Everybody Hurts and Heals: Training Law Students to Acknowledge, Embrace, and Strategically Use Their Emotions to be Better Learners and Lawyers

Go Back

Session Type: Concurrent Sessions

Session Capacity: N/A

Hotel: N/A

Room: Franciscan A

Floor: Ballroom Level

The goal of this session will be to provide educators with tools to help their students develop the emotional awareness and regulation that underly professional identity formation and effective lawyering. Presenters will provide a foundation for why emotional awareness and regulation are critical to professional identity formation and development of lawyering skills and why experiential faculty are well-positioned to lead students in this work. The professional identity formation process is especially impactful when students perform real-world lawyering work. In addition, emotional awareness and regulation are fundamental as lawyering skills and competencies. The work of Brené Brown can serve as a foundation for and connection to this development. This session will provide participants with specific tools and strategies to help students explore their values, understand shame and vulnerability, stay curious, and cultivate meaningful connection. These tools prepare students for the challenges that lay ahead as they face a steep learning curve both in law school and transitioning into practice. They are critical support for any self-directed learner as they reflect, self-assess, ask for help, build resilience, and handle feedback. Attendees will participate in sample exercises and breakout discussions to brainstorm ways these tools can impact their work.