Date: Thursday, October 29, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET/1:00 PM – 2:00 PM CT/12:00 PM – 1:00 PM MT/11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PT
Over the past two decades, leadership studies and professional identity formation have emerged as separate fields of scholarship and teaching within American law schools. Although distinct, the two fields have potential for integration. This webinar will explore one point of convergence: an emphasis on developing character through an exploration of professional and personal values. This shared approach creates opportunities for law schools to integrate leadership education with professional identity formation experiences by focusing on the student’s development of professional and personal values.
This panel will provide an overview of leadership and professional identity approaches that focus on character development, explore the challenges and opportunities in such approaches, and offer some practical tips for infusing values-based leadership and professional identity opportunities throughout the law school experience.
Gregory Bowman, Dean and Professor of Law, Roger Williams University School of Law
Gregory W. Bowman joined the Roger Williams University School of Law faculty in 2020 as dean. Prior to his career in higher education, Bowman practiced international trade and corporate compliance law in Chicago and Washington, DC with the international law firm Baker McKenzie.
Bowman received his Juris Doctorate from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, his Master of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Exeter in England, and his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and International Studies from West Virginia University, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Mortar Board National Senior Honor Society.
Bowman has served as a member of the Law School Admission Council’s (LSAC) Board of Trustees, and he has chaired two LSAC governance committees and served on several more. He also has been a member of the Association of American Law Schools’ (AALS) Deans Steering Committee, Deans Section Executive Committee, and Membership Review Committee. In addition, Bowman has served as president and Board of Trustees member for the Southeastern Association of Law Schools (SEALS). Currently, he co-chairs the International Committee for SEALS.
In recognition of his contributions to the legal profession and education, Bowman is an American Bar Foundation Fellow, AALS Fellow, and West Virginia Bar Foundation Fellow. While serving on the faculty of the West Virginia University College of Law prior to joining RWU Law, he received the WVU Foundation’s campus-wide Award for Outstanding Teaching (2014), was named WVU Law’s Professor of the Year (2011), and received the West Virginia Law Review’s Outstanding Faculty Contribution Award twice (2011 and 2014).
Joshua Paul Fershee, Dean, Creighton University School of Law
Joshua Fershée, JD, became the 11th dean of the Creighton University School of Law on July 1, 2019. Fershée previously served as associate dean for faculty research and development, professor of law, and director of LLM programs at West Virginia University College of Law.
Earning a bachelor’s degree in social science from Michigan State University in 1995, Fershée began his career in public relations and media outreach before attending the Tulane University School of Law, graduating magna cum laude in 2003 and serving as editor in chief of the Tulane Law Review. He worked in private practice at the firms of Davis Polk & Wardell in New York and Hogan & Hartson, LLP, in Washington, D.C., before joining the legal academy.
Fershée joined the faculty of the University of North Dakota School of Law in 2007, and later served as associate dean for academic affairs and research. He was awarded the North Dakota Spirit Faculty Achievement Award in 2010 for significant contributions in teaching, research, and service. Fershée began his teaching as a visiting assistant professor at Penn State Law.
While at West Virginia University, Fershée facilitated creation of the law school’s first LL.M. Program in Energy and Sustainable Development and was a co-investigator on a $1.2 million grant to advance science and engineering for localized gas utilization. He also headed the Economic and Community Development Group and was a faculty researcher in the Center for Innovation in Gas Research and Utilization, a multidisciplinary center housed in West Virginia University’s Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources. Fershée was awarded the 2014-15 Outstanding Faculty Award by the West Virginia Law Review at West Virginia University College of Law.
Fershée’s research has appeared in a variety of journals, including the Harvard Journal on Legislation, Harvard Business Law Review Online, William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, and the Energy Law Journal, and he recently contributed a book chapter published by Oxford University Press. He is the author of Energy Law, A Context and Practice Casebook (Carolina Academic Press) and co-author of Unincorporated Business Entities (LexisNexis, 5th ed.). Fershée is also an editor of the Business Law Prof Blog.
Daisy Floyd, Dean Emerita, Mercer University Law School
Daisy Hurst Floyd is Dean Emerita at Mercer University School of Law. She was on the faculty of the Law School at Mercer for twenty-one years before retiring in July of 2025, serving as Dean for almost ten years of her time there. Since retiring from Mercer, she has been teaching part-time at Georgia State University College of Law. Prof. Floyd was previously on the faculties of Texas Tech University School of Law and the University of Georgia School of Law. Her teaching and research interests include Ethics, Legal Education, Civil Procedure, Evidence, and Remedies. She has particular interest in the ways in which higher education shapes students’ ethical development and in cross-disciplinary collaboration.
Professor Floyd was named a Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2001 in support of her research on the development of the professional identity of the American lawyer, and she continues to be a leader in the professional identity movement in legal education. She is the author of numerous law review articles and book chapters and is a frequent speaker at academic and legal conferences. Most recently, Prof. Floyd is the co-author of The Formation of Professional Identity: The Path from Student to Lawyer (2d ed. West 2024), which takes a virtue ethics approach to the ethical formation of law students and lawyers, and she is co-author of the chapter on professional identity formation in the forthcoming 4th edition of Learning from Practice: A Text for Experiential Legal Education (West).
Prof. Floyd received her B.A. and M.A. from Emory University and a J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law, where she was Articles Editor of the Georgia Law Review. She practiced law briefly at Alston, Miller & Gaines (now Alston & Bird) in Atlanta before becoming a full-time legal educator.
Prof. Floyd has received the Legacy Award for Career Contributions to Professional Identity Formation, awarded by the University of St. Thomas School of Law, and the Career Achievement Award, presented by the Association of American Law Schools and the Clinical Legal Education Association for service to Externships teaching and pedagogy. She is a recipient of the Mercer University School of Law Board of Visitors Excellence in Scholarship Award and was a finalist for Mercer University’s Joe and Jean Hendricks Excellence in Teaching Award. While on the faculty of Texas Tech University, Prof. Floyd received the Phi Alpha Delta Professor of the Year Award, the New Professor Excellence in Teaching Award, and the President’s Excellence in Teaching Award.
Prof. Floyd currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Section on Leadership and the Law of the Association of American Law Schools. She has previously served in a number of leadership roles in the profession, including as a founding member of the Board of Directors of Middle Georgia Access to Justice, 2018-25, member of the American Bar Association Professionalism Committee, 2014-17, member of the ABA President’s Council on Diversity in the Profession, 2005-2008, and member of the State Bar of Georgia Diversity Program Committee, 2011-2015. She has served on several accreditation site teams for the ABA and AALS, including as Chair.
Aric Short, Professor of Law; Director of the Professional Identity & Leadership Development Program, Texas A&M University School of Law
Aric Short is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Professional Identity & Leadership Development Program at Texas A&M University School of Law. Before entering academia in 2004, he practiced international litigation in Washington, D.C., and handled environmental law and water rights in Austin, Texas. His academic research focuses on international human rights litigation and expanding housing rights to better protect vulnerable tenants. Dedicated to instilling deep legal integrity and professionalism in his students, his teaching has earned him multiple “1L Professor of the Year” honors. Outside of the classroom, he is passionate about baking and spending time with his family, including coaching his children’s baseball and softball teams.
Kenneth Townsend, Executive Director of Leadership and Character in the Professional Schools, University Professor, Teaching Professor in the School of Law, Wake Forest University School of Law
Kenneth Townsend is the Executive Director of Leadership and Character in the Professional Schools, University Professor, and Teaching Professor in the School of Law. A recipient of the Truman Scholarship for Public Service and the Rhodes Scholarship, he earned a B.A. from Millsaps College, an M.Phil. from the University of Oxford, and a J.D. and M.A.R. from Yale University. Prior to joining Wake Forest, he worked at Millsaps College as Special Assistant to the President, Assistant Professor of Political Science, and Founding Executive Director of the Institute for Professional and Civic Engagement and, before Millsaps, as a Fellow in the University of Mississippi’s Barksdale Honors College and Lott Leadership Institute. A licensed attorney and frequent commentator on public affairs, he has taught courses in ethics, political theory, public policy, and constitutional law at Millsaps College, University of Mississippi, and Yale University. He teaches “Professional Responsibility” and “Leadership and Character in the Law” at the Wake Forest School of Law. His recent publications have focused on character-based leadership and the professional identity formation of lawyers.
