This student-directed seminar will explore ethical issues in the practice of law from the perspective of legal practitioners and scholars from a variety of legal backgrounds. The course will foster a continuing, intensive and engaging semester-long dialogue on legal ethics. Ultimately, the goal is to better understand and begin to prepare students for the complex ethical challenges they are likely to encounter as they develop their own practices of law and to develop approaches to thinking through ethical dilemmas that will arise.
The seminar is student-led in that students are expected to take an active role not only in participating in class discussions but also in shaping the course curriculum. Students take primary responsibility for designing, organizing and facilitating the weekly class meetings. The instructor provides additional guidance to students in the development of the curriculum and the design of the weekly meeting and selects participating students and evaluates their performance.
The class meets once before the summer and collectively identifies the specific topics to be explored in each of the seminar sessions. Each student then takes responsibility for organizing and facilitating one of these weekly meetings, including: identifying, selecting, and assembling appropriate and relevant readings on the topic; facilitating in-class instruction; inviting and preparing a guest speaker (if desired); and developing simulations and exercises (if desired). The first two sessions of the course will provide a foundation for discussions throughout the semester, introducing the standards of professional responsibility that guide the practice of law. The weekly meetings will then focus on the topics identified and arranged by the students. Students will also write weekly reflection papers on issues of individual interest raised in class and share these in weekly small-group discussions outside of class.
This course requires a significant investment of time and energy from each student and will be most useful to students desiring an intensive, challenging exploration of issues of legal ethics.