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| Responsibility of Public Lawyers Class at Harvard Law School Law | ||||
| Introduction | ||||
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The course combines an interactive format with a substantive investigation of the lawyers’ role as counselor, advocate, representative and public citizen. Students read a range of essays, personal narratives, and client accounts as they consider the nature of the profession they are about to enter. Second and third year students, selected because they excelled in a previous class, work as teaching fellows to help organize the complex logistics. The faculty shares power with the students and gives them a chance to learn through experimentation. The course fulfills students’ ABA professional responsibility requirements. To understand the operating principles of this course go to principles.
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| Goals | ||||
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With an enrollment of 50 students, some of whom are in their first year, the class encourages students to think differently about what it means to be a lawyer. It also invites them to reflect upon their future role as professionals and public citizens. Guinier, a former litigator, encourages students to question the dominance of court-centered approaches to resolving broad public policy concerns. Students consider both adversarial and non-litigation approaches to legal advocacy.
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| Getting Started | ||||
Students are divided into ongoing facilitation
teams, which are responsible for helping the faculty member plan
the lessons. Each member of the facilitation team must also write
an 8 page persuasive essay based on the required and recommended
reading for the week their team is “on call.” That essay
is read and evaluated by a peer, a teaching fellow and the professor. See resource page for course syllabus and procedures.
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| Facilitation | ||||
| Students bring enormous creativity to the lesson
plans, but the faculty member often needs to ask skeptical and reflective
questions to ensure that the lesson plan covers the substantive content
and that the rest of the class, which has not read as much of the
assigned reading as the facilitators, will be stimulated to engage
personally and intellectually during the class period. Students have
used art projects (draw a picture of the lawyer you want to be), skits,
role-plays, structured deliberation, and breakout groups within the
larger class. The energy within the formal classroom is transformed
and inspires different forms of learning for both students and faculty.
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| Evaluation | ||||
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Students’ final grades are based on a self-grading memo, in addition to the grades they receive on their written work and their peer critiques. The self-grading memo asks students to provide an evaluation of
The self-grading memo has proved to be a popular assessment mechanism because it reflects both the values and the process of the course. Students are encouraged to use the self-grading memo to write about comments made by other classmates, which reinforces the importance of listening, not just talking as a means of “participation.” This aspect of the memo reassures those students who feel challenged by speaking in large classes but routinely contribute in small group exercises in ways that the professor may not notice. These memos also provide constructive and specific feedback to the teaching fellows and the professor.
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| When It Works | ||||
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Students’
comments in their self-assessment memo reflect a high level of engagement,
willingness to question, and tremendous creativity in thinking innovatively
about the profession and their future roles.
