Roadmap for Employment
Professor Neil Hamilton has developed and published a groundbreaking template for law students to use during all three years of law school in order to be fully prepared to find meaningful employment upon graduation.
Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership
The Holloran Center’s mission is to provide innovative interdisciplinary research, curriculum development, and programs focusing holistically on the formation of both law students and practicing professionals into ethical leaders in their communities.
The Center is at the forefront of a growing national movement focused on greater intentionality in the professional formation of law students. The Standard 303(b) and (c) accreditation changes approved by the ABA House of Delegates on February 14, 2022, are a major step forward for the national social movement.
Our goal is to help every law school take gradual and effective steps to foster each student’s growth to develop a professional identity.
How to Get Started
Get to Know the Holloran Center
Holloran Center professors and fellows provide national leadership on empirical research to assess which pedagogies are most effective to help students with formation of an ethical professional identity.
Since its founding in 2006, the Holloran Center has focused on this mission of helping the next generation of lawyers form professional identities grounded in a deep commitment of service to others.
Review Changes to Standard 303
The Standard 303(b) and (c) accreditation changes approved by the ABA House of Delegates on February 14, 2022, are a major step forward for the national social movement.
About Standard 303
Explore Our Tools and Resources
See Our Research and Training
The Holloran Center offers research and training in professional development formation.
Research and Training
Get to Know the Holloran Center
Holloran Center professors and fellows provide national leadership on empirical research to assess which pedagogies are most effective to help students with formation of an ethical professional identity.
Since its founding in 2006, the Holloran Center has focused on this mission of helping the next generation of lawyers form professional identities grounded in a deep commitment of service to others.
Review Changes to Standard 303
The Standard 303(b) and (c) accreditation changes approved by the ABA House of Delegates on February 14, 2022, are a major step forward for the national social movement.
About Standard 303
Explore Our Tools and Resources
See Our Research and Training
The Holloran Center offers research and training in professional development formation.
Research and Training
Learning Outcomes Database
This database contains all of the learning outcomes available on law school webpages. We have identified those law schools with “basic” learning outcomes as well as schools with more robust learning outcomes than required by the language of Standard 302.
Holloran Competency Milestones
The Holloran Center Milestones are stage-development rubrics that describe the stages of development associated with each learning outcome. The Milestones for each learning outcome were developed by national working groups of faculty and staff from different law schools. A few were also developed internally at the Center.
Professional Development Database
This database identifies all the law schools with required first-year courses or programs focused on professional formation categorized by type of course or program. It also includes a searchable set of syllabi from those courses or programs when available.
Research and Training
Roadmap for Employment
Coach Training
One-on-one coaching is the most effective curriculum to foster a student’s growth toward later stages of development on both legal education’s foundational learning outcomes and the student’s post-graduation goals.
Professional Identity Implementation Blog
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When Does Professional Identity Formation Begin? Lessons in Candor in the Application to Law School
By: Janet Stearns, Dean of Students, University of Miami School of Law Some law school educators may believe that professional identity formation of law students begins in law school. I argue that it begins earlier…. when an applicant first completes his or her law school application. The Law School Application Process: Applicants to law school must recognize the significance of candor in responding thoroughly and honestly to all questions on the application. The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) website addresses this in discussing Ethical Conduct In Applying to Law School. On this website, LSAC explains: Your submission of an application for admission to law school is your first step in the process of becoming a lawyer. Now is the time, as you take this first, important step, to dedicate yourself to a personal standard for your conduct that consists of the highest levels of honesty and ethical behavior. Many law schools, including ours, will ask background questions trying to clarify past academic misconduct, criminal history, and any other issues that might impact on character and fitness. The responses to these questions might not keep an applicant out of law school, but some responses might impact on screening for character and […]
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Mercer University’s Professional Identity Course*
By: Patrick Longan W.A. Bootle Chair in Ethics and Professionalism Daisy Hurst Floyd University Professor of Law and Ethical Formation Timothy W. Floyd Tommy Malone Distinguished Chair in Trial Advocacy Director of Experiential Education At Mercer, we teach a required three-credit course on professional identity as part of the first-year curriculum. The course has been in place since 2004. Our first-year course has many moving parts. We try to answer three questions about professional identity – what kind of professional identity a lawyer should have, why would anyone strive to have such an identity, and how one deploys professional identity in everyday practice and in more complex situations. We use a virtue ethics approach, and we teach the students that the professional identity of a lawyer should include six virtues: competence, fidelity to the client, fidelity to the law, public spiritedness, civility, and practical wisdom. We link the six virtues to the public purposes of lawyers. The course addresses motivation by exposing the students to the intrinsic rewards of the right kind of professional identity development. The course is structured to reinforce the good habits and dispositions that the students will need in everyday practice, and we work through problems […]
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How Can You Increase Connection and Engagement with Students in a Professional Identity Formation Class You Teach? Be Vulnerable
By: Greg Miarecki, Executive Assistant Dean for Career Planning and Professional Development, Director of the University of Illinois College of Law Leadership Project, University of Illinois College of Law As I discussed in a prior article, the University of Illinois College of Law has taught a required 1L professional identity formation class in since early 2015 – known as Fundamentals of Legal Practice. I teach the class each spring semester, and we cover a wide variety of topics, including the business of law, professional communications, personal branding, relationship building, client service, the importance of pro bono service, and leadership. Each year, usually sometime in February, I get some backlash from students. Some of them tend to be overwhelmed with the demands of the profession I discuss, and express some frustration and exasperation. Once in a while, students will complain that I “don’t get it,” because I went to law school a while ago, went to a T-14 school, and was a litigation partner in a large law firm for many years. A year or so ago, I was discussing the topic of personal branding, and related a story about how I brought a sleeping bag to my first trial site, […]
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THE “ONE FILE” COORDINATED COACHING INFORMATION SYSTEM: Developing a Robust Advising Management Application
By: Michael Robak, Director of the Schoenecker Law Library, Associate Dean, and Clinical Professor, University of St. Thomas School of Law The concept behind developing a robust advising management application is to create “One File” of information developed by and about each student from the law school’s whole organization as the student moves through their law school career. Collecting uniform information in one place, and allowing for appropriate organization-wide access will, we believe, create an advising mechanism that helps each law student move from novice to professional as described in the Holloran Center’s Competency Alignment Model. (Figure 2 below) This information system is comprised of three elements: The first element of this platform, Coordinated Coaching, will be used to capture information for each student from the nine coaching touch points that occur in their journey through law school as identified by Professors and Co-Directors of the Holloran Center Neil Hamilton and Jerry Organ. The Coordinated Coaching takes place at several points: (1) 1L Fall in a mandatory meeting with the Office of Career and Professional Development (CPD), which is described below in detail; (2) 1L Spring in a mandatory 1L class, Serving Clients Well, where professors, alumni, and local attorneys […]
The Thomas Holloran Legacy
The Holloran Center for Ethical Leadership in the Professions is honored to have as its inspiration and namesake, a person whose leadership qualities combine excellence in business with a talent for teaching and mentoring. These qualities make Thomas Holloran a unique role model for the Holloran Center.