THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR TEACHING
ETHICS AND PROFESSIONALISM (NIFTEP)
2005 FELLOWS
Douglas Ashworth, Director
Transition Into Law Practice Program
104 Marietta Street, NW Suite 100
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
Phone: (404)527-8704
Fax: (404)225-5041
Email: doug@gabar.org
Doug Ashworth became Director of the State Bar of Georgia Transition Into Law Practice Program after several years of experience in both the public and private sectors. The Transition Into Law Practice Program (also known as the "Mentoring Program") will provide professional guidance and counsel to assist beginning Georgia lawyers in acquiring the practical skills, judgment and professional values necessary to practice law in a highly competent manner. Doug's current responsibilities include the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of this new program, which is essentially an educational program that combines a Mentoring component with a Continuing Legal Education component.
Prior to assuming his current position with the State Bar, he served on the legal staff of the Council of Superior Court Judges, assisting Judges and their staffs throughout Georgia with death penalty habeas corpus cases, indigent defense issues, continuing judicial education programs, and criminal and civil bench book preparation and revision. He previously maintained a general practice of law for several years, which included service as a City Attorney, County Attorney, School Board Attorney and his participation in 6 death penalty cases.
R. Michael Cassidy
Associate Professor
Boston College Law School
885 Center Street
Newton MA 02459
Phone: (617)552-4343
Fax: (617)552-4098
Email: michael.cassidy@bc.edu
Home Page: http://www.bc.edu/schools/law/fac-staff/deans-facu
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
I teach a course at BC Law entitled "Professional Responsibility: Prosecutorial Ethics." I cover ethical issues faced by prosecutors at each stage of the criminal justice process, from investigations though discovery, plea bargaining, and trial. A copy of my course reading list is attached. I have also written extensively in the field of prosecutorial ethics. A copy of my curriculum vitae is also attached.
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Reason for applying:
I would like to improve the "active learning" component of my "Prosecutorial Ethics" seminar. I have written a number of hypotheticals which I use in my class to foster a discussion of each weekly topic. I would like some advice from my colleagues at other institutions about whether there is a better way to encourage active involvement by my students in these hypotheticals, such as by assigning them to "teams" to help work out the problem in a class break out session (with report backs), or assigning them roles to play in a mock "reenactment" of the hypothetical scenario. I would also love to learn from my colleagues whether they have had success in bringing in panels of outside professionals to discuss issues of legal ethics and professionalism (in my case, I currently use sitting judges who were former prosecutors, but I am thinking of experimenting next spring with current prosecutors who are closer to my students in age and perhaps world view). More generally, I would also like to learn what types of courses other schools are presently offering in the field of criminal justice ethics. FInally, I am currently working on a paper entitled "Prosecutorial Ethics and Virtue Theory" regarding the frequently overlooked "character" component of professional responsibility. I would be happy to present a "work in progress" at this conference if there is a breakout session for scholarship.
Matthew T. Christensen
Anderson, Julian & Hull, LLP
P.O. Box 7426
Boise, Idaho 83707-7426
Phone: (208)344-5800
Fax: (208)344-5510
Email: mchristensen@ajhlaw.com
Brief description of ethics and professionalism experience:
Having just graduated from Duke Law School, I have not had the opportunity to actually teach an ethics or professionalism course. Thus, my ethics and professionalism history is slightly different from most of the other workshop attendees. I participated in an ethics course in law school taught as a historical survey of lawyers throughout American history, and applied today's ethics rules to the attorneys of yesteryear. Additionally, while not a participant in the course, I observed a new Readings in Ethics curriculum while at Duke. More importantly, I have been the law student representative to the ABA's Center for Professional Responsibility for the past two years. The majority of my work with the ABA dealt with educating law students about the benefits of Center membership largely through explaining the need for greater ethics and professionalism in the profession. This work came through writing various articles for the Student Lawyer magazine; helping to organize a program directed to law students at the ABA's Annual meeting, entitled "Professionalism Issues Every New Lawyer Should Know"; and sending periodic informational emails to law students throughout the ABA.
This involvement with the ABA cultivated my desire to continue work in the ethics and professionalism field. In addition to representing attorneys facing ethical and professionalism problems, I hope to continue this involvement by teaching adjunct law-school courses and/or CLE courses to practicing attorneys.
Reason for applying
My first reason for applying is to prepare to teach ethics and professionalism. Without any experience teaching others these issues, I would like the chance to learn methods and skills from other successful instructors to effectively convey the importance of both professionalism and ethics to students whether in a law school or CLE environment. I would like the exposure to several methods of teaching that would be provided by attending the workshop.
Further, I hope to provide a law student perspective to some of the discussions and meetings of the workshop. As someone who recently graduated, and spent the last two years trying to convince law students of the importance of ethics and professionalism, I feel I can bring a different viewpoint to the workshop than many of the other participants.
Amie L. Clifford
Assistant Director for National Programs
Director, National Center for Prosecution Ethics
National College of District Attorneys
1600 Hampton Street, Suite 414
Columbia, South Carolina 29208
Phone: (803)544-5094
Fax: (803)544-5301
Email: clifford@law.law.sc.edu
I am employed by the National District Attorneys Association, in its education division (the National College of District Attorneys). In addition to coordinating training programs for state and local prosecutors (and lawyers who represent the interest of government in civil litigation) in locations across the country, I do some teaching on ethics and professionalism at our advocacy courses held at the National Advocacy Center (located on the campus of the University of South Carolina). I am also the Director of the National Center for Prosecution Ethics we provide research assistance and training to state and local prosecutors on issues related to ethics and professionalism.
I have long been interested in issues related to ethics and professionalism, and have recently been appointed to a three-year term on the ABA Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility.
Liz Ryan Cole
Professor
Vermont Law School
96 Chelsea St.
S. Royalton, VT 05068
Phone: (802)831-1240
Email: lcole@vermontlaw.edu
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
I teach a required 2 credit class for all students enrolled in a full semester (full time and full semester - 13 credit) external clinic, the Semester in Practice. Students apprentice with mentor judges and attorneys selected and supported by the law school. I have taught the external clinic for 21 years and the ethics seminar for 10 years. I use the Zitrin/Langford text. Of the 28 classroom hours, 9 are taught in a TWEN based asynchronous format and the other 19 are taught in a seminar format. I find teaching ethics in context makes the course more meaningful for students. I also believe they are better preprepared to address ethical issues in practice if they learn how to identify and face them in a practice setting.
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Reason for applying:
With regard to innovations, I believe I do 2 things that will be of interest to others. First, I ask students to be "ethics detectives". This means they are encouraged to hold meaningful conversations with their mentors and other attorneys at their work site about ethical dilemmas their mentors have addressed. Second, I use an on line class to discuss ethical role models. This class centers on a book discussion. Each student selects a book about a real lawyer and then shares what s/he has learned about the tensions their selected lawyer faced.
I want to attend this workshop because I believe I could do a much more effective job teaching ethics in context than what I am doing now. I would like the time and focus to improve this seminar. I would also like to develop a curriculum that would be useful for an ethics seminar offered to ALL law students who participate in field based legal courses, both internal and external, both full and part time.
Michael P. Downey
Fox Galvin, LLC
One Memorial Drive, 8th Floor
St. Louis, MO 63102
Phone: (314)588-7000 ext. 103
Fax: (314)588-1965
Email: mdowney@foxgalvin.com
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
As an adjunct professor at Washington University School of Law, I have taught a two-credit course "Practical Ethics for Civil Litigation" each spring semester since 2003. Practical Ethics is an upper-class, general ethics course that satisfies the students' ethics requirement. There have been between 12 and 24 students in each class. I designed the Practical Ethics curriculum myself. Readings include numerous selections from James Moliterno's Cases and Materials on the Law Governing Lawyers, plus additional cases, articles, and other materials I select to supplement the text and emphasize the primary context of ethical issues for the course, a civil litigation practice. I prepare a PowerPoint for each class (primarily to post the relevant rules and give the page numbers for cases, but not to provide the details of the readings), and use a fair amount of technology, such as RealPlayer television commercials for the class on advertising and a Lexis course webpage to notify students of assignments and course information and provide them with readings for the course.
In addition to teaching at Washington University School of Law, I write and present on legal and accounting ethics. Since January 2004, I have presented on ethics topics more than 20 times to more than 1000 lawyers and accountants, and am committed to presenting at least 9 times more this year (including seven accounting presentations that are not listed on my curriculum vitae because I do not yet have a title). I have also published more than 10 articles on ethics, primarily in local bar publications, and am beginning to write (and speak) for more national organizations.
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Reason for applying:
I want to join the NIFTEP Fall 2005 Workshop because I want to learn how to engage and challenge students about ethical and professional issues and provide them with the knowledge and skills they need for their practices. I have taught in a number of settings and continue to find teaching very rewarding. Prior to law school, I taught high school Latin and completed a teaching degree. I have drawn on the formal training I received including studying student learning styles and strategies to teach students with special needs when I first taught Introduction to U.S. Law and Methods to foreign lawyers in Washington University's International LL.M. program, and more recently during my three years of teaching legal ethics.
I serve on two Missouri Bar committees that suggest changes to the Missouri Rules of Professional Conduct and on the Illinois State Bar Association committee that writes advisory ethics opinions. I also serve as ethics lawyer for my firm (which has approximately 14 lawyers) and have assisted other lawyers, bar applicants, and even accountants with ethical issues. Finally, I worked on the Missouri Bar's largely abandoned effort to require all Missouri lawyers to complete professionalism training.
I hope to receive guidance on how to handle professionalism and morality, two areas of discussion that I often neglect while teaching a very rules-based curriculum. I intend to use my time off in spring 2006 to rework the curriculum, including probably adopting a new textbook or preparing my own materials for the class. The NIFTEP workshop should give me insights in what materials to include and how to improve my course.
Patrick F. Fischer
Keating Muething & Klekamp PLL
One East Fourth Street Suite 1400
Cincinnati, OH 45202
Phone: (513)579-6459
Fax: (513)579-6457
Email: pfischer@kmklaw.com
Home Page: www.kmklaw.com
Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
I speak at many CLE seminars for my local bar association, for which I have chaired its Ethics and its Professionalism Committees. I also teach at an annual corporate lawyers' seminar, an annual public defenders' CLE session, sometimes at ERISA and tax practitioners' seminars, and have spoken at many young lawyers' seminars. I speak as a practitioner to so many other practitioners that in my last reporting period I reported rarely seeking teaching credit --- over 80 CLE hours. I also 'teach' by answering ethics questions everyday as counsel to my law firm, and I work the local bar's Ethics Hotline 2 months per year.I have rarely utilized the "lecture" method, as I find it "puts off" CLE-takers or puts them to sleep. Instead I have tried different methods to create discussion on ethics and professionalism, and the attorneys seem to respond rather positively on the evaluations. For example, I have used "panels" of lawyers from the audience who participated in mock versions of popular television shows such as "Who Wants to Keep Their License" ["Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"], with 'lifelines' and mood music. I had 2 groups compete in "Surviving as the Professional", like the show "Survivor." I once had a group do a series of short vignettes, then asked the audience a series of questions after each on which 'actor' did something unethical, unprofessional, or an act of which we should honor and emulate as superior professionalism. On a couple of occasions I have even asked these lawyers to go back in their minds to law school days and I then would walk along the tables calling on people with 'Socratic' questions, even calling on the so-called "back-benchers." [This method does create a small problem. See below.] I am now beginning work on an ethics presentation with some PowerPoint-like software to do a version of the game show "Jeopardy," tentatively entitled: "Is My License in Jeopardy?" I might even wear a wig to look like Alex Trebek.
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Reasons for applying:
As a practicing attorney, I believe I have tried as many if not more innovative ideas, and some "shticks," than most others teaching ethics and professionalism to practitioners. The idea behind each of these methods is two-fold. First, I want to keep the attention of the audience. Unlike substantive legal updates which lawyers 'must' have in their practice so they stay attentive anyway, when ethics and professionalism are presented at CLE seminars in a monotone-like fashion or lectured from a podium, the audience seems to lose interest quickly. Second, to get the audience involved in an interactive debate among themselves about the need for or benefits of "reasonableness" on fees, advertising limitations, or conflicts, these methods happily engage the lawyers and force them to think about these ethical issues and professional responsibility concepts. I also hope these methods increase retention.
I am at a point when I need to hear other ethics and professionalism speakers' ideas. I am creative but only to an extent, so I need to hear other ethics teachers' ideas on new methodologies. I also need those who have thought long and hard about these issue to critique my methods. Next, I sincerely want to share my methods for evaluation by others in this newly visible part of our profession. If these techniques do not help further professionalism or ethics, I need to know that information. Last, but not least, I want to provide to others my insights from having spoken to so many practitioners on ethics and professionalism.
Some of those techniques may help others, including those teaching in our law schools.
Susan Saab Fortney
George H. Mahon Professor of Law
Texas Tech University School of Law
1802 Hartford
Lubbock, Texas 79409
Phone: (806)742-3990 ext. 233
Email: susan.fortney@ttu.edu
Home Page: http://www.law.ttu.edu/lawsite/faculty/bios/Fortne
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
When I was in practice as a lawyer's lawyer defending legal malpractice cases, I started teaching Professional Responsibility as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law. My practice experience convinced me that lawyers need a good foundation in ethics and the law governing lawyers. I saw the classroom as a place to plant seeds by helping students recognize issues so that they would be able to know what questions to ask in practice. The more I taught, the more I wanted to teach. I left practice to pursue a doctorate J.S.D. and a full-time teaching career. Without doubt this is the best profesional decision I have ever made.
In teaching legal ethics in the classroom and working on professionalism and professional development programs outside the classroom, I try to model ethical conduct. Above all, I hope that each student leaves class with a deep appreciation of the importance of treating clients and others with dignity and fulfilling professional responsibilities. As a starting point, my students learn that law is a regulated profession and that the rules of professional conduct are only the minimum rules to avoid professional discipline. Beyond that, I challenge students to consider what it means to be an ethical lawyer who deals with daily dilemmas that arise because of the lawyer's conflicting roles as an advocate of clients, officer of the tribunal, and as a individual person with his/her own sense of morality and personal/financial needs. I largely use a problems approach to teaching my required class. In addition to the problems in the textbook, I have prepared supplemental problems based on actual cases. Most recently, I have integrated interactive responder unit technology into my professional responsibility classes. For additional discussion of the use of the technology, see paragraph 2 below.
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Reason for applying:
I know that I would benefit from formal workshop sessions and informal discussions with other professors. Although I regularly attend professional responsibility and ethics programs, I have not be able to attend a ethics teaching workshop for over ten years.
Without doubt, the workshop will inspire me to consider new approaches. This is very timely because I may be developing a mandatory first year professionalism class that covers various topics including professional discourse and professionalism in a multicultural society.
If I have opportunity to participate in the workshop, I would be happy to demonstrate the use of interactive responder units. Two years ago, I introduced interactive responder unit technology to my law school. Based on my use of the technology in ethics CLE programs, I believed that the students would enjoy the ability to use responder units (individual remote controls) to answer questions. The system then projects totals for answers on the screen in the classroom. Students fondly call the remote control units "clickers." Without exception students find the use of the units to be enjoyable and worthwhile. As described by one student, the units are a kind of "forced anonymous participation."
For me, I see that the technology enhances class discussions, while giving students an opportunity to test their knowledge. In addition to using technology to evaluate what students know, the technology provides a vehicle for students to provide candid opinions. For example, after showing a video clip of Matthew Hale, I ask students whether they believe that he should be admitted to law practice. Students who might be reluctant who raise their hands and vote, now can weigh in on the question. In short, the technology helps students (and the professor) learn what students know when questions have a correct answer. On opinion questions, the technology allows for candid, nonthreatening feedback. This can be both enlightening and provocative.
A number of legal ethics professors have told me that they would like me to demonstrate how I use the responder units in my professional responsibility class. Your workshop would be a great forum to do so.
Michelle Ward Ghetti
Professor
Southern University Law Center
11101 Reiger Rd. #327
Baton Rouge, LA 70809
Phone: (225)292-3839 (H); (225)771-4900 (W)
Fax: (225)292-3839 (H); (225)771-5913 (W)
Email: michghetti@yahoo.com
Home Page: www.sulc.edu
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
On the first day of class I introduce my students to the course by using a clip of the film The Devils Advocate (I use film clips throughout the course) where Keanu Reeves character asks the Devil Why the law? and the Devil answers him, basically, that it's because lawyers are where the power is. I then ask them to imagine waking up that morning and then tell me how a lawyer has touched their lives so far that day. They usually begin with the patent on the alarm clock and go from there but you can see the amazement and sense of power and pride growing in their faces as they think of how many ways they will be able to affect the world with their degree! Once this sense of power takes hold, I then begin to discuss the responsibility that goes with that power and the course in professional responsibility begins!
I love the profession of law because it is a helping profession and has in it as my colleagues the most interesting, creative, intelligent people in the world. The practice of law is more than just a job it is a lifetime, human endeavor. For that reason, I believe students of the law should approach it and learn about it in a holistic fashion. I have chosen to use Nathan Crystals text Professional Responsibility as my classroom textbook because, he, too, views the profession this way. In addition to the text using the solving of problems as its teaching method (I also use this style to varying degrees in my other courses), it focuses the law student on developing or discerning their own philosophy of lawyering and approaching the practice based on this personal philosophy. He suggests three basic philosophies: a client-centered, a philosophy of morality, and a philosophy of social value. He also points out that ones philosophy of lawyering operates at 3 levels: the personal (aka duties to yourself and your family), the practice (aka duties to your client & 3Ps) and the institutional (aka duties to the profession and the justice system) and that, often, when decisions are difficult to make, it is because theres a conflict between these three levels. I tell my students that it is similar to what your parents may have told you about important life decisions like sex, cigarettes or drugs: if you have thought it through and decided what you want to do about them BEFORE being put in the position to make a choice, the right choice will be MUCH easier to make!
Professionalism is built into a holistic approach to the law because it engenders seeing each lawyer as an individual. As we apply the rules, we discuss how we handle our fellow lawyers in the situation. Various rules of professionalism are discussed. Lawyer jokes and the reputation of the profession are discussed (see power points as example). I teach the course in somewhat of a chronological fashion (leaving, by the way, the order of coverage in Crystals book) approaching each issue as a new lawyer would encounter it. As mentioned above, I frequently use film clips to introduce concepts and have a very large collection of lawyer-related movies. I also believe in teaching to all learning styles in my classes so make daily use of power points (see attached examples) for the visual learners and problem-solving (for the "tactile learners) along with the readings, lecture and discussion.
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Reason for applying:
I have been inspired by Professor Longans description of his course. I love to use ways to jolt the students into discussion in this most important area. I dont think just learning the rules is enough. I find it difficult, though, to balance philosophical discussion with concrete preparation for the bar (MPRE) in the very limited time (2 hours of one semester) devoted to professional responsibility. I would love to hear from and share with other teachers of professional responsibility what they’ve tried and what has worked and not worked for them.
I want to attend this conference to have a chance to develop new ideas. I have the seeds of 2 immediate ideas I'd like to further. 1) Developing the course around the (to be released in November) set of DVDs of the television show "The Practice." The show is such fodder for discussion of what NOT to do in the profession I just think it would be fun and timely to pull clips from the shows throughout the course to use to begin discussions of the breach and application of the rules and the profession, in general, and professionalism specifically. I've had great success using movie clips in the past the students relate immediately and all have an opinion/criticism/defense of what the movie character did.
2) I have thought for years that the course should be combined with "Law Office Practice" to be a 4-5 hour course over 1 or 2 semesters. With approximately 50% of most law school graduates these days hanging out their shingle or practicing with 2 to 3 other lawyers upon graduation, I think it is professionally criminal that Law Office Practice is not a required course. Even if not required, though, having taught the course, it is impossible to teach it without discussing the rules of ethics; and it is, in my opinion, extremely difficult to teach ethics without embedding it in the "practice" (business side) of law. Teaching them together would allow more time to be spent on all issues (rather than a duplication of time) and put the ephemeral rules into the context of the realities and practicalities of starting and operating a law practice. I would love to see if others have done or are doing this and what the success has been or to discuss with others developing this idea.
Finally, I am a member of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers. I LOVE being involved with this group and thoroughly enjoy the conferences as an opportunity to sit around and discuss these ethical issues with a room full of lawyers who experience these problems on a daily basis. I would think the conference you have planned would be much the same but at the academic level.
John Wesley Hall, Jr.
1311 Broadway
Little Rock, Arkansas 72202-4843
Phone: (501)371-9131
Fax: (501)378-0888
Email: ForHall@aol.com
Home Page: www.johnwesleyhall.com
Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
I am the Chair of the Ethics Advisory Committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and I am NACDL's Second Vice President. Since 1990, I have been Chair or Co-Chair of the Committee. In that fifteen years, I have confidentially advised approximately 800-900 lawyers about ethical issues they were confronting. I am the author of Professional Responsibility in Criminal Defense Practice (3d ed. 2005), and I have done approximately 80-90 CLEs on criminal defense ethics and two on prosecutorial ethics.
Reason for applying:
I became a criminal defense lawyer's ethics advisor, CLE instructor, and legal writer because of a void in the legal literature. The information is out there, but it had not, in my view, been adequately pulled together in one place. My own legal ethics class in law school was, as some law professors still describe them, an afterthought in the curriculum, taught by an adjunct That was the winter of 1972, but, I find now, in 2005, that my own law clerks' experiences are no different. Adjuncts often teach legal ethics, at least here, and they bring no experience in legal ethics beyond what any lawyer already knows. That is not how legal education should be conducted, particularly when the subject matter deals with the fundamentals of the lawyer-client-opposing lawyer-court relationships.
My experience shows that legal ethics issues for criminal defense lawyers are often timeless and some are even insoluble. Many issues recur at different times with different lawyers, and I see the same problems arise over and over again in different parts of the country. Then, I get a call about one I never heard of before, and I can smell the fear of the lawyer on the other end of the line who has no idea about how to properly handle the problem before the problem handles him or her.
As an officer of NACDL, and a criminal defense lawyer for so many years, I am concerned that criminal defense lawyers often get no respect from the rest of the bar because we handle cases that other lawyers would never handle, and the Sixth Amendment commands us to do things that many other lawyers could not stomach. They don't want to dirty their hands, and they often look down on us for upholding the ultimate tradition of the zealous and independent bar to protect the people from the government.
I have also recently dabbled in professionalism issues, since I elected to write about it in the third edition of PRCDL ( 34:6), and I concluded that many of the professionalism advocates actually are (hopefully only unwittingly) compromising the Sixth Amendment right to zealous and independent counsel. I'm not even sure I still need to come to a further conclusion on that, because, right now, my professionalism philosophy is merely applying the Golden Rule and Do No Harm to the Client.
I advise lawyers to analyze ethical issues in this order:
1. Sixth Amendment
2. Criminal law and procedure and other law
3. Moral considerations
4. Ethical rules.
Note that in my framework, ethics rules come last. We are taught in law school and intuitively think that ethics rules answer all questions, but they do not and cannot, and that leaves many of the lawyers I talk to frustrated. The rules recognize in the Preamble and Scope that they cannot answer all questions. PRCDL 1:20-1:21. Finally, I have moved to advising lawyers about ethics issues with a common sense, non-legal approach, one that actually results in better outcomes in analyzing ethical issues. See PRCDL 1:1, Rules 1-2.
Finally, I want to know what law professors teach, how and why. I want to listen to them, talk to them, and find out what is going on in the academic world in case I am wrong about anything in my approach.
Neil Hamilton
Prof.; Dir. Holloran Center
University of St. Thomas MN
MSL 400
1000 LaSalle Ave.
Minneapolis, MN 5403-2015
Phone: (651)962-4866
Fax: (651)962-4996
Email: nwhamilton@stthomas.edu
Home Page: www.stthomas.edu/law
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
I have been teaching the required professional responsibility course and experimenting with ethics seminars and ethics externships (combined with a seminar component) since 1987. My scholarship since 1990 has emphasized the traditions and ethics of the academic and legal professions. I am the founding director and current faculty adviser for the UST Law Mentor Externship (about 200 hours of time a year as faculty adviser) which just won honorable mention for the National Award for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching Professionalism and a 2005 Gambrell Award.
I am the director of the Thomas Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions, currently funded at $1.5 million with a target endowment of $4 million that we will reach by the end of 2005-06, at which time the Center will be formally announced. The mission of the Holloran Center is "to provide leading-edge interdisciplinary research, curriculum development, and programs focusing holistically on the formation of both students and practicing professionals into accomplished ethical leaders in their communities."
I have taught ethics and professionalism at over 150 CLE programs for the Minnesota Bar since 1990. I have chaired both the Hennepin County (Minneapolis) and Minnesota State Bar Professionalism Committees. I am the only professor to receive the Hennepin County Bar Professionalism Award. I am also the only professor to receive a Minnesota Lawyer Attorney of the Year Award. I am one of two professors in the state voted as a SuperLawyer (top 5% of all practicing lawyers) by my peers. In 2004, the Minnesota Bar gave me the Association's highest award, the Professional Excellence Award, for my contributions to advance professional ideals. I have written 59 monthly columns on professionalism for Minnesota Lawyer and am organizing these into a book on professionalism.
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Reason for applying:
The University of St. Thomas Law School has made its Mentor Externship, now a required externship/seminar for every student in every year (for-credit in the second and third years), a principal educational engagement to foster professionalism. We can both learn from what others are doing to improve our program and share what we are doing. How to move students forward in moral development as a professional is a field in its early stages. We are particularly interested in efforts at assessment of the effectiveness of professionalism programs.
The Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions will be formally announced at the end of 2005-06, but we are confident of our $4 million endowment target and optimistic that we will substantially exceed that number. We have $1.5 million received and an oral commitment for another $1.45 million now. As director of the Holloran Center, I would very much like to meet and share thoughts with those active in the other professionalism and ethics centers at law schools. I hope there will be opportunties for collaboration in the future.
My colleagues at the University of St. Thomas School of Law and I are particularly interested in any efforts to foster the skills of ethical leadership or servant leadership in students and practicing lawyers. We have created a first course, Ethical Leadership in Corporate Practice, and will be bringing on line two other course, Ethical Leadership in Litigation, and Ethical Leadership in Social Justice. We are trying more pervasively in the curriculum to engage students to be servant leaders in the profession.
The Minnesota Bar is very supportive of professionalism efforts in the law schools. We have 450 mentors currently and only 25 of those are our own alumni (our first class graduated in 2004 so we are short on experienced alumni who can serve as a mentor). The help we are receiving is an enormous commitment from practicing lawyers and judges. We know that through the conversations that we ask our students to undertake with their mentors, we are generating a great deal of inter-generational conversation about professionalism in the bar.
Angela Mae Kupenda
Professor of Law
Mississippi College School of Law
151 E. Griffith St.
Jackson, MS 39201
Phone: (601)925-7144
Fax: (601)925-7113
Email: akupenda@mc.edu
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
My main emphasis has been on teaching professionalism in core courses. Having practiced law, worked in other industries, and taught required law courses for many years, I've seen that inappropriate and disrespectful behaviors can sabotage a student's otherwise promising, professional career. My emphasis has been less on teaching students specific ethical rules, and more on helping students to learn to conduct themselves with dignity and treat others comparably. Sometimes this means coming to grips with one's own racism, sexism, or other isms.
This past year, I found myself faced with classroom conduct that I did not consider "professional" in my first year Contracts course. Male students were attempting to silence females in the classroom. Unprepared students were taking steps to discourage prepared students from participating in class. Other conduct also was disturbing to me. I normally conduct my classes in a relaxed and cordial way. My concern was that I would have to completely change my own personal style to a tougher Socratic style to restore the classroom to a professional environment more conducive to learning.
Instead, I took several other steps and learned that the way to get more from my students was by demanding more, not by changing me. First, at the beginning of the spring semester, I clearly stated my objectives, with one objective being improvement in class professionalism. Secondly, I made class participation and professionalism count as a component of the grade. But instead of "grading" this individually, students self selected groups to work with. Participation grades were assigned based on the group's performance. Third, in addition to an individual final exam, students received credit for the group's researching a contemporary contract issue, making a presentation, and submitting written outlines of the topics.
The classroom was transformed into a hard working, professional, but still enjoyable environment.
My theory is that we need to focus more on the development of "professionalism" in our students. With a new group of young lawyers who learn to respect and work with each other, perhaps the profession will also ultimately be transformed.
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Reason for applying:
I want to attend the workshop because I will bring a different perspective and will learn a lot from more traditional ethics instructors.
As I suggested above, I believe that unprofessional conduct can be unlearned. And that the critical time for this relearning is while future lawyers are in the law school classroom. As an African American female lawyer and teacher, I have witnessed and experienced the effects of the unresolved racism, sexism and other isms we still experience in our country. Some of these isms, I think, are then projected as unprofessional and rude conduct toward attorneys and judges who are women, minorities, etc. I believe that if our students learn to work together, the isms in our legal environment can be eliminated, or a least minimized. So, I have a lot to offer in this perspective and in the experiences I have had.
Secondly, I have a lot to learn. Although I am willing and desire to help develop more ethical and professional students, I myself still have a lot to learn from the experiences of others who regularly work in these areas. Specifically, I would like to hear from others on how they address Race, Ethics, and Professionalism. This will greatly help me in my teaching. In the spring I will be teaching Race and the Law. I plan to cover the role race plays in the discipline of lawyers and judges. We have had several interesting cases this past year in Mississippi, where some argue that the Bar and courts were unduly harsh toward minority lawyers who complained of racist judges and toward minority judges who complained of racist lawyers. So, I'm sure I would hear interesting perspectives at the Workshop which would be of great benefit to me.
Donald R. Lundberg
Executive Secretary
Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission
1165 National City Center
115 West Washington Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46204
Phone: (317)232-1807
Fax: (317)233-0261
Email: dlundber@courts.state.in.us
Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
I have taught the basic two-hour course in legal ethics/professional responsibility as an adjunct at Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington for about ten years--on average about one term per year. I taught the same course as an adjunct at Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis in 1998. I also regularly guest lecture at the two Indiana University law schools on legal ethics and the lawyer discipline system. I frequently teach continuing legal education courses on a wide range of legal ethics and professional responsibility topics--on average about once every other week. These courses range in size from twenty or thirty to over 400 practicing lawyers. I have authored a number of articles on legal ethics topics in national and state law publications and write a regular legal ethics column, entitled "Ethics Curbstone," for Res Gestae, the monthly journal of the Indiana State Bar Association.
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Reason for applying:
My "day job" is administering the work of the Indiana Supreme Court's agency for investigating and prosecuting claims of lawyer misconduct. I also personally try lawyer discipline cases on a regular basis. While courtroom advocacy inevitably requires teaching a tribunal about the facts and law of a case, the teaching that occurs in a classroom, whether to law students or practicing lawyers, is harder. It is also more difficult to tell if one has succeeded. My involvement in teaching is an outgrowth of my primary professional role, in the sense that success in teaching might result in less demand for my services as an ethics prosecutor. How one enlivens this subject matter so it has existential meaning to the participants is a major challenge. Whether teaching at a law school or a continuing legal education seminar, I try to be sensitive to the fact that the members of the audience are not and will not become legal ethics wonks. So my teaching goals are relatively modest, but still hugely challenging: to have students leave with a sense of personal engagement in and passion for the subject matter, and be sufficiently attuned to legal ethics considerations to know when to stop, think and call an expert for help.
My reasons for applying for the workshop are to get help (1) meeting the challenge of convincing students that legal ethics/professionalism is vitally important to them; and (2) measuring success in achieving point one. My primary professional role gives me some advantage regarding goal number one. I am able to speak credibly to the fact that insensitivity to legal ethics concerns is the cause of great trauma in the personal and professional lives of many lawyers, a large number of whom are no different than the members of the audience. In this regard, it seems valuable to me to work with students to tease out some of the root causes of professional misconduct: Is it ignorance of the rules? Is it a basic character flaw? Is it a failure to internalize the sometimes-subtle norms of professional behavior? Is it a mental health or substance abuse problem? I hope to receive assistance developing teaching strategies that optimize student appreciation for the fact that the central players in the field of legal ethics and professionalism are the students themselves.
The latter of these two points goes, in part, to the problem of accurately evaluating student engagement in and knowledge of the subject matter and measuring success in achieving teaching goals. In my view, it is especially challenging for adjunct faculty to make frequent use of tools for measuring interim progress by students. Given my rather amorphous teaching goal of maximizing existential engagement in the topic, I especially look forward to hearing the ideas of the other participants for fairly and accurately evaluating student success.
Judith A. McMorrow
Professor of Law
Boston College Law School
885 Centre St.
Newton, MA 02459
Phone: (617)552-3578
Fax: (617)552-4098
Email: mcmorrow@bc.edu
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
Most of my Professional Responsibility teaching is "ethics in context." I regularly teach our Introduction to Lawyering and Professional Responsibility (ILPR) course, which introduces first year students to ethical issues and skills through a simulated case. Through the simulated case we try to bring issues of conflict of interest, confidentiality and the meaning of zealous representation to life by placing students in litigation roles. I was also one of the primary drafters of our professional responsibility orientation for our incoming first year students, where we have students observe a law firm ethics committee meeting and then break into small groups, led by a law professor and a practicing attorney, to discuss the problem. Next spring I will teach for the first time Semester in Practice, where students take (along with an externship) a 3 hour seminar on professional responsibility and self-reflection on practice. Through the years I have also taught the standard Professional Responsibility course and seminars in both Legal Ethics and Comparative Legal Ethics (with a focus on JD-MSW practice).
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Reason for applying:
Through the years I've moved more toward reflection on the sociology of practice and the need to confront "the politics of ethics." In almost every upper-level PR class that I've taught in the last 10 years, we reach a point where the students let down their guard and a group will openly state that they don't believe they'll have many choices in the practice of law. Sure, they won't lie or cheat or knowingly violate professional rules. But there is a significant segment of students who begin their practice life with a sense of powerlessness. To confront this, I increasingly believe that we have to teach students that their caricature of the practice world is incomplete. We also need to teach them how to engage in conversation and introduce ideas with ethical dimensions in a non-confrontational manner. We have to teach them where they can turn to for help if they feel uncomfortable about the direction being taken within their practice setting. There is a wealth of literature in the business world that has explored how conversation on ethics can be part of management. Yet in law we cling to the idea that our students are isolated individuals who make decisions alone. This is just one of many ideas I've love to have time to explore with other interested individuals.
Paula Nailon
Director of Professional Development
Univ of Arizona College of Law
P.O. Box 210176
Tucson, AZ 85721-0176
Phone: (520)626-6107
Fax: (520)621-9140
Email: nailon@law.arizona.edu
Home Page: http://www.law.arizona.edu/Staff/nailon.html
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
For the past four years, I have team taught (with our Associate Dean) 40-50 first and second-year students each summer in a one-unit professional development course. We utilize a 150-page course manual that we have written and evolved over the years. The course has several unique facets. For example, students must be simultaneously employed in government and public interest clerkships, to provide them with "real" work experiences and reinforce their potential for learning. They participate in extensive journaling and feedback throughout the summer. We have found this process of inner reflection to be most valuable in helping each student internalize the lessons learned, so that they are more likely to exhibit them in the future. (More information on the course is attached.)
In addition to teaching this course, I serve on the law school's Curriculum Committee and am responsible for other professional development programming for students, as well as new alums (4L-8L). This allows me to keep up to date on the current realities of practice, as well as make a solid contribution to the legal community. It also parallels my other professional activities, which have included teaching the Arizona State Bar's Course on Professionalism to bar members, participating on CLE panels, and serving on state and local bar committees.
On a larger scale, I have written numerous articles on law student and new attorney professional development (two samples attached, one from a recent ABA Law Practice Management Webzine, and the other from the NALP Bulletin). I have also been a speaker at several national conferences programs on the topic (the 2004 Annual Conference of NALP - the National Association for Legal Career Professionals and at many ABA Young Lawyers Division regional and national meetings). For example, upcoming programs include (1) Oct. 2005 YLD Conference in Louisville - speaking about how new lawyers can utilize the principles of emotional intelligence to improve their professional performance; (2) Dec. 2005 - plenary speaker at the NALP/ALI-ABA Professional Development Institute, speaking about what law schools and law firms can learn from each other about professional development; and (3) Apr. 2006 NALP Annual Education Conference - "Using Principles of Professional Development to Motivate !
and Prepare Law Students for Successful Careers."
Sharisse O'Carroll
2171 N. Vancouver Ave.
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74127
Phone: (918) 584-4192
Fax: (918) 599-7997
Email: sloc@cox.net
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
I have been teaching Professional Responsibility at the University of Tulsa College of Law for the past twelve years, as well as maintaining a full time law practice with my husband and law partner, Richard. The first day we discuss the meaning of "moral character" and I then suggest to the students that everyone in the room is of the same moral character. The students protest, and comment that they don't know each other that well, that some students might be dishonest or lack integrity. I then suggest that because we are all in law school, and not in jail for example, we do share characteristics - we are all hard workers, self-motivated, self-sufficient, goal-oriented. I also discuss that in our profession, we should be able to look at our fellow lawyer and should not just expect, but should know that he or she is of the same high moral character. The course develops along this theme.
I also show the scene from "To Kill a Mockingbird" where Atticus acquieses to Sheriff Tate. I then discuss how, since we are all human, even the most respected attorney (albiet fictional) can make a career-threatening mistake. I discuss how important it is to address mistakes openly and honestly and try to correct them. Since Watergate was the watershed event for legal ethics, I show contemporaneous news footage of the scandal which provides the students with a better understanding of what took place and the impact it had on American Jurisprudence.
I've also noticed that students generally do not have an understanding of "the client." Students tend to be judgmental and assert that they will only represent clients who have done nothing wrong. I try to communicate that if a case is being litigated, there is usually a little wrongdoing on both sides. I explain that clients are like your children - they're not perfect, they make mistakes, but they're yours and you must protect them and care for them.
I've found the students usually only think of perjury as relating to a criminal defendant, and they generally assume the attorney should always know if the witness is lying. Therefore, I have the students read the transcripts of Mark Fuhrman and Phil Vanhatter from the O.J. Simpson case where the detectives explain why they went over the wall of O.J. Simpson's home without a warrant. Consistently, the students do not believe this testimony. We discuss whether Marcia Clark knew it was false and whether she did anything wrong in presenting this evidence. We discuss the ABA's general position against paternalism in the practice of law. As an example of client autonomy and lack of paternalism, I show the film "The Trial of the Chicago Eight." I also use this film to discuss civil disobedience and disruptive tactics, conflicts of interest, and judicial misconduct.
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Reason for applying:
I would like to share my teaching methods that I feel are successful and help the students learn to really care about their clients. Mainly, I would like to learn about new and different teaching methods, especially in light of the changing makeup of this generation of law students.
Ellen A. Pansky
Pansky & Markle
Attorneys at Law
1114 Fremont Avenue
South Pasadena, CA 91030
Phone: (213)626-7300
Fax: (213)626-7330
Email: epansky@panskymarkle.com
I am a longtime legal ethics lecturer, and I was certified by the California State Bar as an authorized Continuing Legal Education provider from the inception of California's certification program. I have participated on scores of CLE panels to numerous bar associations and legal specialty groups, and I regularly present customized CLE programs to private law firms and governmental law departments. I specialize in the defense of attorneys and other professionals in regulatory and licensure proceedings and represents both plaintiffs and defendants in civil actions. I consult with and advise lawyers in legal ethics and risk management and frequently serve as an expert witness in legal malpractice proceedings. I am past-president (1995-1996) of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers and past president (2002-2003) of the National Association of Women Lawyers. I also serve as a member of Editorial Board of the ABA/BNA Lawyers Manual on Professional Conduct (2004-2007).
My approach to teaching legal ethics (and related professional responsibility and liability issues) is to utilize a practical orientation, illustrated by actual practice-related examples, and I endeavor to include concrete suggestions as to the manner in which practitioners can appropriately address and resolve ethical dilemmas.
Paul D. Paton
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Law, Queen's University
Macdonald Hall, Union Street
Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6
CANADA
Phone: (613)533-6000 x78346
Fax: (613)533-6509
Email: paul.paton@queensu.ca
Home Page: http://law.queensu.ca/faculty/profiles/paton.php
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
My teaching and research at the Faculty of Law at Queen's University complements and draws on both my research in legal ethics as a Fellow at Stanford between 2001-2004 and more than a decade of experience in a private firm, in a senior advisory position in government, as in-house counsel, and as judicial law clerk, as well as work with the Law Society of Upper Canada. I offer the core legal ethics seminar at the Faculty, drawing on the academic literature in Canada and the United States as well as the Rules of Professional Conduct, popular culture and television to explore the history and future of the legal profession in North America. Beyond equipping students with the legislative and regulatory tools to discern ethical issues and boundaries in legal practice, I aim to provide perspective on what it means to practice with integrity. This includes units on the challenges posed by a diverse and changing profession, and the role of in-house counsel, in addition to core problems with privilege and confidentiality. In creating evaluation options that include non-traditional "reflection papers", and permitting substantial term papers on topics that span from the teaching of law in high schools to the future of small-town practice, I encourage the students to blend the foundation of readings, rules and regulations with introspection about what it means to become a legal professional, and how they might make choices they will inevitably face as lawyers but most importantly as people individually and in community.
After graduating, law students in Ontario must complete a period of articles as well as a teaching and examination period at the Law Society of Upper Canada in order to qualify to practice. Professional responsibility is a core component as legal ethics is not a mandatory course at law schools across Canada. I was recently appointed to the Law Society of Upper Canada's Bar Admission Advisory Group on Skills and Professional Responsibility, having taught professional responsibility in that program for a number of years, and serving as an external advisor and examiner. I also served as the only academic on a team writing the new licensing examinations for Professional Responsibility for 2006.
In addition, I am the organizer of the Chief Justice of Ontario's Advisory Committee on Professionalism 6th Colloquium on Professionalism taking place in Kingston in October 2005, drawing together law students, local practitioners, the judiciary and senior members of the legal community (including the Treasurer of the Law Society and the Attorney General of Ontario). In concept and execution my focus has been to bridge the gap between student and practitioner, to discern and explore what it means to practice with honor and integrity in a variety of practice settings, all with their unique challenges.
In so doing my teaching of ethics and professionalism is aimed at my law students, the graduating students at the Bar, and the legal community. Though my law students are of course my primary focus and beneficiaries of all of this work, I view the three levels as interwoven and offering rich potential each to the other.
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Reason for applying:
By applying for the workshop I am hoping to benefit from the work and experience of others in dealing with current issues, as well as to reflect on how my own message is being communicated to my students in light of their ideas. I joined the Faculty of Law at Queen's University in July 2004, so I am relatively new as a full-time teacher of legal ethics and would greatly benefit from the Workshop. How can I be more effective? This divides into both questions about the substance of the teaching and on the evaluation options.
With respect to the substance of what I am teaching, my work on lawyers and Enron (with Deborah Rhode) and more recently on questions of audit working papers and corporate governance in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand have raised core problems for me around the importance of the independence of the profession and the related problems of privilege. In New Zealand, for example, in June 2005 privilege was extended for tax matters to other professionals. How can I situate and rationalize preserving privilege for the legal profession alone? How do you teach privilege in an age of terrorism? More broadly I face cynical students, recalcitrant bar students, and a profession that seems torn between rhetorical flourish and hostile neglect of ethics and professional responsibility. If I am aiming to be a teacher and resource for all three groups, how can I bridge those gaps and be a constructive critic?
With respect to pedagogical approach, I'd be interested in exploring ideas for evaluation. I used a variety of evaluation options, and the "reflection paper" proved to be the most difficult to implement. I also had the experience at the Law Society of drafting multiple choice questions and came away surprisingly convinced of their worth. I'd like to explore evaluation strategies during the workshop.
I'm also excited about the prospect of engaging with a community of other faculty teaching legal ethics and professional responsibility from across North America, and to build a network to which I would seek to contribute as well as draw upon. I believe I have a lot to offer as well as to learn, and I'd be an active and engaged participant.
Arnold R. Rosenfeld
Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP
75 State St., 6th Floor
Boston, MA. 02109
Phone: (617)951-9125
Fax: (617)261-3175
Email: arosenfeld@klng.com
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Brief Description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
I teach three courses at Boston University Law School: Professional Responsibility (3 credits); a Professional Responsibility Component of the Criminal Clinic (2 credits); and a Seminar on Attorney-Client Privilege, Work Product, and Lawyer-Client Confidentiality. I also teach one course, Professional Responsibility, once a year, at Northeastern University School of Law. I previously have sent a copy of my Professional Responsibility course syllabus. I also teach CLE courses, both locally and nationally and write a column for the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly entitled: "Rosenfeld on Ethics". I am Of Counsel in the Boston Office of the (inter)national law firm, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham where my practice concentrates on representing lawyers and law firms on ethical issues in addition to civil and criminal litigation. I served as the Chief Bar Counsel in Massachusetts for eight years.
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Reason for Applying:
Until recently, my approach to teaching was a modified lecture where I discuss the law and call upon students to discuss the assigned cases. In order to make these classes interesting, I spice them with stories of cases and situations which I have experienced, as a public defender, Bar Counsel, or in private practice. Students tell me they love these stories and they enliven the learning of ethics and professionalism real. I have been experimenting in my seminars with trying to get the students more involved in the course by assigning the students segments to present themselves. I also want to consider using outsiders, particularly practicing lawyers, to discuss the common problems that arise in transactional and trial practice and how they deal with those problems. I am very interested in other people's ideas on how to make my classes more stimulating for students and practicing lawyers.
Roy Stuckey
Professor
University of South Carolina
School of Law
Columbia, SC 29208
Phone: (803)777-2278
Fax: (803)777-3401
Email: Roy@law.law.sc.edu
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
I was the founding director of the Nelson Mullins Riley and Scarborough Center on Professoinalism at the University of South Carolina School of Law. I have been a clinical/professional skills teacher for 30 years. I have taught Professional Responsibility a number of times. As Director of the Center, I guided the creation of the professionalism website for lawyers and judges, http://professionalism.law.sc.edu I was a member of the MacCrate Task Force.
I currently chair the steering committee of CLEA's project, Best Practices of Law Schools for Preparing Students for Practice. The most current draft of our workproduct is posted at http://professionalism.law.sc.edu (look in the "news" section on the main page).
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Reason for applying:
We are within a year of completing the drafting phase of the best practices project. I am the primary author of the best practices document in which we recommend that law schools should make teaching professionalism a major objective of legal education and we specify a number of professional values that deserve special attention. We also recommend that professionalism be taught pervasively through all three years of law school. I would like to present and receive feedback on these recommendations and exchange ideas about teaching professionalism from my experiences as a teacher and director of the NMR&S Center on Professionalism.
Joan Vestrand
Associate Professor of Law; Dean
Thomas M. Cooley Law School
Rochester/OU Campus
472 O'Dowd Hall
Rochester, MI 48309
Phone: (248)370-3632
Fax: (248)370-3635
Email: vestranj@cooley.edu
Home Page: www.cooley.edu
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
I teach the course as though we are brand new lawyers entering practice. The first class is dedicated to regulation of the bar and character and fitness. By the end of the class, we have been admitted to the bar. We study the lawyer's oath and "take" the oath as a class. We then break into law firms. We next study reputation and it's importance. We talk about how one acquires a reputation and the affects of a good versus bad reputation. We talk about how important it is to carefully plan a reputation and the high standards of conduct that an excellent reputation requires. Every student then drafts a personal code of conduct to guide their conduct and behavior from that day forward. The codes that this project has generated are fabulous and absolutely inspiring. Next we study marketing and advertising so that our "firms" can ethically market our first clients. Once we have clients knocking at our door, we study which clients to accept and which to reject which ties into the first several rules of professional conduct such as 1.1, 1.3, etc. We then learn about fees - the different types and the factors for reasonableness and how to draft an ethical fee agreement. Once we've signed our clients up, we begin to represent them. From here we learn of our duties to the opposing party, third persons and the court. We study the different rules governing honesty, confidentiality and conflicts of interest, etc. Finally, we study the duties owed the profession and we cover the Code of Judicial Conduct. Throughout the term we periodically break out into our firms to work through ethical dilemmas. The firms then report to each other their analysis and conclusions. We also typically do a community service project as a class.
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Reason for applying:
I am ever searching for interesting methods to teach this course. I am extremely passionate in the subject matter and am intent on presenting a dynamic class that inspires each student to be a better person, a fine lawyer and an excellent citizen. I would be honored and privileged to attend your seminar and to share some of the things that I do in class such as the law firm model described in (1) above and the use of film clips in class. I use several film clips and show a full feature length movie as an exam writing exercise.
Lawrence A. Wojcik
DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary US LLP
203 North LaSalle Street Suite 1900
Chicago, Illinois 60601-1293
Phone: (312)368-4031
Email: lawrence.wojcik@dlapiper.com
Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
I have taught courses in ethics for lawyers, accountants and appraisers over my career, including teaching conflicts for the ethically challenged of the Illinois Bar on behalf of the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission as a member of the ARDC's Faculty Institute. In my firm, I have been responsible for ethical presentations to my firm's European office.
Reason for applying:
Lawyers, accountants, and appraisers are taught on the basis of rules, not principles, and based on my representation of these professionals in my 28 years of practice I believe that the "get as close to the line" type instruction does a disservice to professional ethics training that it is currently perceived as a good trait, in that - learning "how close to the line I can get" is the right approach, instead of considering what is the principle of behavior that should be applied and govern the situation and conduct of the professional. Further, given my international ethics responsibilities within my firm, I question the wholesale exportation of US norms on ethical issues throughout the world. Thus, I applied to experience and consider the views of those who have the serious responsibility of conveying ethical teachings to a rule-based audience.
Melvin F. Wright, Jr.
North Carolina Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism
100 E. Six Forks Rd., Suite 303
Raleigh, NC 27609
Phone: (919)571-4762
Fax: (919)788-5348
Email: Melvin.F.Wright@nccourts.org
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
Mel Wright is an Adjunct Professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law teaching Professional Responsibility. As Executive Director of the North Carolina Chief Justice's Commission on Professionalism (NC CJCP), Mr. Wright was asked by Dean Gene Nichol to teach Professional Responsibility in Fall 2004. Dean Nichol's vision for this course was to have more Professionalism (defined as the higher standard of conduct expected of attorneys) taught along with Ethics (defined as the minimum standard of conduct required of attorneys). Mr. Wright incorporates the aspirational aspects of professionalism into his ethics portions through video hypotheticals, written hypotheticals, class discussion, "thought of the week," guest speakers and Audio/Visual presentations.
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Reason for applying:
Mel Wright is applying for this workshop in order to contribute his own insights and to also learn from others' experiences regarding the teaching of professionalism and ethics. His plans as Executive Director of the NC CJCP, within the next year, include a conference for all North Carolina law schools in order to share ideas and programs for this very important aspect of legal education. It should be noted that three North Carolina law schools have been selected as Gambrell Award recipients over the past three years. (Duke receives its award this week.) Mr. Wright plans to take all information, ideas, and insights gleaned from this workshop to not only his own teaching position at Carolina but also all other North Carolina law schools. With a new North Carolina law school starting with its inaugural class in Fall 2006, such a workshop could not come at a more timely moment.
Carl J. Zahner
Center for Professionalism
The Florida Bar
651 East Jefferson St
Tallahassee, Fl 32399-2300
Phone: (850)561-5747
Fax: (850)561-5750
Email: czahner@flabar.org
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Brief description of your teaching of ethics and professionalism:
As the Director of the Center for Professionalism I teach CLE courses to Lawyers across Florida on various topics. These range from a Pre-Discipline diversion course centered upon civility and how professionalism keeps lawyers out of trouble, a series on professionalism to lawyers practicing in Workers' Compensation,lectures to voluntary Bar Associations, training voluntary lawyers to teach professionalism to newly licensed lawyers, and teaching professionalism to law students, local bar members, the judiciary , faculty and other members of the law school community as a guest speaker for an annual symposium on professionalism. I utilize an interactive style using video clips as a basis to engender comment and interaction. The particpants are encouraged to discuss with me and other participants their perceptions of the proper response to issues presented and also to compare and contrast the mandates of the Code of Professional Responsibility with encouraged professionalism behaviors as listed in the "Ideals and Goals of Professionalism" and how the reality of practice is different based upon a suggested response. The participants are engaged in a collegial manner and left to contemplate their own response to particular issues which hopefully correspond to the notions discussed as a collective ideal.
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Reason for applying:
I wish to apply to this workshop to be exposed to different ideas in how professionalism can be presented. It is important that the learning process is enlivened by innovation and experimentation. I have wanted to develop a "blended" program so that there might be a continuation of the program for several weeks after a lecture/discussion of the principles of professionalism. I have felt that while the members who attend the seminars enjoy the exercise, that very little of the information given is put into practice and their determination to do better, so fervently espoused at the end for the day, dies quickly in the reality of their daily work. I hope to collect different ideas and programs to make our programs fresh and engaging for the participants and the presenters. I also believe that new material helps keep an edge on those teaching and makes for a more dynamic and effective training experience.