A Lesson in Civility

The inherent importance of civility in the legal profession necessitates teaching civility by law schools. This Article demonstrates how civility applies to advocacy and the practice of law, the efficiency of our justice system, lawyer well-being, obtaining a job and professional identity formation, and public confidence in the legal system. The Article can assist courts, attorneys, and professors in understanding civility and its significance. Most critically, this Article provides a turnkey lesson plan for law schools on civility that professors can employ in a variety of classes including, among others, Professional Responsibility, Civil Procedure, and Constitutional Law. Teaching law students the importance of how to interact civilly with others, particularly opposing counsel, can help a law student enjoy a long and satisfying legal career while avoiding the negative consequences of incivility, which can inhibit and stain an attorney\u27s career

Teaching and Assessing Soft Skills

[excerpt from article] It is our job as legal educators to put our law graduates in the best position to succeed as new lawyers.1 And to succeed, law graduates must possess certain qualities or character traits that will enable them to thrive within legal organizations.2 Despite many calls for reform in legal education to include more practice-related skills, including professionalism, many law professors teaching doctrinal courses are reluctant to incorporate teaching professional competencies and behaviors.3 They are unwilling to do so even though they have long decried students’ lack of professional skills.4 Professors complain that students show up late for classes and are unwilling to work hard. They criticize students for failing to persevere when faced with challenges or critiques, respond to professors’ emails, engage in teaching exercises, listen to their classmates, closely read assignments, or follow directions. Professors note that students’ attention spans are too short and they are addicted to their phones. It follows that the same student behaviors we see in the classroom transfer to practice. If these behaviors impair our students’ performance as attorneys, we should take steps to remedy the problem by teaching and assessing the qualities and character traits necessary to succeed throughout the law school curriculum, including in the first-year and other doctrinal classes

Assignments with Intrinsic Lessons on Professionalism (Or, Teaching Students to Act like Adults Without Sounding like a Parent)

There is little question that law schools ought to teach their students professionalism – indeed, they are required to do so to maintain accreditation. And there is little question that the required legal writing and research course is one of the places it ought to be taught. But teaching students to adopt the norms of professional behavior — both in law school and after graduation — is a challenge to law faculties, and particularly to the experiential learning faculty who frequently are on the front lines of teaching professionalism. While there are many ways to teach students what professional and unprofessional behavior looks like, it is often comparatively difficult to persuade students to exhibit professional behavior as a matter of course. This article describes an effective method to help students learn about and internalize professional behavior: embedding professionalism topics in substantive assignments. While legal research and writing courses in particular provide many opportunities to use substantive assignments to also teach professionalism, the approach I describe would work in any class — doctrinal or experiential — that incorporates simulated exercises as part of the substantive work. And since all members of a law faculty share the responsibility of inculcating professionalism norms in students, it makes sense to incorporate professionalism topics in both doctrinal and experiential courses. The first section of this article provides an overview of this teaching method and describes the inspiration for it. The second section reviews current methods of teaching professionalism topics and explains why those methods, while helpful in exposing students to professionalism norms, may be insufficient on their own to get students to internalize those norms. The third section describes in detail the approach I advocate, and discusses its benefits. The fourth section provides specific assignment ideas for faculty interested in adopting this approach, and the fifth section discusses two caveats

Assignments with Intrinsic Lessons on Professionalism (Or, Teaching Students to Act Like Adults Without Sounding Like a Parent)

There is little question that law schools ought to teach their students professionalism – indeed, they are required to do so to maintain accreditation. And there is little question that the required legal writing and research course is one of the places it ought to be taught. But teaching students to adopt the norms of professional behavior — both in law school and after graduation — is a challenge to law faculties, and particularly to the experiential learning faculty who frequently are on the front lines of teaching professionalism. While there are many ways to teach students what professional and unprofessional behavior looks like, it is often comparatively difficult to persuade students to exhibit professional behavior as a matter of course. This article describes an effective method to help students learn about and internalize professional behavior: embedding professionalism topics in substantive assignments. While legal research and writing courses in particular provide many opportunities to use substantive assignments to also teach professionalism, the approach I describe would work in any class — doctrinal or experiential — that incorporates simulated exercises as part of the substantive work. And since all members of a law faculty share the responsibility of inculcating professionalism norms in students, it makes sense to incorporate professionalism topics in both doctrinal and experiential courses. The first section of this article provides an overview of this teaching method and describes the inspiration for it. The second section reviews current methods of teaching professionalism topics and explains why those methods, while helpful in exposing students to professionalism norms, may be insufficient on their own to get students to internalize those norms. The third section describes in detail the approach I advocate, and discusses its benefits. The fourth section provides specific assignment ideas for faculty interested in adopting this approach, and the fifth section discusses two caveats

Using the Student-Edited Law Review to Teach Critical Professional Skills

At a time when law schools are being urged to add experiential learning opportunities to their curricula, law reviews may have been overlooked because the need is so obvious. Producing a journal is a professional endeavor requiring leadership by student editors who are in the process of forging their professional identity. Law schools have a responsibility to teach critical professional skills as part of the pedagogy to shape future lawyers. This article summarizes the need for law schools to provide experiential learning opportunities, unpacks the criticism faculty authors have heaped on student-led law reviews, and the describes a symposium-style training session for student editors to identify and build the leadership skills that foster the values the legal profession strives to uphold

Reframing Faculty Pro Bono

Soon after receiving accreditation, one regional law school considered whether to adopt a mandatory pro bono policy.1 All members of the committee charged with studying the proposal supported it.2 But the committee also knew that not all faculty members would approve it.3 The committee members therefore avoided any suggestion that faculty, as opposed to just students, would need to do pro bono.4 They feared that imposing the requirement on faculty would derail the entire proposal.

Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It . . . : Taking Law School Mission Statements Seriously

Learning about the process and the results of mission definition in law schools has made palpable the tension between clarity and inflexibility, candor and marketing concerns, and the specificity that fosters accountability as opposed to the generality that embraces a vague multitude of approaches to the law school endeavor. Building on the strong endorsement of the use of mission statements in the original Best Practices for Legal Education, we present some “Best Practices” for both the development and the content of law school mission statements. We hope that this piece hastens further conversation and commentary that will foster a richer and more mindful perspective on this necessary--and potentially transformative--task of legal educators

Mission: Impossible, Mission: Accomplished or Mission: Underway? A Survey and Analysis of Current Trends in Professionalism Education in American Law Schools

This Article identifies common characteristics of effective professionalism instruction to provide guidance in how to design innovative professionalism instruction. After introducing the topic in Part I, Part II of this Article describes the origins and development of the professionalism education movement in American Law schools. Part III of this Article explains our methods for collecting information and identifies and summarizes the predominant trends, and provides examples of noteworthy programs or initiatives. Part IV concludes by describing our method for assessing successful programs and identifying the characteristics of effective professionalism instruction