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professional formation

The George Washington University Inns of Court and Foundations of Practice Programs

By: Todd David Peterson, Professor of Law and Carville Dickinson Benson Research Professor, The George Washington University Law School

This blog provides an overview of the George Washington University Law School (GW Law) Inns of Court and Foundations of Practice programs, which form the voluntary half of our 1L professional identity curriculum.[1] First, I will provide some history on the programs, and then I will briefly describe the linked PDF [2] of the materials, which we provided to our Inn advisors this year. The Inn advisors’ material contains everything you might need to know about the program in general and how professional identity formation (PIF) is infused into the program.

The Inns of Court program, recipient of the 2018 E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award presented by the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Professionalism, began in 2012 with five day-section Inns and one evening section Inn. In 2023 we added an Inn for LL.M students (which will not be covered in this post), and this year we added a sixth day-section Inn to reduce the size of the largest Inns. Each Inn corresponds to a teaching section, so the members of an Inn will have all their 1L classes with the others in their Inn. Each Inn has a set of advisors from virtually every part of the law school, including doctrinal faculty, Fundamentals of Lawyering faculty, clinical faculty, and representatives from the Dean of Students office, the Career Development Office, and the library. In addition, each Inn has 5-6 upper-level student advisors. The Inns meet once a week with all the advisors in attendance and participating as coaches in the interactive parts of the program.

The Foundations of Practice program began in 2016 to encourage participation in the Inns programs and other activities that are related to PIF and the development of important legal skills. This program provides a list of activities that are important to students’ professional development. Students who complete the Foundations requirements by the end of their 1L year receive the Dean’s Professional Development Award. Although this program is voluntary, at this point, a little over half of the 1L class typically earns the Dean’s Award.

We provide the materials in the PDF to all of our Inn advisors to prepare them to participate in the Inns program and assist our students with the weekly Inns sessions. Here are the individual components of the PDF:

(1) The first document is a two-page description of the Inns of Court program, which goes into a little more detail than my description above.

(2) The second document is a brief description of the learning objectives we have for the students who participate in the Inns program. This goes to all 1L students in addition to the Inn advisors.

(3) The third document is a description of the seals for each Inn of Court. GW Law is a very large law school, with over 500 students in the 1L class. The Inns program is designed, in part, to give them a smaller community within the law school. We designed the Inn seals to further that sense of identity and connection to their Inn’s community. We build on that by giving the students tee shirts, tote bags and other items with their Inn’s seal on them. Our students show a surprisingly strong connection to their Inn’s namesake and their Inn identity.

(4) The fourth document is a letter from the Dean that goes out to all 1L students at the beginning of the school year. In addition to informing the students about the Dean’s Award and encouraging them to participate, the letter also sets forth the specific requirements for the Dean’s Award. Students then log their completion of the program elements in an online app called FoundationsTrax, which also gives them a dashboard that shows what they have completed and what remains to be done to receive the Dean’s Award.

(5) The fifth document is a chart listing all our Inn advisors for this school year, along with their institutional role. Our goal, as noted above, is for each Inn to have advisors from all parts of the law school.

(6) The sixth document is a memorandum from me to all Inn advisors, which explains the concepts that form the core of the Inns program — professional identity formation and self-direction — and offers tips on how Inn advisors can support students with respect to these concepts. The attachments to the memo include Neil Hamilton’s (Co-Director of the Holloran Center at the University of St. Thomas School of Law) chart of the four stages of self-directed learning and a list of the questions that form our online self-directedness assessment, which students can use to determine how far along the development curve they are.

(7) The seventh document is a memorandum we provide to our upper-level student Inn advisors on how to be meaningful contributors to the Inns program. This document includes ideas about how to contribute to the individual sessions we have during the fall semester.

(8) The eighth document is a brief description of our fall Inns of Court sessions. At some point, I will do additional blog posts that go into these sessions in more detail.

(9) The ninth document is a memo for Inn advisors drafted by the former Director of the Fundamentals of Lawyering program about how to lead small group discussions.

(10) The tenth and final document is a description of the Inns Professional Development Advisory Council, which is made up of professional development experts at law firms, the government and public interest groups. The composition of the Council has changed over time as the members cycle on and off. This group advises the Inns leadership on how we can improve the Inns program and what new session topics would benefit our students. The members also lead some of the programs during the year.

If you have any questions or comments about our Inns program or this post, then please feel free to contact me at tpeter@law.gwu.edu.

[1] The other half of our 1L professional identity formation curriculum is a mandatory 1L course titled Fundamentals of Lawyering. This course was created in 2019 by adding a credit to each semester of the 1L legal research and writing class. The additional credit hours were used to focus on professional identity formation and create a client-centered environment in which to teach research and writing skills.
[2] Please note that you must click once on the link and then on the thumbnail to open the full PDF.

Todd Peterson is a Professor of Law and the Carville Dickinson Benson Research Professor at the George Washington University Law School. He teaches Civil Procedure, Law of Separation of Powers, and Professional Identity Formation. He is also the Director of the GW Law Inns of Court and Foundations of Practice programs, which focus on professional identity formation.

September 23, 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

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

Sarah Beznoska

Lessons Learned from PIF Course Year One as a Career Services Advisor

By: Sarah Dylag Beznoska, Assistant Dean for Student and Career Services,
Cleveland State University College of Law

2023-2024 was the first year that Cleveland State University College of Law launched our one credit, required-for-graduation professional identity formation (PIF) course for all in-person first-year students. I was the primary instructor and, at the end of the year, it became clear to me that themes of resilience, growth mindset, resourcefulness, and curiosity had emerged from the experience.

Resilience, growth mindset, resourcefulness, and curiosity for the instructor, of course.

As a career advisor and having served in a wide variety of student, academic, and career services roles during the course of my career, I went into 2023-2024 with the assumption that teaching this course would be straightforward. Panel discussions about career paths, small group work about lawyering skills, and one-on-one coaching about values and goals were things I had done repeatedly while working with law students. It did not seem, in my mind, a huge stretch to bring that to the classroom and I thought myself to be something of an expert, ready to share what I knew.

To say that it did not go quite as pictured in my mind is an understatement. My 2023-2024 students spent the year teaching me how to create a more meaningful classroom experience for the next cohort, and for that I am grateful and also humbled.

A few things I learned, which might be obvious to seasoned instructors in the classroom, but which were new to me:

Be as clear as possible from the outset and stick to it!

Make your expectations clear from the start, both in how you open the class and create your community of learners and in the little things, such as how you outline the course on your syllabus or track student progress in the course.

My recollections of the syllabi when I was a law student were that the documents required me to figure out what the assignments were, by reading dense blocks of text in paragraph format. I remember highlighting the syllabi to figure out what I was supposed to be doing, and when.

I thought that the structure and syllabus I created was better than what I had experienced myself. Still, I learned that you can never be too clear and concise when it comes to setting forth expectations and requirements, and repeating them in a variety of ways so that all students in the classroom receive the information. This is a cohort of students who have grown accustomed to using tools like PowerSchool and Google Classroom, where they can always know exactly which assignments are due and when, and where they stand in terms of points/grades.

I want students to learn organizational and project management skills. At the same time, I should not disregard the importance of using the organizational and project management skills myself in presenting the material to them.

Limit the career services panel discussions and give students options

In my experience, traditional career services offerings are built on a model of panel discussions, where experienced attorneys share their own experience and advice, followed by student questions. For a generation of students who have grown up with all of that content available online and who frequently learn better by actively engaging in exercises or activities, these kinds of panels are sometimes painful and repetitive. Worse, even with the most carefully crafted panel, you’re likely leaving someone out – at least one of your students will look at the panel and think “I don’t see anyone like me.”

Some panel discussions are necessary and helpful. However, at a recent Holloran Center workshop, a colleague suggested that I also try giving students a menu of options for meeting certain requirements of the course. She suggested that autonomy has an impact on the student experience and there are a lot of ways to create at least some autonomy within a PIF course.

This makes a lot of sense. We know that students bring wide ranging goals and experiences to the classroom – that’s part of what we’re helping them to incorporate into their law school experience when we are doing PIF work! What one student finds meaningful, another finds unhelpful. Allowing students to tailor their learning to their personal circumstances not only aligns with PIF goals in general, but it also enables students to feel more engaged.

Therefore, try to be strategic about how and when you use a panel. There are a lot of other ways to get your experienced alumni and attorneys involved and to expose students to lawyers. Use alumni as facilitators for small group discussions and exercises, or for informational interview assignments. Create different ways for your students to learn the content, and be creative with student ideas. For example, is there something interesting happening on Instagram Live through one of the national law student networks that you could incorporate? Is there a student organization event that aligns with a course topic that could be helpful?

Be kind to yourself too.

I recently read Katie Arnold’s Brief Flashings in the Phenomenal World, which has nothing to do with lawyering, the law, or PIF, and everything to do with life and living and going on through difficult challenges. She reminded me that what I try to teach my students is what I also need to know myself: “You are here, and by the simple fact of being here, in the middle of your life, you will make one beautiful mistake after another, a steady stream of failures, rising and falling and rising again – proof that you are human and alive, open to all possibilities, knowing and being known without knowing anything at all.”

Be kind to yourself, lean into the reasons why you started doing PIF work in the first place, re-assess and try again. With that mindset, I am certain that, if nothing else, year two of my course will be another adventure.

Please feel free to reach out to me at s.beznoska@csuohio.edu if you have any questions or comments.

Sarah Dylag Beznoska is the Assistant Dean for Student and Career Services at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University.

June 13, 2024 by hami3258

Sara Berman

1L Success: Becoming a Lawyer, a Professional Identity Formation Workbook

By: Sara Berman, Professor of Lawyering Skills &
Director of the Academic Success Program, USC Gould School of Law

1L Success: Becoming a Lawyer, a Professional Identity Formation Workbook (West Academics, 2024) is an interactive workbook designed to infuse professional identity formation (PIF) content and an array of reflection opportunities for law students in a variety of settings including, but not limited to, orientations, ABA Standard 303(b) workshops, doctrinal courses (such as Professional Responsibility), skills classes, Academic Success Programs (ASP), and individual student counseling.

1L Success was intentionally created as a brief volume and written in straightforward language to promote accessibility. In schools with West Academic subscriptions, your students may access the electronic version for free with their West login.

If you are working with 1Ls –in a faculty or administrative position– or you’ve been tasked with programming on professional identity formation to satisfy ABA Standard 303(b), then this book is for you –well, for your students! The reflection exercises in the workbook will help students find strategies, tools, and meaning as they move along their success journey and begin developing their identity as future lawyers.

The book’s Foreword, written by the Holloran Center’s Co-Director Jerry Organ, gives additional perspectives on how this volume will be useful to today’s law students. It is with deep gratitude to Jerry, the Holloran Center, and everyone in legal education that I share information about this workbook. I hope that it will help us all in educating today’s and tomorrow’s lawyers.

Below is a chapter-by-chapter summary with ideas on where the content may fit into orientation, courses, workshops, and individual counseling of students. Because students can download the content for free, you can easily choose to use selected chapters or even selected reflections

Chapter 1 – Before Law School and Orientation – This brief content (7-pages) can help set a tone for discussion groups at Orientation. In particular, it directly hits and encourages reflection about the imposter syndrome that many people, especially first gen students, feel starting law school. It also helps students focus on their “why” and on the great value of being a lawyer –a why that will help throughout the entire professional journey.

Chapter 2 – Start on a Positive Foot: Your Path is not Predestined – These pages contain an array of reflections that will be useful to set a growth mindset and positive tone.

Chapter 3 – Become a Critical Reader – This content focuses on the importance of critical reading for law school success. It provides strategies and food-for-thought reflections that include focus and meaning in the readings.

Chapter 4 – Find Your Why – This content dives even deeper into encouraging and motivating students by helping them to step back and reflect on their own why. The reflections in this chapter provide tools for individual and group reflection exercises; teamwork and collaboration are consistently deemed important parts of law practice but are often not emphasized in law school.

Chapter 5 – Hard Work is the Most Important Part of Success – This content seeks to “normalize” hard work and self-driven work. It helps dispel myths that there is something wrong with students when law school learning doesn’t come easily.

Chapter 6 – Visualize Yourself as a Lawyer – This section is useful in discussion groups and individual reflection opportunities, empowering students by encouraging them to see themselves as lawyers. With this framing, many of the other goals of educating lawyers comes more easily and becomes more meaningful and tangible. (I frequently speak with students about “their future clients.” The entire perspective seems to change when they move beyond their student identity and begin to see themselves as lawyers.)

Chapter 7 – Enhance Focus, Reduce Distractions – This pairs well with student affairs, ASP workshops, and individual meetings to assist busy law students fighting distraction and promoting focus, a critical skill for effective lawyers.

Chapter 8 – Active Learning – This chapter can be used in Orientation and in mid-semester workshops as a springboard for discussion and reflections about the payoff of doing one’s own work and not relying solely on commercial study aids. It speaks to grit,work ethic, learning science, and self-driven learning –topics you may want to weave into orientation, courses, workshops, and student meetings.

Chapter 9 – Surround Yourself with Positive People – This is useful for Student Affairs and ASP and others working with first gen and other students who are struggling with finding a supportive community and tuning out overly competitive or negative peers. This chapter is also helpful for those who need assistance explaining the demands of law school to family, friends, and partners. There are sample dialogues and simulations that can be used as role-plays during orientation, workshops, and individual counseling.

Chapter 10 – Turn Panic into Power, Anxiety into Adrenaline – Useful for Student Affairs, ASP, and others who address law student anxiety throughout 1L and in workshops that prepare students for midterms and finals.

Chapter 11 – What is IRAC? – Useful at Orientation and in ASP, skills workshops, and individual meetings to demystify the recommended logical template for writing and thinking in law school. This content includes practice exams that test IRAC skills but are based on non-law hypos so that students can use them as learning opportunities (and opportunities to freely make mistakes!) at any point before or during 1L. Sample outlines and answers are also included at the end of the workbook, after the Glossary.

Chapter 12 – Daily Habits– Useful at Orientation and in professional identity formation workshops and individual meetings to help students become more intentional about incorporating professional perspectives into their daily habits and being more accountable to themselves and others for their actions.

Chapter 13 – Exams– Useful at Orientation and in ASP workshops and individual meetings to prepare law students for exams and help them see how different law school exams are from exams in their previous educational experiences. This helps enhance belonging in the sense that many first gen students and others who feel like they are “outsiders” think that some of their classmates have an edge.

Chapter 14 – Second Semester, Work on Improving from First Semester – Useful in spring or second semester workshops, classes, and individual meetings as a springboard for reflection on growth mindset and how to improve going forward.

Chapter 15 – Draft Your Law School Success Plan – This provides an adaptable tool that can be viewed as a living document to promote planning and reflection for continuous improvement throughout law school.

Chapter 16 – Thinking Ahead to After 1L – Useful for Career Services, Student Affairs, and others who are helping students to think about their professional goals and transferable skills.

Glossary – Useful for Orientation and throughout 1L as a springboard for exercises and reflection re: fluency of terminology. Knowing “the lingo” is critical for law school success and helps students socialize and acculturate to law school and the legal profession.

Please access the workbook here and feel free to reach out to Sara Berman at SBerman@law.usc.edu if you have any questions or comments.

Sara J. Berman is a professor of lawyering skills and the director of the Academic Success Program at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

June 5, 2024 by hami3258

Uncategorized

A Student Reflection on Professional Identity Formation at Regent University School of Law

By: Diana McBride Bloomquist, 2L

Professional identity formation is discerning what kind of lawyer you want to be, what motivates you, and why you want to practice law. Coming into law school, I was unaware of how crucial it is to develop a strong professional identity, and I am so grateful for Regent University’s emphasis on it. From the first week of classes, our professors impressed upon us how easy it is for lawyers to make professional decisions that directly conflict with personal values and beliefs and how this can result in deep-rooted unhappiness. I did not know that cognitive dissonance flows from making decisions inconsistent with intrinsic values and that our moral compass keeps track of those—regardless of whether we are aware of it. I learned that this process is subtle and that seemingly minor compromises, where an action conflicts with our values, can lead one to integrate a new identity over time. Regent combats this moral drift by placing professional identity formation at the forefront of a student’s legal education. Establishing your purpose for practicing law and determining why you are being called to serve in this way should inform and influence the decisions you make during your time in school and beyond. I am now convinced that developing self-awareness and sensitivity to one’s moral compass—along with relying on trusted mentors—provides the best insurance of integrity (acting in accord with core values) versus disintegration of those values over time by seeking extrinsic motivations like money or prestige. I learned early that adhering to the Model Rules of Professional Conduct alone will not protect me from moral drift and the inevitable unhappiness that results from the pursuit of extrinsic values. Instead, forming an identity that prioritizes core values has already led me to anticipate practicing in a way that may be challenging but will be fulfilling.

Regent Law’s Center for Professional Formation focuses on ensuring that we, as students, are given many opportunities to form our professional identity and consider how it will impact our future practice. Through the Center for Professional Formation, students can receive an alumni mentor and access to programs that direct us on a path that keeps us focused on our intrinsic core values. In line with these goals, the law faculty has developed required 1L courses such as Foundations of Law and Foundations of Practice. Foundations of Law explores the nature of law by assigning readings of classical texts, including Aquinas and Blackstone, and more contemporary and contentious issues, then facilitating open discussion in class that returns to the core values foundational to our legal system. Foundations of Practice includes readings and discussions with lawyers in various practice areas, such as Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and Professor Robert Cochran, who believe in professional identity formation and help students connect the ethical and moral decisions inherent in law practice.

Additionally, the Center for Professional Formation ensures that each student has a faculty mentor with whom we must meet as part of the Foundations of Practice Curriculum to develop a “Discernment Plan.” The Discernment Plan is the primary product of our Foundations of Practice course, and we are told it is meant to function as a living document that we can regularly revise as we move through law school under the same faculty mentor. The Discernment Plan explores a student’s gifts, potential areas for growth, and ultimately, the areas of law in which they may be the most successful. Due to Regent’s focus on professional identity, my idea of success has shifted. I believe I will be most successful in a field where my gifts can help others through law. I have also learned that identifying my gifts can involve a willingness to face fears and explore whether I can do things I thought were not possible. For instance, when I told my faculty mentor of my fear of public speaking, he encouraged me to lean into the discomfort of participating in our 1L Moot Court Competition. I had mentioned this fear in my draft of the Discernment Plan and, in retrospect, I am glad my mentor challenged me rather than allowing my fear to keep me from exploring potential strengths.

Aside from its commitment to professional identity formation through the Center for Professional Formation, Regent has begun integrating professional identity formation into doctrinal classes. For example, in an exercise in Civil Procedure, we were assigned a reading and reflection response on a hypothetical professional identity scenario, which we then discussed in class. The exercise revealed the numerous interests beyond the client’s best interest that influenced a lawyer’s advice to a client on whether to file a suit in state or federal court. Before analyzing this hypothetical question and answering the reflection questions, I was unaware that a lawyer’s interests could override the client’s best interests. In many of our required 1L classes, professors remind us that the individuals in assigned cases are real people, not just fictional characters meant to illustrate a legal concept.

Regent has done an excellent job encouraging reflection on forming our professional identity—both in courses specifically designed to do so and in other doctrinal courses through purposeful exercises. Professional identity formation influences every aspect of the education Regent has to offer and has shown me that my primary goals in practicing law are to embrace growth, even through challenging myself to withstand discomfort as I did with oral advocacy, and to serve future clients without sacrificing core values.

Diana McBride stands in front of a brick wall.

I am a rising 2L at Regent University School of Law. I currently serve as a law school representative on the Council of Graduate Students and as the Vice-President of the Women’s Law Association.

May 21, 2024 by hami3258

Uncategorized

Embracing Professional Identity Formation

By: Ruwayda Issa, University of St. Thomas School of Law 1L

I was very nervous during the Muslim Law Student Association (MLSA) Iftar Dinner held at the University of St. Thomas School of Law this spring. My 1L year was full of twists and turns including a change of professors (my Torts professor accepted an appointment to the Minnesota Supreme Court in the middle of the semester). Leading up to the Iftar dinner, I volunteered to be the moderator for the career panel during the event. I sat as an audience member throughout the past year hearing from various panels’ moderator and attorneys at different law school events. Now that I had an opportunity to serve as a moderator, I was nervous and focused on asking the right questions and keeping the audience engaged.

The panel conversation had a focus on professional identity formation as both attorneys are Muslim and persons of color who have faced adversity. I enjoyed the panel, and it provided me with a sense of clarity. I am a Muslim woman wearing a hijab that has juggled showing my different levels of identities in law school and law settings. I didn’t have a Muslim female attorney to look up to who could teach me how I should dress in professional settings. One ironic moment during the panel involved panelist Amran Farah, a Muslim female attorney, when she spoke about how she makes sure to wear a neutral-colored hijab if she is wearing a bold color for her blouse or blazer. I realized that I had employed that exact same approach myself for years, and I was already forming my professional identity in a way very similar to other female Muslim attorneys.

This event put my entire year into perspective and reminded me that I was on the right path. I look forward to planning next year’s Iftar Dinner with the rest of the MLSA board. Forming a professional identity is a continuing process, and learning from those who have helped pave the way is part of that beautiful, complicated process.

Ruwayda Issa is a rising 2L at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

May 14, 2024 by hami3258

Uncategorized

Integrating Our Personal Identities With Our Professional Identity

By Nazeefa Nezami, University of St. Thomas School of Law 1L

Reflecting on the recent Iftar dinner at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, I find myself deeply moved by the powerful impact of the speakers’ words. Hosted by the Muslim Law Student Association, the dinner was a beautiful event where school administration, faculty, staff, alumni, students, and members of the community gathered together to celebrate iftar, enjoy a meal, and engage in meaningful conversation. It was a gathering of diverse voices, each eloquently highlighting the profound significance of Islamic identity and its influence on our paths as legal professionals and law students.

For those unfamiliar, Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting, prayer, reflection, and community. During Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn until sunset, abstaining from all food and drink. Iftar is the meal eaten after sunset to break the fast, often starting with dates and water followed by a larger meal. As law students, navigating Ramadan can present unique challenges, but events like this dinner serve as a powerful reminder of the values our faith instills in us and how it shapes us as aspiring legal professionals.

In his opening remarks, Professor Thomas Berg of St. Thomas emphasized the inclusive nature of communal meals and the fundamental importance of caring for one another. Ramadan, he reminded us, teaches us empathy and compassion, urging us to recognize and alleviate the hunger of those less fortunate, support the vulnerable, and engage in acts of charity—a concept echoed across various faith traditions, including Christianity, Judaism, and others.

Augsburg University professor Najeeba Sayeed, the event’s keynote speaker, beautifully articulated the intersection of faith and professional life, portraying Ramadan as a symbol of discipline and resilience. Her message challenged us to confront injustice, even when it may strain our personal relationships, emphasizing that true justice requires standing up for what is right, regardless of the cost. Integrating our faith identity with our professional identity as lawyers isn’t just beneficial; it’s essential. These aspects of our identity aren’t separate but rather interwoven, enriching and guiding our actions in the legal realm.

As we reflect on the shared experiences of Lent, Passover, Ramadan, and Eid, we recognize the themes of discipline, sacrifice, resilience, and caring for others that unite us. The University of St. Thomas School of Law is committed to nurturing the holistic identity of its students, fostering an environment that values authenticity and embraces diverse faith traditions. It’s through this support that students remain grounded in their values as they embark on their legal journeys, equipped to make a meaningful difference in the world.

Nazeefa Nezami is a 1L at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. She serves as a class representative and is a research assistant for Professor Greg Sisk.

April 29, 2024 by hami3258

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