ABA Journal Op-Ed: Professionalism: The ABA Requires It, Employers Want It, Students Need It; So Let’s Teach It, by Jillian Boone (Ohio State):
By graduation, law students should understand what it means to act professionally: to succeed as a professional in a professional field. This doesn’t seem like a radical or controversial notion. But when looking back at your own legal education, where exactly were you taught the soft skills, norms and insights that underlie professionalism in practice? Was it embedded in the required 1L curriculum? Offered as an upper-level course? Mandated as a graduation requirement?
No, probably not. Chances are you were simply thrown to the wolves and expected to figure out how to fit into the pack. No time for questions or for practice. Just put your head down, assimilate and survive. That is, in effect, how we “teach” law students professionalism: Put your head down, assimilate and survive. And we wonder why our profession suffers from astronomical rates of burnout, career dissatisfaction, depression and substance abuse.
The problem is that professional identity formation and soft skill development have long been treated by employers, career advisers and legal educators as an assumed skill set: Young people should “just know” how to act professionally.
Students shouldn’t need a class to teach them to show up to a meeting on time, use complete sentences in their emails, dress appropriately for court or respond to their clients.
I get it. But casting judgment from our wise, experienced high horses causes us to miss the real question. We can lament that students shouldn’t need a class to address such “basic” skills and competencies all we want, but it doesn’t change the fact that they do.
Fortunately, two separate forces with overlapping interests have nudged the topics of professionalism and professional identity to the top of law schools’ “to do” list. Both the ABA and the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System are forcing law schools to explore ways to incorporate (and perhaps even mandate) professionalism, soft skills and value exploration into the law school curriculum. …
Soft skills are success skills. Professionalism is paramount. Both are necessary and teachable. Now is the time for law schools to examine whether they are truly equipping students with the essential skills—both soft and substantive—needed for practice. The ABA requires it, employers want it, students need it; and the future of the profession depends on it.
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