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David Grenardo

An Unexpected Synergy: How Integrating Professional Identity Formation Exercises in a Civil Procedure Course Not Only Help Students Form a Professional Identity but Also Enhance Their Understanding of Civil Procedure

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

Professor Benjamin V. Madison III, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Professional Formation at Regent University School of Law, authored a pretrial practice casebook, Civil Procedure for All States: A Context and Practice Casebook, which was one of the first casebooks that explicitly and intentionally incorporated professional identity formation as recommended by the Carnegie Institute study Educating Lawyers (2007).  Madison presented at the University of St. Thomas Law Journal’s spring 2023 symposium, which brought together 1L and Professional Responsibility casebook authors to discuss how they infuse professional identity formation into the required curriculum.  Madison’s latest article, An Unexpected Synergy: How Integrating Professional Identity Formation Exercises in a Civil Procedure Course Not Only Help Students Form a Professional Identity but Also Enhance Their Understanding of Civil Procedure, will be part of that symposium’s issue.

Here is the abstract of the article:

This article demonstrates that integrating professional identity formation exercises in a required course accomplishes multiple goals.  The Carnegie report stated, “[l]egal analysis alone is only a partial foundation for developing professional competence and identity.”  The report was clear that only the formation of values and the ability to exercise moral judgment would allow students to practice as true professionals.  Both first-year and advanced civil procedure courses feature professional identity formation exercises.  They present dilemmas litigators face, particularly ones that the Model Rules of Professional Conduct do not answer.

The article describes how the effectiveness of the exercises improved depending on how the professor assigned them.  When students read the exercises and discussed them in class, along with cases and other reading, students showed less engagement in the complexity of moral and ethical questions.  Conversely, when students wrote reflection papers on the exercises due before the class discussion, they displayed greater discernment than when students did not write reflections.  After writing about the exercise, more students recognized that reflective lawyers balance multiple interests and the lawyer’s values in resolving an ethical/moral challenge.  The examples explored in the article, as representative of the type of exercises, include various issues that arise in handling a civil suit.  The sample exercises include a choice-of-forum decision, a client’s request to serve a defendant in a specific manner, and two discovery scenarios.  The first discovery scenario depicts a lawyer deciding whether to set a trial and other deadlines later than necessary and how that affects the client, not to mention the lawyer’s financial gain if on a billable hour engagement.  The second discovery example demonstrates efforts to use excessive production of documents to increase the chance that the discovering party misses key documents.

The benefits of the exercises were two-fold.  As a routine, graded part of the course, students gained an appreciation for moral and ethical judgments not answered by the Model Rules.  The courses’ learning objectives state that by engaging in the exercises, students would develop a professional identity that includes values and a moral compass that will answer questions not addressed by the Model Rules.  Therefore, students cultivate values, a moral compass, and the ability to resolve dilemmas they will likely face in practice.  An additional benefit was the improved grasp of the rules and doctrines connected to the scenarios.  Although intended to promote professional identity development, the exercises also reinforced knowledge of the rules and doctrines that formed the context for the exercises.  Hence, students learned these rules and doctrines better than if the exercise were left out.

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 Madison at benjmad@regent.edu.

September 7, 2023 by
David Grenardo

Breaking Down Siloes and Building Up Students: The Transformational Possibilities of 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

Three national leaders in professional identity formation—Lindsey P. Gustafson, Aric K. Short, and Robin Thorner—came together to author an exceptional article focused on professional identity formation. Their article, Breaking Down Siloes and Building Up Students: The Transformational Possibilities of Professional Identity Formation, will be part of the University of St. Thomas Law Journal’s spring 2023 symposium issue that will explore pedagogies relating to professional identity formation.

Here is the abstract of the article:

Under the ABA’s sequenced approach to implementation of Standard 303(b)(3), schools should now have developed plans for providing opportunities for professional identity formation and should be implementing them. These plans must provide students with an “intentional exploration of the values, guiding principles, and well-being practices considered foundational to successful legal practice.” In addition, these plans should provide for frequent opportunities for development, “during each year of law school and in a variety of courses and co-curricular and professional development activities.”

Because Standard 303(b)(3) is necessarily tied to the unique character, existing structures, and available resources of a law school, each school’s plan will be different. That has been our experience as we have worked as professional identity formation leaders in different roles with varying perspectives: Lindsey Gustafson at the William H. Bowen School of Law, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, is a current Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and a skills and doctrinal professor; Aric Short at the Texas A&M School of Law is a former Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, a doctrinal professor, and currently serves as the Director of the Professionalism and Leadership Program; and Robin Thorner at St. Mary’s University School of Law is an Assistant Dean for Career Strategy, a teaching adjunct, and the current Director of Professional Identity Formation.

In this essay, we hope to emphasize that professional identity formation efforts can occur all across the law school’s operations, from administrative offices to classrooms to voluntary student activities. We also provide specific examples of how schools can be more intentional and explicit as they weave together multiple professional identity formation opportunities for their students. This process takes time and attention, but it creates a powerful whole-building approach to identity formation that not only complies with 303(b)(3), but also best positions our students for a successful, fulfilling, and impactful career in law.

A link to the article can be found here.

Should you have any questions or comments about the article, please feel free to contact any or all of the authors at lpgustafson@ualr.edu, ashort@law.tamu.edu, and rthorner@stmarytx.edu.

 

September 5, 2023 by
David Grenardo

Professional Responsibility and Professional Identity Formation in a Community of Practice with Alumni

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

Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings…and Neil Hamilton finishes another article. Neil Hamilton, 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, has completed a new professional identity formation article. Hamilton wrote his latest article for the University of St. Thomas Law Journal’s spring 2023 symposium on professional identity formation. Hamilton’s article explores a new approach to the required Professional Responsibility course that provides reasonable coverage of the law of lawyering, legal analysis, and compliance, but also helps each student understand and participate in a community of practice focused on all the discretionary calls of lawyering in the area of the student’s ultimate practice interest. The student sees that legal ethics knowledge and capacities are not just doctrinal knowledge and legal analysis but are also social and situated in a community of practice. The student also sees that many alumni of the law school are successful in the practice of law while living into the values of the law school and the profession, not just compliance with the minimum floor of the law of lawyering. The student will also understand that in any practice area, the experienced lawyers know who can be trusted and who are the jerks. It will be the student’s and new lawyer’s choice which path to take.

Part II(A) of the article first outlines that the ABA Model Rules of Professional Responsibility (adopted by all 50 states with some variation) codify some values of the profession (like competence, diligence, confidentiality, and loyalty) into the law of lawyering with which licensed lawyers must comply. Part II(A) also explains that many of the Rules give discretion to practicing lawyers with respect to choices about conduct above the floor of the Rules. Part II(B) then analyzes the core values in the mission and learning outcomes of some law schools, and in the Preamble to the Model Rules, that help guide each lawyer’s discretionary decision-making. Part III analyzes how communities of practice influence lawyers in making the discretionary calls of lawyering in a way consistent with the profession’s core values. Part IV explores empirical evidence on whether practicing lawyers think their legal education was an effective community of practice fostering their understanding of these core values in making the discretionary calls of lawyering. Part V discusses Hamilton’s own Professional Responsibility course that creates communities of practice with students and alumni to help students understand the importance of the law school’s and the profession’s core values in making the discretionary calls of lawyering.

A link to Hamilton’s article can be found here.

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

August 9, 2023 by
Neil Hamilton

INTRODUCING THE STREAMLINED (AND EVEN MORE LAW-STUDENT FRIENDLY) THIRD EDITION OF NEIL HAMILTON’S AWARD-WINNING BOOK, ROADMAP: THE LAW STUDENT’S GUIDE TO MEANINGFUL EMPLOYMENT (2023)

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

The learning outcome for the ROADMAP is that each student takes ownership (self-direction) over the student’s professional development toward the student’s goals of bar passage and meaningful post-graduation employment.  Students at later stages of self-direction demonstrate higher academic performance and planning and implementation skills that increase bar passage and post-graduation employment outcomes. The ROADMAP is empowering each student to perform at the student’s highest capacity. The ROADMAP is also meeting ABA Standard 303(b) and (c) requirements regarding the development of each student’s professional identity.

This third edition of the ROADMAP is a complete revision of the second edition.  Since the first edition was published in 2015, and the second edition in 2018, the Holloran Center and I have continued to learn how more effectively to go where the students are developmentally to help them achieve their goals (and the Law School’s goals) of bar passage and meaningful post-graduation employment.

The entire book is now 50 pages at a price of $19.95 (ABA’s website indicates ordered books will ship on August 15 at the earliest).  In this edition, the students read 21 pages and then do the template plan which is 5 pages.  The reading and the template plan focus on using the student’s time inside and outside of the building to gain experiences that will achieve three goals:

  1. Thoughtfully discern the student’s passion, motivating interests, and strengths that best fit with a geographic community of practice, a practice area and type of client, and type of employer;
  2. Develop the student’s strengths to the next level; and
  3. Demonstrate evidence of the student’s strengths that employers value.

The book then has a chapter on building a tent of professional relationships that helps each student achieve these three goals plus a professional relationship tent-building template plan.  This chapter also includes cross-cultural skills addressing ABA Standard 303(c).

A number of law schools already use the ROADMAP, and the hope is that other law schools will discover its incredible value in helping law students with their professional identity formation.  To discover what the ROADMAP can do for your law students, you can find the book here.

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.

August 2, 2023 by
David Grenardo

Integrating Professional Identity into the Traditional Classroom

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

Distinguished Professor of Law Michael Vitiello at McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific, is a nationally-recognized expert on criminal law who has been cited by the United States Supreme Court and the California Supreme Court. He is also a member of the American Law Institute. Among the 15 books he has authored, Vitiello’s Civil Procedure Simulations: Bridge to Practice (2d ed. 2023) provides opportunities for professional identity formation of law students. Vitiello presented his latest law review article (he has written over 90), Integrating Professional Identity into the Traditional Classroom, at the University of St. Thomas Law Journal’s spring 2023 symposium that explored pedagogies to support professional identity formation.

Vitiello’s article explores his experience as a Civil Procedure teacher and how attempting to enliven arcane concepts, he almost by necessity adopted simulations into the traditional classroom. The article discusses his Civil Procedure simulations book, which is part of West Academic Press’s Bridge to Practice series. The article discusses several of the activities in the book, most importantly, an extensive discovery simulation activity that students engage in during the course.

Vitiello’s simulations bring the law to life as he, among other things, introduces the class to their client (played by a research assistant) as a part of his simulation, which helps make the practice of law real to the students. Putting law students in the role of lawyer is one of the best ways for them to develop their professional identities. Indeed, the simulation book includes a variety of exercises for students to practice what civil procedure means in various contexts, including motion practice, pleadings, and discovery. Students, for example, draft a complaint in small groups, which mirrors the real world in which lawyers work in teams. Fewer drafted complaints to read also allow the professor time to review and provide meaningful feedback to each group.

By way of further example, after receiving a discovery packet for the plaintiff in the simulation lawsuit, students work in small groups on various discovery activities. Serving as defense counsel, the professor submits various discovery requests and answers their discovery requests. Along the way, students must decide how to handle highly sensitive material that they have in their discovery packet, material that potentially harms their client.

Vitiello’s article explores one of the core lessons about developing a professional identity. As the students discuss among themselves and then with the professor, they must struggle with whether they must hand over a smoking gun, which damages their client’s case. The article explores typical reactions of class members as they realize that their view of the zealous advocate may run afoul of their obligations as officers of the court and may even cross the line between legitimate law practice and obstruction of justice.

Vitiello’s simulations book and article provide tremendous resources to help law students develop their professional identities.

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 19, 2023 by
Janet Stearns

Important New Resource at the Crossroads of Professional Identity and Well-Being

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

The updated ABA Standards on professional identity and well-being are going into effect with this new school year. Many of us are seeking accessible and affordable resources for our law students that will (1) address the fundamental challenges around well-being in the profession and (2) recommend practical strategies and resources. An essential element of this canon is Lawrence (Larry) Krieger’s updated booklet, Create Success Without Stress in the Law: New Science for Happiness, Health and Positive Professional Identity (2023).

Many of this Blog’s readers know of Larry Krieger and his longstanding work in the field of well-being, happiness, and balance in the legal profession. Larry co-directs the Externship Program and has been a clinical professor at Florida State University College of Law for more than thirty years. Together with Professor Kennon Sheldon, he authored the seminal article, What Makes Lawyers Happy: A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success. In 2007, he served as founding Chair of the AALS Section on Balance and Well-Being in Legal Education. He has been recognized by both the American Bar Association (2019) and the Association of American Law Schools (2016) with Outstanding Service awards for his efforts to bring greater health and well-being to law students and lawyers. Larry and I have been crossing paths and sharing passions over these past sixteen years, notwithstanding the healthy rivalry between our two institutions.

In 2005, Larry first self-published a booklet for law students, then called The Hidden Sources of Law School Stress. The next year, he published a companion booklet, Deeper Understanding of Your Career Choices. Over all these years, many law schools (including my own) purchase copies of the books for their law students.

The most recent edition of the booklet is about 40 pages and combines these themes of law school stress and evaluating satisfying career choices into one very readable and concise format. As evident in the title, Larry has also significantly sharpened the focus on “positive professional identity” in this latest edition, which makes it a very valuable addition to our toolbox. This recent book has greatly benefited from the collaboration, inspiration, and insights of Theresa Krieger. Theresa is a certified health coach, life coach, spiritual coach, and a fitness trainer recognized by the American College of Sports Medicine. She has worked holistically with law students and lawyers since 2016. The couple created and co-teach a course at the FSU College of Law on well-being, professional identity, and transformational leadership. Lessons from that class are infused throughout this latest edition.

The booklet has six major sections:

  1. Stress is a choice that you don’t have to make
  2. Put healthy limits on your legal thinking
  3. Fear of failure and the illusion of control
  4. Partying, depression, and distraction
  5. Finding the right job: surface value or satisfaction value
  6. Quick and powerful practices to start now (my favorite part, but which flows naturally from the previous sections)

Larry has an incredible understanding of law students and speaks directly to them with honesty and compassion. He covers data and literature on our profession, but also speaks to their worries, doubts, and common stress points. While I cannot promise that every single law student will read the book, those who do have always given it positive reviews and are filled with gratitude that this resource was offered to them.

When should we share this book with students? I suggest five main options:

  1. Orientation. The book could be shared and distributed with other materials during law school orientation to prepare students for the law school experience, frame common issues and concerns, and prepare them for the path ahead.
  2. Wellness Week/ Mental Health Day. Many law schools celebrate World Mental Health Day (October 10) with some wellness programming. Larry’s booklet is a wonderful centerpiece for the Wellness Week Initiative, a great handout for a wellness fair, or it can be integrated into other presentations.
  3. Professional Responsibility and Professional Identity Courses, as part of a focused class on lawyer happiness and well-being, or as a supplement to other textbooks.
  4. Student Affairs and Counseling Staff, who should have this available as a handout for the student in crisis. Our offices are filled with students with significant anxiety about the law school experience, whether to continue, how to balance competing demands on time and navigate law school’s inevitable stressors. Larry’s book is an amazing and concrete resource, and it has already served as a lifeline to a generation of students.
  5. Career Development Advisors, who can provide this booklet to students as they are evaluating summer or permanent job options, and trying to plan for their pathway into the profession.

At Miami Law, we typically invest each summer in a supply of Larry’s booklet that would cover our entire first-year class, and then purchase additional copies as needed for our student affairs and career development teams.

If you are interested in investing in Larry’s book for your law school, then please email him directly at lkrieger@law.fsu.edu. He self-publishes the book at the incredibly affordable price of $1.75 to $3 per booklet (based upon quantity) plus shipping.

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

 

July 12, 2023 by
David Grenardo

Leveraging Professional Identity Formation in the Doctrinal Law School 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

Lou Bilionis, Dean Emeritus and Droege Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, also serves as a Holloran Center Fellow. He has written extensively on professional identity formation, including an open access book published by Cambridge University Press titled Law Student Professional Development and Formation: Bridging Law School, Student, and Employer Goals. His most recent article on professional identity, which is forthcoming in the University of St. Thomas Law Journal, demonstrates how law professors can effectively incorporate professional identity formation into doctrinal classes. He presented this article at the University of St. Thomas Law Journal’s spring 2023 symposium that explored pedagogies to support professional identity formation.

American law schools are paying increased attention to the professional identity formation of their students. The trend should grow now that the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar has revised its accreditation standards to prescribe that “a law school shall provide substantial opportunities to students for … (3) the development of a professional identity.”

As law school faculty and staff proceed, professors who teach traditional doctrinal classes may doubt they can do much if anything differently in their courses to support professional identity formation. Questions about course coverage and their own competency to focus on professional identity formation understandably arise and may give professors pause. Bilionis’ article illustrates how purposeful focus on professional identity formation in a doctrinal course can be done to enrich the educational experience for students. Rather than detracting from the doctrinal work, professional identity formation features can be a multiplier. They can be leveraged to promote the doctrinal learning and the sharpening of cognitive skills traditionally expected in the course, while also contributing positively to the student’s development as a professional in other ways. Importantly, doing so is not difficult and requires no special expertise of the professor.

Bilionis’ article reports on his personal experience since 2016 teaching a basic constitutional law course with professional identity formation as a central feature. The reader will find a model that has delivered positive results for students and the professor alike, and which any professor can employ in any typical doctrinal course. In addition to reviewing strategic considerations, the article digs into the details of what to do and how to do it. It identifies and walks through various components that can be introduced to accent professional identity formation concepts while advancing traditional learning objectives. The components are easily adaptable to suit the needs and preferences of the professor, and faculty interested in experimenting can select one or more for a test run in their classes.

A link to Bilionis’ article can be found here.

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

July 6, 2023 by
David Grenardo

If You’re Looking for Professional Identity Formation Resources, Then You’ve Come to the Right Place

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 for Ethical Leadership in the Professions at the University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota) strives to share as many resources with others as possible. In an effort to make resources even more accessible, the Holloran Center has revamped its website to deliver those resources in a user-friendly manner.

The home page of the Holloran Center website begins with links (on the right side of the page) to (1) short, useful definitions of professional identity and professional identity formation, (2) three articles that explain the ABA’s changes to its standards 303(b) and (c), and (3) two groundbreaking articles on law students’ well-being.

As you scroll down the home page, four major links can be found under the heading “How to Get Started”: (1) Get to Know the Holloran Center, (2) Review Changes to Standard 303, (3) Explore our Tools and Resources, and (4) See Our Research and Training. Each of these four major categories is discussed below.

The first major link, Get to Know the Holloran Center, takes the user to a page that features the leadership team of the Holloran Center, including its Co-Directors Neil Hamilton and Jerry Organ, along with me, and the Holloran Center Fellows, Barbara Glesner Fines, Kendall Kerew, and Lou Bilionis. It also includes links to pages about Tom Holloran, who is the inspiration and namesake of the Center, along with a Donors and Partners page.

The second major link, Review Changes to Standard 303, leads to a page that includes (1) a list of existing entry ramps for schools to incorporate professional identity formation and (2) a link to an open access book – Law Student Professional Development and Formation: Bridging Law School, Student, and Employer Goals – that provides a straightforward and detailed look at the changes to 303(b) and (c) and suggestions regarding how to comply with those standards, and (3) the introductory materials mentioned above (short definitions of PI and PIF and three short articles about the changes to the ABA standards).

The third major link – Explore our Tools and Resources – brings up three more links on that topic: Learning Outcomes Database; Holloran Competency Milestones; and Professional Development Database.

The Learning Outcomes Database contains a searchable list of all law school learning outcomes that were available on law school websites as of January 2022. The Holloran Center identified those law schools with “basic” learning outcomes – those that recite the language of Standard 302 and nothing more. The Holloran Center also identified those law schools with more robust learning outcomes than required by the language of Standard 302.

The Holloran Competency Milestones are rubrics that describe the various stages of development associated with learning outcomes. In other words, they provide a tool to assess whether (and to what extent) law students are reaching learning outcomes in a variety of areas, including the following:

The Professional Development Database list includes 62 first-year, required, law school professional development initiatives based on information from law school websites as of November 2019. This list, as well as the Learning Outcomes Database, are currently being updated by research assistants for the Holloran Center. The updates should be available by September 1, 2023.

The fourth major link, See Our Research and Training, consists of three links itself. The first is the Roadmap for Employment, which is the award-winning book that provides a template for law students to use throughout all three years of law school to be fully prepared to find meaningful employment upon graduation. ABA Books will publish the substantially revised third edition of Roadmap on August 1st of this year; the latest edition is streamlined and even more law-student friendly at 51 pages total.

The second link under Research and Training, Coach Training, offers coaching tips and a guide to perform one-on-one coaching with law students, which is the most effective method to foster each student’s professional growth. The third link contains extensive Research on Professional Formation in multiple areas, such as professional formation overview, the importance of professional formation, promoting student self-direction, fostering a fiduciary mindset, assessing student professional development, legal education observations, and law student well-being and satisfaction.

As you scroll down the home page, there is a link to the Holloran Center Professional Identity Implementation Blog, which features useful and creative articles by contributors from law schools across the entire country.

Scrolling down further on the home page one will find several of the four major links described above.

We are thankful for the excellent work of Carrie Hilger at the University of St. Thomas School of Law and the University of St. Thomas IT Department in revising the Holloran Center website. We are particularly grateful to Skylar Peyton, a rising 3L at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, whose attention to detail, work ethic, and dedication helped to vastly improve the website.

The Holloran Center hopes that its website continues to serve as a valuable hub for free and accessible professional identity resources that can benefit law schools across the nation.

Should you have any questions or needs, please feel free to contact us.

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.

June 28, 2023 by
David Grenardo

Student Professional Identity Formation and the Foundational Skill of Building a Tent of Professional Relationships to Support the Student

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

Neil Hamilton, who 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, has authored yet another influential and practical article on professional identity formation. Hamilton’s latest article, which is forthcoming in the Wake Forest Law Review, is a guide for law faculty and staff who want each student to build a tent of professional relationships – a professional network – who both support the student and trust the student to do the work of a lawyer. The importance of professional networks for work performance and career opportunities has been well-established in hundreds of empirical studies. In addition, a growing research literature is documenting that the creation of a professional network requires pro-active networking behaviors, which are defined as an individual’s efforts to develop and maintain professional relationships with others who can potentially provide assistance to them in their career or work.

For some students (and lawyers), “networking” with a clear purpose of strengthening support for the student’s professional goals feels inauthentic, impure, and perhaps even dirty. To avoid this negative connotation, Hamilton’s article uses “building a tent of professional relationships who support the student and trust the student to do the work of a lawyer.” This framing, in Hamilton’s experience, fits within the students’ natural understanding of the importance of social support for each person, including the student, and feels authentic and less instrumental to the students.

A link to Hamilton’s article can be found here.

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

June 21, 2023 by
Jeffrey Baker, Tanya Asim Cooper

Open Conversations: Building Culture, Developing Discourse, Nurturing Democracy

By: Jeffrey R. Baker, Clinical Professor of Law, Associate Dean of Clinical Education and Global Programs, Director of the Community Justice Clinic, Pepperdine Caruso School of Law

Tanya Asim Cooper, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Director of the Restoration and Justice Clinic, Pepperdine Caruso School of Law

In 2015, as the Ferguson uprisings swelled in Missouri, we felt a rising tension, anxiety, anger, and discord among our law students at Pepperdine (now Pepperdine Caruso School of Law). Students had organized demonstrations for justice at the law school, and they were seeking other outlets and means to engage. Like much of the nation, they wanted to talk about it, but the law school did not have a ready forum for them to process this controversy together. Professors are often reluctant or unable to pause their regular teaching to engage in wide debates on current events, especially when they are trying to cover significant material in class. But the need persisted, and intensifying frustration created and deepened divisions within the school. 

The dean of students and diversity council conferred with each other and with students, and a student suggested regular, simple lunches and conversation for the student body on the potent questions surfacing around race and racism, policing and police violence, and our national convulsions toward justice. 

This was the provenance of our first Open Conversation. Over fifty students attended, and we set out some simple guidance. This was not a teaching moment for the faculty, and it was not a debate. It was a conversation, discourse to share perspectives, an opportunity to speak and listen, to engage across difference, to give voice to pain and anger, to explore paths forward, all from the students’ perspectives and experiences. With general prompts and light moderation while breaking bread together, the conversation was rich, critical, vibrant, heartfelt, and serious. It did not fix all of the issues or resolve all the tension within our school, but it was a moment of genuine community struggling with itself but refusing to alienate each other. 

The students expressed gratitude for the time and the opportunity to speak and listen. Afterward, a member of the diversity council wrote: 

My fear going into it was that either no one would come or no one would engage in conversation. I was pleasantly surprised that my fear was unfounded. If anything, I thought the hour felt too short for the full conversation. Which I think just goes to show how necessary these open forums are and how glad I am that we are starting this. The other thing I noticed is how sad some of the comments made me. I consider myself very aware of racial tension happening across the country but to hear the struggles from some of our own students was tough.

A senior administrator reported, “We held a very intense, but positive open forum on Monday at which our students were very responsibly and respectfully engaged.  It was well attended and, in my opinion, very worthy of good lawyers discussing hard topics.” 

After that first Open Conversation, we continued to offer them when controversies erupted nationally or locally, refining the approach. In time, they became so important to our community that the law school began offering them monthly during the school year. Now, they are a permanent project of the diversity council, and the law school prioritizes them with “black out” dates once per month so that there is no competition from other events during the lunch hour. And, as an essential ingredient of the experience, the law school provides great food for all comers. (Typically, it’s burritos from Lily’s in Malibu, the best breakfast burrito in Los Angeles County.) 

The broad objective for Open Conversations is to build a healthy culture within our law school community. It is not to resolve every issue or to engage in antagonistic debate; there are plenty of other opportunities for that during law school. Rather, it is to enrich our discourse with care, respect, and dignity, even over the most contentious issues. Moderation and centrism are also not the aims; students advocate and argue in Open Conversations with conviction but within a framework that aims to hold our shared life at the heart of our discussions. In our current national season of extreme polarization, brutal partisanship, personal antagonism, and so-called “cancel culture” (all of which have been topics of our discussions), the Open Conversations are counter-cultural exercises in democratic engagement.  

To these ends, we developed a practice of lightly-moderated discussions over lunch around curated topics with important ground rules for the conversation. We typically have fifty to sixty students and another ten staff and faculty in the room. The ground rules are “conversational harnesses” to preserve the objectives of discourse and engagement, and we share them at the top of each open conversation:

  • Open Conversations are for discourse, not debate.
  • Listen; don’t try to win.
  • Share the airspace equitably; speak only when you have the mic.
  • Be respectful; address ideas, not people.
  • Speak from your own experience and perspective; do not question or attack others for theirs.
  • Do not broadcast, record, or disseminate anything from the conversation on social media.

We pass a microphone around the room to ensure that one person speaks at a time (like the conch rule in the first, happier part of Lord of the Flies) and to promote accessibility and clear communication. On very rare occasions, the moderator may intervene if a student transgresses a ground rule or if the conversation turns personally confrontational. Sometimes the moderators, faculty, or staff in attendance will participate in the conversation itself, but we try to keep our comments limited to asking follow up questions, providing factual or historical context, or identifying constructive threads running through the students’ contributions.  

After everyone gets their food and we have explained the ground rules, we introduce the topic for the day with a few general prompts to get the conversation started. We take real care in selecting topics; the diversity council meets monthly, usually the week before the Open Conversation, to consider the hot topics of the day. We do not necessarily pick topics that are divisive on partisan lines, but we pick topics that are immediately controversial, critically interesting, or universal to the law student experience. Among many others over eight years, topics have included school shootings and the Second Amendment; #MeToo and the Kavanaugh hearings; human rights at the Olympics; impeachments and January 6; faith in the law; the Dobbs decision and reproductive justice; “cancel culture” and free speech in the academy; Trump indictments and the Tennessee 3; the nature of justice; police violence and procedural reform; and family conversations at Thanksgiving (which has been hilarious).

Good food is a critical element for the success of Open Conversations. We almost always hold them during the lunch hour, and it is a specific discipline to eat together while discussing hard, divisive topics. Across all cultures, breaking bread together, especially with adversaries, is a mark of intentional hospitality and peacemaking. During the pandemic, we saw our various student groups polarizing before our eyes as they launched invectives at each other online while otherwise alienated from each other. But we have seen constructive engagement, even healing, across our school culture when the community eats together while looking at each other directly to talk about intense controversies. 

People talking together over a meal is not novel or revolutionary, but it is ancient and radical. Of course, we’ve had mixed results. Some conversations are vibrant, energetic, critical, and creative. Some are chilled and reticent; some veer into personal confrontation. Our hope is that merely holding Open Conversations and attempting the exercise signals the values and aspirations of our community. We aim to contribute to a robust, generous, and vital culture of engagement within the law school, and we hope that this models the best kind of culture possible in our diverse communities. If our students can experience the work of hard conversations together with constructive advocacy and critical, benevolent disagreement, we hope it will equip them for this work as public citizens in their career.


Jeffrey R. Baker                                        Tanya Asim Cooper
Pepperdine Caruso School of Law            Pepperdine Caruso School of Law
May 30, 2023 by