It's been a while since I posted, but I claim new professor syndrome--prepping two new courses each semester has been quite time-consuming! As the spring semester begins to draw to a close, however, I've been reflecting on what it means to teach professional responsibility in a law school setting.
I am certainly not the first to note that teaching legal ethics to law students is a tough job. Let me add that if one is not a reknown legal ethics scholar such as Roy Simon, a civil rights trailblazer like Monroe Freedman, or a philosopher-king like Brad Wendel, the task is that much more difficult. Add to this the fact that my class is large (85 students), primarily 3Ls, and at night, and you begin to understand the challenge I've been facing this semester.
Having garnered advice from all sorts of PR law profs, I've really tried to make the class interesting and engaging. I've used lots of true-life stories, required small-group discussion, focused on topics theoretically interesting to law students (like admission to the bar & billing tactics), even tried to be witty. Most of these tactics have met with limited success, however. Thus I've been daydreaming about whether law schools could teach legal ethics in a different way. Here are some other ways of teaching PR that I've been mulling over:
1. The "pervasive" method, where there is no one course in PR, but legal ethics "pervades" the curriculum. Most famously used at Yale, at least until the ABA tightened up requirements.
Pros: Easier to talk about ethical behavior when it is situated in real law--this could be very effective in, say, a crim law or securities class.
Cons: Hard to ensure that the basics of legal ethics are taught this way, what with professorial autonomy and all.
2. The "clinic" method, where all students are required to participate in a three-week clinic (over winter break?) where they work with real clients and think about real-life ethical issues.
Pros: Real clients and real issues would force students to grapple with ethics in an active, not passive way.
Cons: Myriad. Hard to coordinate all these mini-clinics, especially in a large school. Need a huge clinical staff. Possibly not in best interests of clients. Taking away winter break would be extremely unpopular. And I'm for fewer required courses, not more.
3. The "first-year legal writing" method, where PR is taught in the 1st year, combined with writing assignments focused on ethics.
Pros: Students are forced to think more deeply than just reading a casebook. Issues could be taken from real-life incidents.
Cons: Would disrupt legal writing programs already in place. Would need more legal writing staff to supervise. Unclear if first year is the right time to be introducing sophisticated PR ideas.
4. The "seminar" method, where PR is taught as a seminar focusing on one aspect of ethics, such as philosophy or criminal defense.
Pros: If given the option to focus their interests, students might be more engaged and excited. Smaller classes would allow more attention on each student.
Cons: Immense faculty resource grab. Plus, possibility that some students not interested in *any* aspect of legal ethics.
5. Finally, and perhaps most radically, the "post-graduation" method, where legal ethics is not taught in law schools at all. Instead, legal ethics is two-month long required CLE taken after the first year of practice, and given by the state bar.
Pros: After a year of practice, young lawyers would have a greater appreciation of how ethics--or the lack thereof--functions in the legal world. And the possibility of losing their law license would provide plenty of incentive to pay attention.
Cons: Would foist a tremendous amount of work onto the state bar & cle providers. Would leave first-year lawyers with no legal ethics knowledge at all as they start their careers. Finally, removing legal ethics from law schools would put some PR profs out of work!
Quite honestly, I'm not sure if any of the above possibilities would be any better than the system we've got now. But every so often, it's good to shake up the old standards, don't you think? I'd love to get some comments, reactions, or criticism about the above, or any more ideas....
(n.b. snarky comments or long rants about' lack of lawyer ethics will be deleted. Serious comments only, please).
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