Event Title
Externships: Teaching Civility and Professionalism
Location
Hirsch Hall, Room A
Start Date
10-3-2018 1:30 PM
End Date
10-3-2018 2:45 PM
Description
In a country that has continued to be divided along political lines in a profession that is by its own nature adversarial, we aim to teach our students how to be collegial while remaining zealous advocates for their clients. Civility allows the court process to run more efficiently, lowers costs for clients and generally makes being a lawyer better.
We believe that law schools have an obligation to incorporate civility into their curriculum. It is natural that Externship courses should take the lead in this endeavor. Although in-house experiential and simulation courses provide our students with the opportunity to learn how to "practice," attorney behavior is not the prime focus of these courses. Moreover, while these courses must address attorney behavior to some extent, the air of familiarity and congeniality in the classroom environment belies what it is sometimes like when attorneys interact in real world settings. Externships, however, allow students an opportunity to observe, reflect on and in some cases engage in real world practice. Students get the opportunity to observe exemplary and poor attorney behavior whether in court, negotiations or other interactions. We believe we have a duty to make a concerted effort to be as intentional as possible in facilitating student reflection and understanding of civility and professionalism.
Our presentation will highlight how the externships experience and seminars are an ideal vehicle for addressing “Civility and Professionalism.” We would like to engage the audience by discussing the importance of teaching civility in the Externship course, presenting hypotheticals for the participants to better understand cases of incivility, and proposing/gathering ideas on how to teach civility in an Externship course. We hope to foster a discussion on how we can proactively incorporate teaching civility and professionalism in the externship seminar.
Externships: Teaching Civility and Professionalism
Hirsch Hall, Room A
In a country that has continued to be divided along political lines in a profession that is by its own nature adversarial, we aim to teach our students how to be collegial while remaining zealous advocates for their clients. Civility allows the court process to run more efficiently, lowers costs for clients and generally makes being a lawyer better.
We believe that law schools have an obligation to incorporate civility into their curriculum. It is natural that Externship courses should take the lead in this endeavor. Although in-house experiential and simulation courses provide our students with the opportunity to learn how to "practice," attorney behavior is not the prime focus of these courses. Moreover, while these courses must address attorney behavior to some extent, the air of familiarity and congeniality in the classroom environment belies what it is sometimes like when attorneys interact in real world settings. Externships, however, allow students an opportunity to observe, reflect on and in some cases engage in real world practice. Students get the opportunity to observe exemplary and poor attorney behavior whether in court, negotiations or other interactions. We believe we have a duty to make a concerted effort to be as intentional as possible in facilitating student reflection and understanding of civility and professionalism.
Our presentation will highlight how the externships experience and seminars are an ideal vehicle for addressing “Civility and Professionalism.” We would like to engage the audience by discussing the importance of teaching civility in the Externship course, presenting hypotheticals for the participants to better understand cases of incivility, and proposing/gathering ideas on how to teach civility in an Externship course. We hope to foster a discussion on how we can proactively incorporate teaching civility and professionalism in the externship seminar.