Leadership is a teachable skill, writes Yuliya LaRoe, and it’s important that lawyers learn it. In this article, LaRoe urges law practices to invest in team members by developing their leadership skills. To that end, she outlines a five-pillar leadership program, with skills and concepts to learn in each category.
Leadership Development Syllabus Series ⢠Part 2: Engaging Students
Part 1 of our LEAD Course Series can be found, here.
In this second post of our LEAD Course series, we share our thoughts on interesting methods to engage law students. This year marks the sixth year of teaching this course and we are constantly making adjustments to the syllabus and our teaching methodologies. In addition to carefully selecting topics, exercises, and speakers, below we discuss three ways we engage the students.
1. Journaling
As noted in a previous post, we require students keep a
journal throughout the class. We have come to believe this is one of the most
beneficial elements of the class. Not only does it help them personalize and
internalize the lessons, it allows us to evaluate their progress in real time throughout
the course. We use Box as a file management system and create individual
folders for each student. At the end of each class, students are assigned two
or three journal entries which are then added to the class syllabus. Students
answer these questions and prompts before the next class which allows us to
read their answers and gauge understanding and progress.
2. Leadership Quote, Video, or Short Story
Each student signs up to present a quote, video, or short
story about leadership in the first three-to-five minutes of a class. This fun
exercise allows students to use their creativity (and sometimes add some humor)
to present about leadership. The students â both the presenters and the rest of
the class â seem to enjoy the activity before jumping into the topic of the day.
Interestingly, most students chose topics for their presentation that fit well
with the topic for the day.
3. Blog Post
From the beginning we required them to select and read a
book about leadership. This year, instead of a book report, they will write a
blog post based on the book â a short review or why someone should read (or not
read) the book. We think they will be more engaged with the book of their
choice and it will allow us to showcase the best ones on this blog!
In our next post in this series we will share the main
components of our syllabus. Posts that follow in this series will include a
discussion of how we teach each class, PowerPoint presentations, exercises used
in class, topics presented by our guest speakers, prompts for journals and
feedback from our students.
We know that many of you present similar topics in your
courses and want to hear from you. We encourage you to post how you present
these topics in the comments to this post. Our hope is that this blog becomes a
discussion forum for best practices in teaching leadership in law schools. By
going through the syllabus step-by-step, we can have a detailed conversation
and share ideas.
To help with the collection and distribution of what other law school leadership programs are doing, we created a repository for syllabi, programs, exercises, articles, presentations, and other leadership development materials. You can view and download the materials, here.
Please add your materials and syllabus!
(You can also upload by emailing [email protected] and attaching the document you want uploaded.)
How do you consistently engage with your leadership students? Have your tried something that didn’t work at all as planned? As we continue this series, we invite your feedback and input in the comments!
Leadership Development Syllabus Series ⢠Part 1: Introduction
One of our goals for this blog is to advance the conversation of teaching leadership in law schools. We offer this blog-post series about specific parts of our Leadership Engagement and Development Course to hopefully spark ideas and further conversation. We begin with the top three things weâve learned over the last five years teaching this course.
First, engaging the students calls for more experiential
learning and effective use of guest speakers.
The first year, we used a more traditional pedagogy,
assigned heavy readings and relied on a Socratic method to engage the students
with the readings. We quickly discovered this material called for a different
approach if we want students to internalize the topics and embrace it as a
journey of self-discovery and growth.
We knew bringing in speakers would be beneficial. Our guest
speakers are assigned to cover specific topics and asked to provide context to
the concepts. They help the students see application of the concepts within a
real-world professional setting. Students more easily envision themselves in
those situations someday, and they connect with those lawyer leaders.
In the beginning, we scheduled guests near the end of the
course. Over the next few years, we experimented with how many guest speakers
and when. We found it best to have the two of us lead off the first week with
an introduction to leadership and an overview of the class. After that, we try
to bring a speaker for one of the two meetings each week. We purposefully
invite speakers to cover specific topics. We recognized that is a lot of guest
speakers so we set the syllabus early. We send the syllabus and assigned
reading to each speaker so that he or she can see where we started, what weâve
covered, and how his or her topic fits into the overall picture. From there,
each speaker chooses how to cover the topic and work his or her personality and
stories into the material. Students like this weekly balance and they enjoy
hearing from practicing lawyers and leaders. It is also a great way to connect
with alumni!
Early on we shifted to a more experiential approach. Even
during the sessions when we simply lead a discussion on a topic, we want the
students to âstruggleâ with the material at least to a certain degree to create
ownership of the material. We also constantly relate it to real-world
situations. For example, after a discussion on dealing with the media, we run a
mock press conference where students either assume the role of a media
correspondent or the general counsel for a company in crisis. The students
apply what theyâve learned in a controlled environment.
Second, the best class sessions include meaningful discussion among the students.
As noted above, we started with a more traditional pedagogy but the students were not engaged in thoughtful interaction. As a result, many students struggled to internalize the material and they could not identify how the information would be useful in the future. In other words, we were ineffective in leading them on a personal journey of self-discovery and growth.
Now, we are mindful of the need to include plenty of
opportunity for students to actively engage with the material during class and
after. If we donât have time for, or if a topic doesnât lend itself to, an
exercise, we involved the class in small and large group discussions. We have a
better balance of techniques leading to much better results. We hope we are
helping them establish a life-long practice of intellectual curiosity and
creative problem solving.
Third, journaling is essential.
When we created the class, neither of us believed in the power of journaling. With that said, since we did not believe that an exam was appropriate for this class, we required a journal to ensure that our students were getting through the material and completing the assignments. That first year, we did not see their journal until the end of the class.
We have seen the light! We now firmly believe that
journaling is critical to a studentâs development and growth. We tailor the
journal prompts after each class to connect with the conversation in class and
desired outcomes. Students must post journal entries to their personal Box file
before the next class so that we can review. This enables us to determine if
they are learning what was intended and allows us to make adjustments as
appropriate. It provides the students a mechanism for wrestling with concepts
and exploring the application to their lives. We hope our students create a
habit of continual self-assessment and development.
Leadership development programs are part
of the standard operating procedures for business schools but not so for law
schools, at least historically. At a Group Discussion during the January 2017
AALS Annual Meeting, we met with about 50 faculty members from all over the
country and we asked them to share thoughts about challenges and roadblocks to
creating leadership development programs and courses. Here are some points from
the conversation:
What is leadership development anyway? How do we explain it to our skeptical colleagues?
Some lawyers and law students resist instruction in âsoft skills.â The very use of the term when describing leadership development adds to the problem. For many lawyers the soft stuff is the hard stuff.
Many still think leaders are born not trained. You either have it or you donât, they would say.
Doctrinal law faculty (especially those who have not been in formal leadership roles) feel uncomfortable with the subject and certainly do not feel equipped to teach it.
Current law students think they have already done leadership development ⦠in high school and in college. âWhat could possibly be added in a law school leadership class?â, they might wonder. Some faculty and administrators probably share these thoughts.
For those that believe in the benefit of leadership development programming, how can we scale up the programming to insure all students are exposed to leadership development in a meaningful way?
These
are some of the challenges we face. If you have encountered others, please
share. As we continue this blog, we will address these issues and offer
suggestions for overcoming.
Stephen Rispoli
Assistant Dean of Student Affairs and Strategic Initiatives
Director of Innovation and Scholarship, Executive LL.M. in Litigation Management
Baylor Law.
Pat Wilson
Associate Dean and Professor of Law Baylor Law.
Liz Fraley
Professor of Law
Co-Director,
Executive LL.M. in Litigation Management