Experiential Education and Professional Responsibility: Training Ethical Lawyers in Extraordinary Times

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Session Type: AALS Programs

Session Capacity: N/A

Hotel: N/A

Room: Salon 1

Floor: Third Floor

This concurrent session will provide an opportunity to present, discuss, and explore ways that law schools are teaching or might teach Professional Responsibility, an ABA-required course, in an experiential way. Historically, professional responsibility faculty have struggled to find an engaging and relevant way to teach this incredibly important subject to their students. Beyond being an ABA requirement, it is the one course where we know the issues will touch upon our students’ careers as lawyers and professionals with special responsibilities to the public. We believe it is crucial that students grapple with professional responsibility issues generally, and also those issues embedded in current events, in a meaningful and real way while they are in school. With that training students will be better prepared and more aware of how to effectively deal with these issues when they face them out in their practices. We will identify professional responsibility issues that have emerged both in these extraordinary times and in past events. Using those stories and examples, we will present innovative models of teaching Professional Responsibility in an experiential way, including through simulations that could be part of clinical courses. These current models are replicable in various settings such as in-house clinics, transactional community clinics, and field placement companion courses. We hope that this presentation and discussion will illustrate ways to teach students how to fulfill their professional responsibilities in the communities they serve.