Teaching Knowledge, Skills, and Values of Professional Identity Formation

Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World (Deborah Maranville, et al., eds., Lexis 2015)

16 Pages Posted: 12 Feb 2015

See all articles by Larry O. Natt Gantt, II

Larry O. Natt Gantt, II

Harvard Law School Program on Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies; Regent University - School of Law

Benjamin V. Madison III

Regent University School of Law

Date Written: February 9, 2015

Abstract

Both Best Practices for Legal Education and Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law suggest that it is a best practice to cultivate students’ professional identity formation explicitly and pervasively as part of the program of legal education. Helping students develop their “professional identity” is different from teaching them “professionalism,” as the latter term is often interpreted. Lawyer professionalism has often referred to adherence to standards or norms of conduct beyond those required by the ethical rules, and the focus of the current discussion of professionalism largely remains on outward conduct like civility and respect for others. Civility and respect for others are foundational to emerging lawyers’ understanding of professional conduct, but professional identity engages students at a deeper level by asking them to internalize principles and values such that their actions flow habitually from their moral compass.

The process of forming students’ professional identities requires exposing them to explicit areas of knowledge, skills, and values. This section of the forthcoming book Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World (Lexis 2015) builds on Best Practices’ thesis concerning what it means to be a legal professional first by identifying more specifically the content of that knowledge and the nature of those values and skills, and then by discussing particular teaching methods aimed at promoting students’ professional identity formation. Because formation of developing lawyers’ professional identities requires pervasive efforts, a law school that has embraced the goal of formation ought to combine the practices suggested in this section with those in the other sections of Building on Best Practices.

Keywords: professional identity, professionalism, professional identity formation, professional formation, ethics, ethical formation, model rules of professional conduct, legal pedagogy, law teaching

JEL Classification: I00, I20, I21, I29, K00, K10, K19, K20, K30, K39, K40

Suggested Citation

Gantt, II, Larry O. Natt and Gantt, II, Larry O. Natt and Madison III, Benjamin V., Teaching Knowledge, Skills, and Values of Professional Identity Formation (February 9, 2015). Building on Best Practices: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World (Deborah Maranville, et al., eds., Lexis 2015), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2562507

Larry O. Natt Gantt, II (Contact Author)

Harvard Law School Program on Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies ( email )

1563 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Regent University - School of Law ( email )

1000 Regent University Drive
Virginia Beach, VA 23464
United States

Benjamin V. Madison III

Regent University School of Law ( email )

1000 Regent University Drive
Virginia Beach, VA 23464
United States
757.226.4586 (Phone)
757.226.4329 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.regent.edu

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