of AI tools in legal practice, the requirement of lawyer competence, and the formation of professional identity, the Article proposes four “best practices” principles for integrating AI tools with traditional lawyering skills exercises to assist students in the formation of professional identity. The Article concludes with an example that can be used in the first-year Property course.

A link to the article can be found here.

Should you have any questions or comments about the article, please feel free to contact Professor Medill at cmedill2@unl.edu.

September 12, 2023 by gren2380

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