Teaching the Whole Lawyer: Deliberate, Mindful and Culturally Conscious Professional Identity Formation

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Session Type: AALS Programs

Session Capacity: N/A

Hotel: N/A

Room: Salon 1

Floor: Third Floor

The call to develop “professional ethical engagement” is perhaps more relevant today than it was even 10 years ago. The world is in need of lawyers who will serve as ethical leaders, forging a constructive new path. Law schools must do their part to encourage the development of these new leaders, as they enter the legal profession in a time of tumult, tension, and transition. As the political stage provides wildly varying role models, students must critically assess who they want to emulate, and how they will approach their careers and represent their clients with courage and justice.

This interactive session will address a clinician’s role in engaging professional identity formation and ways we can intentionally incorporate three core professional identity competencies—cultural competency, well-being, and self-directedness—into our curriculum. In the cultural competency section, presenters will focus on helping students identify who they are in relation to other system actors and how that identity can evolve. We also aim to provide the students with a frame with which to practice when they are also a member of the same "othered" groups they serve. In the well-being section, we will focus on building resiliency and supporting self-care strategies, including mindfulness, so that students can more effectively identify the warning signs of burnout and cope with the stress inherent in the profession. The self-directedness section will focus on how self-directedness figures into the professional identity formation of students and how teachers can be more explicit and intentional in employing a pedagogy of self-directedness not only in clinics and externships, but across the law school curriculum.

Participants will have opportunity to participate in group discussion, personal reflection, and will leave with a plan for practical application of the session along with takeaway exercises and materials.