P. Lawyer Leadership: Leading Self, Leading Others, Leading Change - Project Work

Section Description

From the outset of their careers, lawyers will occupy roles that call upon them to influence and persuade people, engage in difficult conversations, and work effectively with others to achieve a common goal. These leader-like roles include everyday interactions with colleagues and staff, relationships with clients, and strategic and interdisciplinary collaborations pursuing ambitious goals. Leadership is thus important from day one, both in managing the everyday practice of lawyers and enabling lawyers to rise to the complex and daunting challenges that require vision, strategy, improvisation, and creativity over the course of their careers. Improving personal knowledge and abilities in these areas is crucial to becoming a more effective lawyer-leader with the capacity to navigate today's ever changing, complex, troubled, and highly interdependent world. This course will cultivate participants' leadership capacities at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and systemic levels. It will ground students' learning in the issues and problems that matter most to them. The course aspires to develop a community among the broader CLS faculty, staff, students, and alumni interested in lawyer-leadership. Students will earn five experiential learning credits. Students will have an opportunity to develop and advance personal learning goals that will improve their capacity to interact effectively in groups, give and receive feedback, build constructive work relationships, navigate new and challenging environments, achieve collective aims, and use their law degrees to have impact in diverse practice fields. The course will equip students with tools and insights that they will practice in class and bring with them into any setting where they strive to have a positive impact. It will provide concrete, real-time feedback about how students interact with themselves and with others. It will provide them with skills prized by public and private employers alike, enabling new lawyers to hit the ground running. Students will also have the opportunity to receive individualized feedback and peer-to-peer coaching. The class will meet in whole group sessions, weekly lab groups, and a retreat taking place in mid October, starting Friday evening and ending Sunday afternoon. All of the sessions will be highly interactive and experiential. Admission to the course is by application. Click here to complete the course application, or copy and paste https://forms.gle/G8APGKNKr6TXgrsK9 into your browser. Second round application period will begin with pre-registration. Students may be asked to participate in an interview. A complete course overview, along with a syllabus are also available upon request. Students with questions about the course or the admissions process should email Professor Susan Sturm at [email protected] or Caroline Golub at [email protected]