Law Student Professional Development and Formation
Bridging Law School, Student, and Employer Goals

Offers actionable steps to legal educators to foster each student's professional identity.

Neil W. Hamilton (Author), Louis D. Bilionis (Author)

9781108745659, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 5 May 2022

200 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.1 cm, 0.284 kg

'I dare say that no coauthors other than Neil Hamilton and Lou Bilionis could have written this book. Their three-quarters of a century as law teachers, scholars, and administrators have equipped them with deep insights that make Law Student Professional Development and Formation a tour de force.' Paul L. Caron, Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean and Professor of Law, Pepperdine University Rick J. Caruso School of Law

Law schools currently do an excellent job of helping students to 'think like a lawyer,' but empirical data show that clients, legal employers, and the legal system need students to develop a wider range of competencies. This book helps legal educators to understand these competencies and provides practical ways to build them into a law school curriculum. Based on recommendations from the American Bar Association, the American Association of Law Schools, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, it will equip students with the skills they need not only to think but to act and feel like a lawyer. With this proposed model, students will internalize the need for professional development toward excellence, their responsibility to others, a client-centered approach to problem solving, and strong well-being practices. These four goals constitute a lawyer's professional identity, and this book empowers legal educators to foster each student's development of a professional identity that leads to a gratifying career that serves society well. This title is Open Access.

1. Introduction: The four foundational professional-development-and-formation goals and their benefits for faculty, staff, and administrators
2. A framework for purposefulness to realize the four professional-development-and-formation goals
3. Competency-based education as another step toward purposefulness – lessons learned from medical education's fifteen years of additional experience with professional development and formation goals
4. Ten principles to inform curriculum development
5. Going where each stakeholder is and building bridges among them in order to realize the four professional-development-and-formation goals
6. The opportunity to lead.

Subject Areas: Legal skills & practice [LAS]