At PrawfsBlawg, FIU lawprof Kerri Stone raises a problem with trying to teach the Slackoisie to become lawyers. They’ve got an attitude problem. It was first raised by Stone in a comment to another lawprof’s post (which might be worth a link except that Stone doesn’t bother to include one).
This comment (which I’ve broken into paragraphs to make it somewhat readable) reflects a significant part of the problem, though it’s skewed toward the issues that manifest in larger, hierarchically structured firms. My guess is that the friends from law school whom lawprofs chat with tend to be the ones who prefer to be called “junior associate” rather than lawyer. Nonetheless, she spelled out the problems pretty clearly, and their variants apply across the board.…[F]riends from law school, who unlike me, do not teach law students, but supervise junior attorneys in practice… have confirmed that to the extent that students are thoughtless in their approach and interactions with professors, they’re not necessarily polishing up and putting in the effort to be more diligent, considerate, and prepared for their supervisors and clients.
So, for example, a student who asks me questions about what the reading is for that day because he can’t be bothered to consult the syllabus is likely to be the same student who wastes a partner’s time by asking certain basic things about an assignment that are clearly knowable without resort to the partner. A student who expects me to keep track of, look up, and report to her about her absences likely is the same junior associate who, a few years later, is seen by the senior associates for whom she works as having unrealistic expectations that they will keep track of her work, deadlines, and responsibilities and that they exist to make her life easier instead of vice versa.
A student who shows that he cannot be bothered to consolidate questions or proofread assignments or correspondence is likely the same associate who yanks things out of the printer and drops them on a senior associate’s desk as he strolls out of the office, or shoots careless correspondence off to a client or judge without regard for who is going to catch his careless mistakes. These associates quickly tarnish their reputations internally, externally, and permanently. They don’t last in jobs, and they don’t last in practice.
So what’s the solution?
Don’t be thrown off by her use of the words “civility and professionalism” when she means irresponsibility, entitlement and unaccountability. Lawprofs aren’t allowed to say anything that might negatively impact a student’s self-esteem.This year, as well, I joined several junior faculty members in creating what we are calling a “working group” on classroom culture. With the goal of identifying and heading off behavioral and other problems in the classroom that seem to be engendered by students’ lack of accountability and/or professionalism, we started off the school year by addressing students at Orientation. Although most of our students do not exhibit a lack of professionalism in the classroom, our goal was to identify what we considered unprofessional behavior before anyone engaged in it so that the discussion could be thoughtful, rather than antagonistic or accusatory.
We identified behavior that had the potential to harm others’ experiences, like a student’s not doing the reading and then coming to class with a series of questions designed to catch her up at the expense of her classmates’ time (and patience). Aiming to create a culture of professionalism and civility from the outset, we talked about the connection between the habits and mindsets that our students would form and those that they would engage in or subscribe to as working professionals. We talked about the state of the profession and about how many leaders of the bench and bar bemoan what they term a loss of civility and professionalism in the practice of law.
This may sound incredibly stupid and obvious, but law school is a teaching opportunity. Not just about substantive law, or the old saw of “thinking like a lawyer,” but of responsibility. Didn’t do the reading? That’s a problem, just like missing a filing deadline. Of course it’s easier to ask someone to spoon feed you rather than do the hard labor of thinking, but that’s a problem too.
Stone makes a significant faux pas in her post, where she speaks to what “leaders” in the bench and bar bemoan. This too reflects a lawprof’s peculiar perspective, the adoration of “leaders” with whom to curry favor. There are people to whom lawyers answer. They’re called clients. To the extent a young lawyer need to concern himself with a “leader” of the bar, that would be the guy who signs his paycheck. To the extent he need concern himself with a “leader” of the bench, that would be whatever judge he stands before.
Kerri Stone is very right about all the attitude problems happening right before a law professor’s eyes. Unfortunately, neither she nor her “working group” has either the stones or good sense to seize this opportunity to turn students into responsible, accountable lawyers. That would create a conflict with the valued attributes of a law professor, accessibility, civility, patience and accommodation, all those nice things that their students will never enjoy again after graduation because they’re expected to grow up and get a job done.
Unfortunately, Stone and her group’s avoidance of conflict in some areas creates a conflict with another: teaching. But then, you can’t expect lawprof’s to give students a needed and well-deserved smack when the ultimate value is to have no student think unkindly about them. After all, isn’t that really what practicing law is all about?
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I tend to agree with SGH here. Instead of identifying “civility and professionalism” problems, then talking it out, why doesn’t she just hold them accountable?
Simply identifying and talking out problems only works in therapy and military after action reviews. And the latter doesn’t really count because those identified and talked about problems lead to on-the-spot corrective action if those problems occur in subsequent iterations of the exercise.
Instead of this passive response, maybe she should tell the student who asks about the assigned reading “maybe you should have looked at your syllabus, because you’re the first one I’ll be asking questions today in class.” Maybe she should have told the student who asks how many absences she had accrued that it was her responsibility to meet ABA requirements, and that she’d just have to assume her next absence would lead to an administrative withdrawal from the class. Maybe she should give the student that fails to proofread an assignment a failing grade.
These are law students we’re talking about, not elementary school kids (I’d surely expect at least this tiny inkling of effort from junior high school kids, though).
I have to say, though, most professors at my school wouldn’t tolerate the examples of behavior provided. But my school isn’t FIU—it has something of a reputation worth protecting by at least allowing the lazy to weed themselves out. FIU has only the constant flow of students shoveling out $100k for legal education to worry about. Every one of those diplomas count!
Your tendency to agree makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, and reinforces my self-esteem.
Cripes, could law professors be a more whining, entitled, ineffective bunch?
I never had any of these problems when I was teaching logic. If you missed too many days, you failed the class. If you wanted your hand held through the basic material, you were directed to the appropriate exercises and chapter of the text. If you had a typo on a test, you failed that test.
The result was that students came to class every day, studied diligently on their own, and turned in flawless proofs. And these were mostly college freshmen.
In law school you have professors teaching material that everyone knows is irrelevant outside of the classroom, making erratic syllabus changes, announcing at the beginning of the semester that the syllabus doesn’t really matter because you won’t be getting to all of it anyways, turning in exam grades weeks late, and generally treating classes as a chore to be done before going back to their scholarship.
The school has the responsibility for admitting students who are ready to study law (and not just anyone able to secure a loan), and professors have the responsibility of leading their classes. The fact that they think a “working group” is the solution just shows how backasswards law profs are. All I did was tell my students, “Shut up and prepare to learn,” and before tests, “Remember, don’t screw up.” How much are these professor paid to not know the first thing about teaching?
I see your attitude toward lawprofs has mellowed.
I’m signing up for “Logic.” that sounds like a barrel of laughs. I can’t wait to shut up and learn.
No really, he’s a barrel of laughs.
While it’s flattering to have my work discussed like this, I feel compelled to point out that even if you just read the quoted portions of what I wrote, you’d see that I was addressing one thing my school has done to ward off this problem at Orientation, before it manifests itself. The truth is that once the problems manifest themselves in my class, they are handled as or more aggressively than you or any of the comments suggest.
For the record, FIU is ranked among the ost affordable law schools in the country. Moreover, while we do discuss the way in which leaders in the profession bemoan the state of things, I also discuss client expectations and disappointment at Orientation and continually in my classroom.
Telling me what I should have done once the problem manifested itself in class in response to what I wrote about proactive attempts to avoid the problem altogether (or acting on any other unfounded assumptions about what I or my colleagues do or don’t do) may stoke the ire of those inclined to despise law schools, but it’s not very “logical.”
The funny thing is that I agree with most of your substantive points. I can assure you that we are on the same side of this issue and that transgressions like being absent too much, unprepared, or lazy are not handled lightly in my classroom. But the blog was about what and how much you can do with students before they set foot in a classroom.
-Kerri Stone
As your attempt at a “save” comes more than five months after this post appeared, I was constrained to reread it. Good times. Unfortunately, the quote doesn’t back you up. While you write that you start by addressing students at orientation, you go on to say:
It may be 30 years since I sat in a law school classroom, but I’m pretty sure that students aren’t sitting classrooms asking questions to catch up during orientation, and I don’t see anything about how you identify this problem during orientation, or suggesting your handling the problem “more aggressively” after orientation. Sorry. Not buying.