Course | Columbia Law School

Becoming a lawyer is a process that formally begins with applying to law school, continues during a student's legal education and blossoms with the student's entry into the profession. Along the way, a law student should consider the meaning of professional life and the role of professional responsibility obligations within that life. This seminar will begin to track that journey, investigating the various contexts that shape a law student's transition into a professional licensed to provide legal representation to clients. Discussion will focus particularly on the issues that are faced by inexperienced lawyers during their first few years of practice. All students enrolled in the seminar will participate in the regular weekly class meetings. Students may enroll for an additional credit by registering for 1 point of Supervised Research. Students enrolled for an additional credit will also participate in the "ethics counsel" portion of the seminar described below.

Weekly seminar reading assignments, journal entries and discussions

• The seminar will meet weekly. The preliminary schedule for the semester is outlined below
• Students will take the Myers-Briggs Type Instrument (MBTI) prior to the semester beginning; Prof. Carol Liebman, a trained MBTI administrator, will explain and discuss the instrument outcomes during one of the seminar classes
• Students will keep a weekly, 1-2 page journal entry
• A final paper and/or project will be required
• Readings will include traditional professional responsibility sources such as the new NY Rules of Professional Conduct, ethics opinions, and applicable case law but will also include materials on legal education, legal practice, and interdisciplinary perspectives on professionalism.
• Students enrolled for 3 credits (the third credit to be registered as Supervised Research) will serve as "ethics counsel" to some of the CLS clinics or provide ethics research assistance to members of the New York City Bar Association's Ethics Committee

• As ethics issues arise in clinic cases, seminar students in teams will be assigned to serve as "ethics counsel" on those cases. Seminar students will agree to abide by the confidentiality requirements of Morningside Heights Legal Services, Inc., the legal entity under which CLS clinics operate. If clinic cases do not present specific ethical issues during the semester, seminar students will be assigned ethical issues that routinely arise in various clinics to research and develop position papers for future use or provide ethics research assistance to members of the City Bar Ethics Committee.
• Each student will work on one ethics case. An additional hour of class will be required to learn basic ethics research skills.
• Discussion of ethics cases will occur 4 or 5 times during the semester during an additional hour on Wednesdays following the regular seminar time.