P. Lawyer Leadership: Leading Self, Leading Others, Leading Change in Challenging Times

From the outset of their careers, lawyers will occupy roles that call upon them to influence and persuade people, engage in difficult conversations, learn from mistakes, and interact effectively and equitably with people of different backgrounds, races, and identities. The Covid-19 pandemic, along with the national racial reckoning, have called upon lawyers to navigate these everyday interactions in particularly challenging times that demand the ability to address problems under conditions of uncertainty, to navigate conflict and change, to strategize and innovate, and to find novel ways to connect with people (including virtually). These challenges require lawyers to cultivate presence, awareness, resilience, racial literacy, and the ability to have difficult conversations. The capacities required by the current crises add up to leadership as we define it: collaborating effectively to achieve common goals.

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. 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, build racial and cultural literacy, navigate new and challenging environments, achieve collective aims, and use their law degrees to have impact in diverse practice fields. Students will also pursue group impact projects that they identify as important to them, and to cultivate their leadership abilities in the context of advancing those projects. Students will also have the opportunity to receive individualized feedback and peer-to-peer coaching. The course participants are encouraged to build community among the broader CLS faculty, staff, students, and alumni interested in lawyer-leadership. Students will earn five experiential learning credits.

The class will meet in whole class sessions, lab groups, and two 5-hour workshops. Students will be enrolled in a Lawyer Leadership Project Work section, based on their schedule. All of the sessions will be highly interactive and experiential. Students must enroll in both this course and the Lawyer Leadership Project course. Admission to Lawyer Leadership is by application, available at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSee-KyCHYco7HAhZLu0qSlwBsmxKAbdABDBWPhZO-1NQ0lRog/viewform

We will consider applications on a rolling basis until the course is full. Students may be asked to participate in an interview. A course overview, along with last year’s syllabus, is available upon request. Students with questions about the course or the admissions process should email Professor Susan Sturm at [email protected].