Join us for a panel discussion exploring the relationship between wellbeing and professional identity formation in law schools. The session will discuss issues such as the importance of wellbeing and professional identity, approaches to integrating professional identity formation and wellbeing support into legal curricula, challenges and opportunities arising from such integration, and future developments in this area. With speakers from both the AALS Wellbeing & Balance Section and the UK’s Association of Law Teachers, the speakers will provide rich comparative insights as well as encouraging contributions from attendees.
Professor George teaches legal writing, and her scholarship focuses in the areas of lawyer well-being, mindfulness, and the cognitive science of learning. She is the author of The Law Student’s Guide to Doing Well and Being Well (Carolina Academic Press), as well as the co-author of Mindful Lawyering: The Key to Creative Problem Solving (Carolina Academic Press), and law review articles on distraction and the cognitive science of learning and why law students need mindfulness training. Professor George was recently elected to the Executive Committee for the AALS Balance and Wellbeing in Law Section and was the winner of the section’s inaugural section award in January of 2022. Professor George also was recently appointed to the Institute for Well-Being in Law’s Research and Scholarship Committee. Professor George is highly involved in the national legal writing community, having served on the Association of Legal Writing Directors Board, the Executive Committee of the AALS Section on Legal Writing, Research and Reasoning, and co-chaired various committees of the Legal Writing Institute.
I joined the Law School in January 2020. I am currently chairing the modules Remedies in Private Law, Digital Lawyering (undergraduate) and Legal Tech and Lawyering in the Digital Age (postgraduate). I also teach on the Law of Obligations. I am also Director of Student Wellbeing for the School of Law.
Prior to joining Sheffield, I worked at The Open University Law School for five years as a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer. During my time there I was the director of my faculty’s scholarship centre and one of the founders of the Open Justice Centre. My last role was as Law School Teaching Director.
Before moving into academia, I was a solicitor in private practice, specializing in construction law. I also taught in the further education sector.
My research interests focus on the role of emotions and wellbeing in legal education and the legal profession, and I have conducted a range of empirical work on these topics, as well as writing from a theoretical perspective.
Noel’s current research interests are broadly spread across two areas of interest: legal education and human rights law.
Noel’s legal education scholarship focuses on investigating student wellbeing at university. Noel has written a number of papers on embedding inclusivity in a law curriculum by developing a set of curriculum design principles to support student wellbeing. This research has been undertaken against the contemporary context of changes in the routes to professional legal qualification, and the consequences of the pandemic on higher education. Currently, this project is undertaking empirical research involving law students to begin identifying and understanding contemporary student wellbeing needs at university.
Noel also has an interest in public and human rights law. He is particularly interested in analysing legal responses to terrorism that have been adopted by various countries to assist in managing the prevailing threat of terrorism. Noel’s first monograph was published in February 2021 (in hardback) and August 2022 (in softback) which is titled: ‘Terrorist Profiling and Law Enforcement: Detection, Prevention and Deterrence’. Noel developed a highly original reading of criminal profiling methodologies to create a framework to understand terrorist profiling as well as being able to assess the lawfulness of terrorist profiling.
Noel joined the editorial team of Prof Michael Doherty’s textbook Public Law now in its 3rd edition. This is a comprehensive pedagogically focused textbook, that is written in a clear style, accessible tone, and focuses on modern case law help bring the subject to life.
Noel is currently co-editor with Dr Dan Jasinski (University of Northampton) of a forthcoming text, ‘Citizens, the State and Justice’ due for publication in 2025 with Routledge. This text is an innovative text capturing the unique nature of the relationship between citizen, state and justice.
Noel is also an Executive Committee Member of the Association of Law Teachers and has a passion for supporting Early Career Academics.
Professor Natalie Netzel serves as the director of clinical legal education, where she oversees Mitchell Hamline’s nationally recognized clinical program. Her teaching interests include criminal law, evidence, child welfare law, and resilient practice.
Her scholarly interests include trauma-informed lawyering, trauma-informed pedagogy, and law student and attorney mental health and well-being. She is involved with the American Association of Law Schools’ Section on Balance and Well-Being in Legal Education and the Minnesota State Bar Association’s Well-Being Committee. She serves on the Board of Directors for Minnesota Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers.
Professor Netzel is an affiliated professor with the Institute to Transform Child Protection (ITCP). She has extensive experience representing parents and relatives in child protection cases in district court and on appeal. She relies on that experience to train attorneys, judges, social workers, guardians ad litem, and other professionals on best practices in child protection proceedings.
Professor Netzel joined the faculty as a staff attorney with the ITCP in August of 2016. In her time at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, she has served in a variety of roles including the education and advocacy director of the ITCP and the director of the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project.
Prior to joining the faculty, Professor Netzel was a judicial law clerk for the Minnesota Court of Appeals. She received her B.A. from Hamline University, her M.S.E. in counseling from the University of Wisconsin-Superior, and her J.D. from Mitchell Hamline School of Law.
