Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Hardesty on Law Students as Future Leaders: Using Neutral Facilitation Techniques to Teach Leadership Skills

I have had the pleasure to work with a diverse and impressive group of people on the law faculties upon which I have had the privilege to serve.  One of those people is  David C. Hardesty, Jr., President Emeritus of West Virginia University and Professor of Law at the WVU College of Law. President Hardesty holds degrees from West Virginia University, Oxford University (which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar), and Harvard Law School, but more impressive is the time he spends mentoring students and faculty.  He remains committed to the college, university, and state, and we are fortunate he continues to share his time with us.  

President Hardesty teaches a course on leadership, called Lawyers as Leaders, which would be highly relevant at any law school, but it especially important at a school like ours where we are the only law school in the state.  In addition to serving clients big and small, our students consistently go on to hold public office, advise legislators and regulators, and run large companies in the state.  President Hardesty recently wrote an article for the West Virginia Law Review Online that explains part of how he helps prepares lawyers to be leaders.  The article is Law Students as Future Leaders: Using Neutral Facilitation Techniques to Teach Leadership Skills120 W. Va. L. Rev. Online 1 (2017).  The introduction explains: 

Lawyers lead in America. They always have. They probably always will. This Article suggests the reasons why. It also argues that if lawyers are destined to lead, then law schools should help law students develop an understanding of leadership theory and foster leadership skill development. The Article describes how a course called “Lawyers as Leaders” is taught at the West Virginia University College of Law, employing neutral facilitation techniques, as well as lectures, group discussions, journaling, and simulation activities. It then describes a powerful pedagogical tool that can be used to develop future leaders: “student-centered neutral facilitation.” It explains why neutral student-centered facilitation is an effective method for teaching leadership skills to law students. The Article begins and ends with two “facilitation stories,” highlighting the use of facilitation by experienced lawyers and law students alike. The first story is about the use of facilitation to help clients achieve their goals. The second is about a student in the midst of learning how to facilitate a discussion.

As we continue to evolve how we think about educating lawyers, and what we hope to accomplish, courses that discuss options and expectation in context can play a significant role in preparing our students.  Hardesty explains:  

Research has found that the student-centered discussion process enriches student learning. In particular, the incorporation of the student-centered discussion process into the classroom “has the potential of enhancing the level of student learning about the course content and about the way they and others think about difficult issues.” This finding makes sense given that students tend to remember course content based on their level of involvement it.  Faculty members have reported that content coverage in their courses has not declined in student-centered classrooms; rather, they have found that their students experience a deeper understanding of the course’s fundamental concepts. One explanation for this deeper level of understanding is that students discover for themselves the essential concepts that would normally be presented through course readings or lecture material. In addition, “[f]aculty report that they have seen students who have not been ‘stars’ in previous classes suddenly ‘blossom’” in the student-centered classroom environment. Because students feel safe and comfortable working with their teammates, student-centered discussions can bring out the potential that some students have but may not otherwise reveal in more traditional classroom environments. (footnotes omitted)

As the semester draws to a close, I thought this one was worth a look as you gear up for next semester's courses.  It helped me think about some new ideas, anyway. Happy Thanksgiving! 

 
 
 

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/business_law/2017/11/hardesty-law-.html

Joshua P. Fershee, Law School, Lawyering, Teaching | Permalink

Comments

Sigh. Law is a service profession, but law schools all want to train leaders. Nobody seems to want to train servants.

Posted by: Frank Snyder | Nov 21, 2017 8:47:33 AM

Frank, I think that’s unfair. We train tons of students in service through our clinics and in a variety of other places. Making sure they are also prepared to be leaders when using their skills is both appropriate and necessary.

Posted by: Joshua Fershee | Nov 21, 2017 9:08:36 AM

Lawyers often are servant leaders. https://www.greenleaf.org/what-is-servant-leadership/. I won't belabor that point.

Our Lawyers as Leaders course at UT Law is five-or-so years old now. It features an amazing blend of personal and professional development . . . . I wish I had been compelled to take something like this in law school (although I do not think anything like it was the offered). I would have been a better servant to my clients and the community a lot sooner.

Thanks for the post, Josh.

Posted by: joanheminway | Nov 27, 2017 10:30:36 PM

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