Law schools currently do an excellent job of helping students to 'think like a lawyer,' but empirical data show that clients, legal employers, and the legal system need students to develop a wider range of competencies. This book helps legal educators to understand these competencies and provides practical ways to build them into a law school curriculum. Based on recommendations from the American Bar Association, the American Association of Law Schools, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, it will equip students with the skills they need not only to think but to act and feel like a lawyer. With this proposed model, students will internalize the need for professional development toward excellence, their responsibility to others, a client-centered approach to problem solving, and strong well-being practices. These four goals constitute a lawyer's professional identity, and this book empowers legal educators to foster each student's development of a professional identity that leads to a gratifying career that serves society well.
Author(s): Neil W. Hamilton, Louis D. Bilionis
Edition: 1
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2022
Language: English
Commentary: TruePDF
Pages: 186
Tags: Practice Of Law: Study And Teaching: United States
Cover
Half-title page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction: The Four Foundational Professional Development and Formation (PD&F) Goals and Their Benefits for Students, Faculty, Staff, and Administrators
1.1 The Benefits of a More Effective Curriculum to Foster PD&F Goal 1: Each Student’s Ownership of Continuous Professional Development toward Excellence at the Competencies That Clients, Legal Employers, and the Legal System Need
1.2 The Benefits of a More Effective Curriculum to Foster PD&F Goal 2: Each Student’s Deep Responsibility and Service Orientation to Others, Especially the Client
1.3 The Benefits of a More Effective Curriculum to Foster PD&F Goal 3: Each Student’s Client-Centered Problem-Solving Approach and Good Independent Professional Judgment That Ground Each Student’s Responsibility and Service to the Client
1.4 The Benefits of a More Effective Curriculum to Foster PD&F Goal 4: Student Well-Being Practices
1.5 Realizing These Benefits at Your School
Appendix A A Summary of the Empirical Studies That Define the Foundational Competencies That Clients and Legal Employers Need1
2 A Framework for Purposefulness to Realize the Four Professional Development and Formation Goals
2.1 How to Think about Professional Identity Formation
2.1.1 Choose a Workable Conception of Professional Identity
2.1.2 See the Formation of Professional Identity as Principally a Process of Socialization
2.1.3 Recognize the Components of Professional Identity Formation and the Interrelationship between Them – and the Significance of Competencies
2.2 How to Think – and Not Think – About Supporting Professional Identity Formation
2.2.1 Think First and Foremost of the Student’s Socialization and Formation Experiences: What Law Faculty Do Is Important, but Only One of Many Means to the End
2.2.2 Think about Taking Responsibility and Asserting Leadership: What Law Schools Can Do Is Not Limited to “Teaching” by the Faculty
2.2.3 Think about Curating and Coaching: Teaching Is Not Limited to the Transmission of Expert Knowledge
2.2.4 Think Enterprise Wide: Professional Identity Formation Support Already Occurs throughout the Law School and Can Serve – Rather Than Detract from – Established Goals and Priorities
2.3 How to Advance the Law School’s Own Professional Development
2.3.1 Support the Law School’s Own Professional Development
2.3.2 Be Purposeful in Project Management
2.3.3 Nurture Relationships and Collaborations
2.3.4 Understand Lessons Learned from Medical Education
3 Competency-Based Education as Another Step in Purposefulness – Lessons Learned from Medical Education’s Fifteen Years of Additional Experience with Professional Development and Formation Goals
3.1 Medical Education’s Move toward Defining Core Competencies and Stages of Development on Each Competency
3.2 Lessons Learned in Moving toward Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME)
3.3 Applying Lessons Learned from CBME to Legal Education
4 Ten Principles to Inform Curriculum Development
4.1 Principle 1 Milestone Models Are Powerful Tools
4.2 Principle 2 Sequenced Progressions of Curriculum and Assessment Modules Are Powerful Tools
4.3 Principle 3 Go Where They Are
4.4 Principle 4 Reflection and Self-Assessment Are Powerful Tools
4.5 Principle 5 Mentoring and Coaching Are Powerful Tools to Be Combined
4.6 Principle 6 Major Transitions Are Pivotal to Development – And Major Opportunities for Support
4.7 Principle 7 Connect Professional Development and Formation to the Student Personally
4.8 Principle 8 Think Very Differently about Assessment on PD&F Goals
4.9 Principle 9 Student Portfolios Can Help Students Progress
4.10 Principle 10 Program Assessment on PD&F Goals Becomes Clear and Manageable if Principles 1 through 9 Are Heeded and Implemented
Appendix B Milestone Models for All Four PD&F Goals
Appendix C Further Research Needed on the Major Transitions for Law Students
Appendix D Milestone Model on Reflection and Reflection Writing Assignment Grading Template
5 Going Where Each Major Stakeholder Is and Building Bridges among Them in Order to Realize the Four Professional Development and Formation Goals
5.1 Assess Local Conditions with Respect to the Faculty, Staff, and Administrators
5.2 Build a “Coalition of the Willing”
5.3 Build a Learning Community of Faculty and Staff Interested in Any of the Four PD&F Goals
5.4 Always “Go Where They Are” with Respect to Faculty, Staff, and Administrators
5.5 Repeatedly Emphasize the Value and Importance of “Curating”
5.6 Recognize the Scope of the Challenge in Fostering a Shared Understanding among Faculty, Staff, and Administrators about the Stages of Student Development on Competencies beyond Those Most Familiar to Law Schools. Focus on Gradual Small Steps Tailored to Local Conditions
5.7 Emphasize That There Are Many Successful Examples That Can Be Followed or Adapted to Foster Student Growth toward Later Stages of the Four PD&F Goals – And Draw from Them
5.7.1 A Milestone Model on the Goal/Learning Outcome That Is of Most Interest Given Local Conditions
5.7.2 A Required PD&F Curriculum in the 1L Year
5.7.3 A Requirement That Each Student Create and Implement a Written Professional Development Plan with Coaching Feedback (the ROADMAP Curriculum)
5.7.4 A 1L Constitutional Law Curriculum That Also Fosters Student Professional Development and Formation
5.7.5 A 1L Required Course on the Legal Profession
5.7.6 A PD&F Curriculum Development Resource to Be Published in 2022
5.8 Go Where the Students Are to Build a Bridge from Their Personal Goals to the Competencies That Clients, Legal Employers, and the Profession Need
5.8.1 What Are the Students’ Goals?
5.8.2 What Are the Competencies That Clients, Legal Employers, and the Profession Need?
5.8.3 Building a Bridge of Coordinated Curricular Modules to Connect the Students’ Goals to Client, Legal Employer, and the Profession’s Needs
5.9 Go Where the Legal Employers, Clients, and Profession Are and Build a Bridge Demonstrating That the Law School’s Graduates Are at a Later Stage of Development on the Competencies Employers, Clients, and the Profession Need
Appendix E Coaching Guide for a Meeting on Each 1L Student’s ROADMAP
6 The Opportunity to Lead
Index
