Continental Ballroom 4 Hilton San Francisco and Towers Ballroom Level
Joint Program of Sections on Clinical Legal Education, Law and Mental Disability and Law and Religion Antoinette Sedillo Lopez, University of New Mexico, and Chair, Section on Clinical Legal Education Robert F. Schopp, University of Nebraska, and Chair, Section on Law and Mental Disability Frederick Mark Gedicks, Brigham Young University, and Chair, Section on Law and Religion Katherine Mary Hessler, Case Western Reserve University, Program Co-Chair Susan Daicoff, Florida Coastal School of Law, Program Co-Chair
A Humanizing Dimension for Legal Education: Promoting Health and Satisfaction in Law Students
Presenters:
Lawrence S. Krieger, Florida State University Laurie A. Morin, University of the District of Columbia Calvin Pang, University of Hawaii
Facilitators:
Susan Daicoff, Florida Coastal School of Law Katherine Mary Hessler, Case Western Reserve University Ann L. Iijima, William Mitchell College of Law Paula Lustbader, Seattle University Martha Peters, University of Iowa Robert P. Schuwerk, University of Houston Charles J. Senger, Thomas M. Cooley Law School Jacqueline St. Joan, University of Denver Alice Thomas, University of the District of Columbia
Modern Legal Education has focused on training students in legal analysis, reasoning, argument, and technical skills, but has not prepared students for the broader demands of current law practice. Several recent trends in the legal profession encourage us to broaden our educational focus, including lack of professionalism, high associate turnover, low public opinion, empirically documented lawyer dissatisfaction, distress, and dysfunction, as well as the need for attorneys to consider complex relationships between individuals, entities, and communities and to function as peacemakers, agents of conflict resolution and creative problem-solvers. The movement to ADR, the increasing presence of women and people of color in the profession, the inquiries about therapeutic jurisprudence, restorative justice, and holistic law are responses to the changes in, and demands of, an evolving society. Legal education must extend its focus in response to both the problems in the profession and the new demands upon it.
Can we broaden our educational approaches to foster a balancing of personal values with commercial value, conscience with advocacy, and well-being with excellence? This program surveys current efforts to improve legal education, and ultimately counteract the problems within the profession, by structuring a law school experience which acknowledges one's emotional, psychological, ethical, moral and spiritual qualities within the context of a rigorous education. Working in an interactive format, workshop facilitators will identify and demonstrate ways to balance our focus on theory and skills with respect for subjective human qualities. Participatory exercises and small group discussion will be supplemented by a theoretical framework that explains the emerging need for such integration in legal education.
The hypothesis of the program is that this broadened approach will result in greater satisfaction and more optimal mental health among attorneys, delivery of more professional legal services, and a more positive influence on the legal system and society as a whole. Come help us explore our hypothesis. Learn how law professors around the country are experimenting with these ideas and share your own ideas and experiences.