Fall 2016 workshop
National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism (NIFTEP)
October 6 – 9, 2016 Mercer University Law School, Macon, Georgia
“Educational Interventions to Cultivate Professional Identity in Law Students."
Co-sponsored by Mercer University Law School and the American Bar Association Standing Committee on Professionalism
The Fall 2016 workshop of the National Institute for Teaching Ethics and Professionalism (NIFTEP) took place from 5:00 pm Thursday, October 6 – 12:30 pm on Sunday, October 9, 2016 at the Mercer University School of Law in Macon, Georgia (approximately 1.5 hours from Atlanta). The workshop theme was: “Educational Interventions to Cultivate Professional Identity in Law Students." Part of the workshop was held in conjunction with the 17th Annual Georgia Symposium on Professionalism and Ethics sponsored on October 6-7 at Mercer University Law School by Mercer’s Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism. Workshop fellows agreed to attend the Symposium.
Theme
Working Definition of Professional Identity in Law:
“A lawyer’s professional identity is a deep sense of self in role. It includes a set of virtues and dispositions that enable the lawyer to serve clients and the public well in complex, stressful and uncertain circumstances, including ones that present questions of morality and professional responsibility. “
Four Component Model of Morality:
See Learning Professional Responsibility for the Practice of Law: the Way Forward at pp 4-11, available at www.teachinglegalethics.org/learningpr
The following questions were the focus of the workshop:
- Should law schools adopt educational interventions specifically tied to the cultivation of professional identity?
- Are specifically designed interventions necessary to enable students to develop professional identity?
- What evidence exists that such interventions are effective?
- What resources are needed?
- Using the Four Component Model to design educational interventions to cultivate professional identity.
- How to sensitize students to recognize issues that implicate a lawyer’s professional responsibilities?
- How to develop students’ capacity to reason to a mature decision about such issues?
- How to lay a foundation of professional identity that will motivate students when they become lawyers to resolve the issues they recognize in appropriate ways?
- What skills to provide students that they will need to implement their moral decisions?
- How to measure whether the intervention will have its intended effect?
- Is it possible to develop “before and after” instruments to detect whether the intervention had any impact?
- Are longitudinal studies required, and, if so, how should they be designed and implemented?
Location
Mercer University School of Law, Macon, Georgia
Agenda
*Friday evening October 7: Hilton Garden Inn Meeting Room*
6:00 – 8:00 p.m. Welcome reception and buffet dinner
Introduction of Fellows and Workshop Faculty
Informal discussion of symposium
*Saturday morning October 8: Hilton Garden Inn Meeting Room*
8:00-9:00 - Breakfast
9:00-10:30 – Presentations and discussion regarding existing professional identity interventions:
Open discussion with fellows, speakers and discussants about issues raised during Symposium.
10:30-10:45 – Break
10:45 – Noon – Assessments of professional identity interventions
Freda Grealy: Overview of intervention study on professional identity formation in trainee solicitors in Ireland
Alain Roussy, University of Ottawa: Study of the ethical identity and development of law students in Canada
Noon – 1:00 p.m. – Lunch – Hilton Garden Inn Restaurant
*Saturday afternoon: Hilton Garden Inn Meeting Room*
1:00 – 2:00 – Demonstrations and discussion of classroom exercises regarding professional identity
Kelly Terry, UALR Law School – Tipton v. Aaron and core values
Mary Helen McNeal, Syracuse Law School – “The Lawyer’s Coat”
2:00 – 2:15 – Break
2:15 – 3:15 – Demonstrations and discussion of classroom exercises regarding professional identity
Laurel Rigertas, NIU Law School – “Mindfulness and Civility: Responding to the Hostile Voicemail”
Carwina Weng, Indiana University Law School – Cultural Competence Exercise
3:15 – 3:30 – Break
3:30 – 4:30 - Professional identity formation and law school learning outcomes
Debra Moss Curtis, Nova Southeastern Law School
Paul Haskins, ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism
Tiffany Roberts & Clark Cunningham, Georgia State
*Saturday evening*
6:00 – 8:30 - Reception and dinner at home of Pat and Gretchen Longan
*Sunday morning October 9: Hilton Garden Inn Meeting Room*
8:00-9:00 Breakfast
9:00-10:15 – Presentation and discussion regarding neuroscience and professional identity
Debra Austin, University of Denver
10:15 – 10:30 Break
10:30 – Noon (and working brunch)
Developments: Assessment Tools Developed after 2014 Outcomes Project
Open discussion of questions, issues or ideas submitted by workshop participants
Clark Cunningham, Georgia State University College of Law
*Sunday afternoon October 9*
Departure for Atlanta airport; transportation provided as necessary by Mercer students
Download Agenda: 
16F Updated Workshop Schedule
Attendance & Costs
Attendance at these highly participatory events is limited to invited speakers and to those selected to be NIFTEP Fellows. Fellowships are typically granted either to full-time law professors who incorporate issues of ethics and professionalism into their teaching or to legal practitioners actively involved in ethics CLE education and professionalism programs. Teachers new to legal education or to teaching ethics and professionalism are encouraged to apply. However, any person committed to promoting ethics and professionalism may apply. There is no charge for workshop registration, lodging, or meals during the workshop and transportation to and from the Atlanta airport is provided. Fellows are generally expected to cover their other travel expenses.
Speaker Discussants
Richard Cruess, McGill University
Sylvia Cruess, McGill University
Clark Cunningham, Georgia State University College of Law
A. James Elliott, Emory University School of Law
Larry Golemon, Washington Theological Consortium
Benjamin Grimes, Professional Responsibility Advisory Office U.S. Department of Justice
Neil W. Hamilton, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Paul Haskins, Center for Professional Responsibility - American Bar Association
Mark Jones, Mercer University School of Law
Kendall Kerew, Georgia State University College of Law
Larry Krieger, Florida State University College of Law
Paul Lewis, Mercer University
Patrick E. Longan, Mercer University School of Law
Jerome Organ, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Tiffany Roberts, Georgia State University College of Law
Jack Sammons, Mercer University School of Law
Elizabeth Vozzolla, University of Saint Joseph
Fellows
Debra Austin, Sturm College of Law
Freda Grealy, Law Society of Ireland
Debra Moss Curtis, NSU College of Law
Mary Helen McNeal, Syracuse University College of Law
Laurel Rigertas, Northern Illinois University College of Law
Alain Roussy, University of Ottawa - Faculty of Law
Kelly S. Terry, University of Arkansas at Little Rock - William H. Bowen School of Law
Carwina Weng, IU Maurer School of Law
Participant Biographies: 16F Updated Workshop Bios
For more information, please contact NIFTEP Deputy Director, Tiffany Roberts at twroberts@gsu.edu.