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Taking the First Step in Earnest: Daring to Build Better Lawyers |
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< | Draft 1: 999 Words before Hyperlinks |
| | -- By ConnorHudson - 06 Mar 2022 |
| | Introduction
The Adaptable Mind: Neuroscience, Psychology, & Law School |
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< | The institutions inculcating students into American legal realism are divorced from the realities of legal practice and fetishize ivory tower idealism to the detriment of combatting the pathologies undermining student success in law school and in practice, including frequent depression and suicidal ideation. As a first step in daring to build better lawyers, rather than fulfilling the labor demands of the legal industry, law schools should create a first-year reading group adapting the psychological frameworks employed in leading universities and business schools -- The Adaptable Mind: Neuroscience, Psychology, and Law School. |
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> | The institutions inculcating students into American legal realism are divorced from the realities of legal practice and fetishize ivory tower idealism to the detriment of combatting the pathologies undermining student success in law school and in practice, including frequent depression and suicidal ideation (NEW YORK BAR ASSOCIATION). As a first step in daring to build better lawyers, rather than fulfilling the labor demands of the legal industry, law schools should create a first-year reading group adapting the psychological frameworks employed in leading universities and business schools -- The Adaptable Mind: Neuroscience, Psychology, and Law School. |
| | By creating a space for students to implement positive performance psychology throughout their legal education, students and schools can align on improving outcomes, creating better lawyer-people and lawyer-managers -- attributes of increasing professional import-- by effectuating understanding of how the way we wire our brains catalyzes success, reducing burnout, increasing resilience and satisfaction, developing healthier relationships, and improving empathy. However, this is not merely a call to altruism, as student benefits will inure to schools with the humility to embrace recommendations as transformative as they are trite. |
| | The Blueprint |
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< | The Adaptable Mind can be seamlessly implemented in the 1L curriculum, as soon as Fall 2022, by emulating the best practices of peer institutions. The foundation of the reading group would be built off of the proven successes of Harvard Business School’s “Leadership and Happiness” course and Yale Professor Laurie Santos’ lauded “Happiness and the Good Life” course. |
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> | The Adaptable Mind can be seamlessly implemented in the 1L curriculum, as soon as Fall 2022, by emulating the best practices of peer institutions. The foundation of the reading group would be built off of the proven successes of Harvard Business School's "Leadership and Happiness" course (SYLLABUS) and Yale Professor Laurie Santos' lauded "Happiness and the Good Life" course. |
| | Structure
The reading group would run for the first 10 weeks of each semester through biweekly modules following two meetings to bookend fall Legal Methods. |
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< | Two sessions at the beginning of the fall will provide students with the crucial opportunity to frame 1L as a period of self-actualization, liberating students from the reductive, myopic focus on apocryphal conceptions of success in law school. Before Legal Methods, students would participate in a workshop entitled "Who am I?" enabling students to reflect on what brought them to law school and to set untainted goals before the mechanistic pressures of 1L ceaselessly incentivize conformity. At the end of Legal Methods, students will be prompted to consider what will be required to personally succeed in the "How Do I Work?" module. These workshops will reduce the infantilization of higher education by granting students the agency and space to determine their approach to law school. |
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> | Two sessions at the beginning of the fall will provide students with the crucial opportunity to frame 1L as a period of self-actualization, liberating students from the reductive, myopic focus on apocryphal conceptions of success in law school. Before Legal Methods, students would participate in a workshop entitled "Who am I?" enabling students to reflect on what brought them to law school and to set untainted goals before the mechanistic pressures of 1L ceaselessly incentivize conformity. At the end of Legal Methods, students will be prompted to consider what will be required to personally succeed in the "How Do I Work?" module. These workshops will reduce the the infantilization of higher education (Footnote 1) by granting students the agency and space to determine their approach to law school. |
| | Subsequently, the group will proceed through five two-week modules, focusing on topics that personalize growth, develop empathy, and destroy caustic, false conceptions of isolated suffering, including Healthy Sleep Habits, Why Your Brain Feels the Way it Does (Forgetfulness, Brain Fog, etc.), Positive Psychology, and the Power of Emotions. During Week 1 of each module, students will select between two 1-2-hour reading/lecture pairings within the specified topic. During Week 2, students will choose to either write a short reflection on practical implementation or attend a mentor-led discussion. This structure will offer a single reprieve for student agency in both the selection of learning and method of participation. Additionally, by incentivizing candor and community participation, the reading group will allow students to situate themselves in law school as a shared experience and mindfully attend to their needs without feeling compelled to paint themselves a classroom hero or fearing derogation for vulnerability. |
| | Holistically, integrating the Adaptable Mind as a 1-unit, 2-semester reading group would be a first step towards daring to prepare students for a life, not a career, as a lawyer, unlocking student and institutional success in the process. |
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< | Research Links:
https://www.alumni.hbs.edu/Documents/reunions/2021/Syllabus_Leadership_and_Happiness_MBA_Course_Spring_2021.pdf
https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-wants-m-b-a-s-to-learn-how-to-be-happy-at-work-11644836400
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/amy-chua-yale-law-age-infantilization/
https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2017/03/must-reverse-infantilization-higher-education/
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/23/us/yale-happiness-course-pandemic-wellness/index.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/health/yale-happiness-course-wellness/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/13/style/happiness-course.html
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/21/magazine/laurie-santos-interview.html
https://www.hbs.edu/coursecatalog/1885.html
https://www.bloomberglaw.com/product/tax/bloombergtaxnews/banking-law/XF7FPIL4000000?bna_news_filter=banking-law#jcite
https://www.clio.com/blog/dealing-with-lawyer-depression/
https://www.abajournal.com/voice/article/lawyers_weigh_in_why_is_there_a_depression_epidemic_in_the_profession
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/lawyer_assistance/resources/depression/
https://nysba.org/app/uploads/2020/09/Depression-Handouts-DL.pdf |
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> | Footnote 1: Infantilization of Higher Education |
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