Touro Law Review

Volume 28 | Number 4 Article 11

2012

Developing Professional Identity Through

Reflective Practice
Suzanne Darrow Kleinhaus
Touro Law Center, [email protected]

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Article 11.
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 Darrow Kleinhaus: Developing Professional Identity

DEVELOPING PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY THROUGH

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE

Suzanne Darrow-Kleinhaus*

I. INTRODUCTION

I had the opportunity recently to reread something I had

written years earlier as a student. I had forgotten all about it until a
colleague brought it to my attention when she asked for my permis-
sion to use it in class. She was preparing to teach Touro‟s Civil
Practice Externship and found it among the materials a predecessor
had collected in teaching the course. She thought her students might
find it valuable — and perhaps enjoy reading it because they know
me now as a faculty member.
I can see why she might think so: my paper speaks of so many
things we try to tell our students but in a voice they might recognize
as their own. Maybe she thought they would listen more readily to
what I had to say — about the need to get practical experience while
still in law school, about how that experience is essential to the
making of informed career choices, and about what it means to be a
professional engaged in the practice of law. So of course I said she
could share my paper with her students. I was honored that she found
it worthy of their time.

*
Professor Suzanne Darrow-Kleinhaus is the Director of Academic Development and Pro-
fessor of Law at Touro College, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center. In addition to books on
developing skills for law school learning and the bar exam, including MASTERING THE LAW
SCHOOL EXAM, THE BAR EXAM IN A NUTSHELL, and ACING THE BAR EXAM, she has written in
the areas of contract law, labor and employment law, the Fourth Amendment Exclusionary
Rule, and federal preemption. I wish to thank my professor for the Civil Practice Externship,
Judge Jack Battaglia, for his insight and guidance, and Professor Marjorie Silver for finding
what I had written after these so many years and thinking it worthy of being read. I also
wish to thank Professors Heather Melniker and Sidney Kwestel, who model by example the
art of teaching, the power of legal thought, and the type of professionalism that comes only
from within.

1443

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1444 TOURO LAW REVIEW [Vol. 28

Yet in reading the paper once again, I thought its usefulness

might extend beyond this one class of Touro students. What I can see
now from the vantage point of time and experience was that my
professor‟s approach to teaching the course — integrating skills
training with the development of professional identity through reflec-
tive practice — is a model that might be followed by others. Moreo-
ver, the approach might be adopted for use in other parts of the curri-
culum as well, thus providing a means for addressing the Carnegie
Foundation‟s call for more “balanced learning” in law school.1
According to the Foundation‟s report in Educating Lawyers,
legal education could be significantly improved to “better serve the
needs of the bar and the nation as a whole.”2 One way to do so, the
authors suggest, is to create programs, curricula, and teaching models
that provide “[g]reater coherence and integration in the law school
experience.”3 The integration of the three areas of law school peda-
gogy — the case-method teaching of doctrine and analysis, the
clinical training of lawyering skills, and the contemplation of profes-
sional ethics and identity — is essential for preparing students to
become lawyers.4
While it is beyond the scope of this paper to assess the

1
WILLIAM SULLIVAN, ANNE COLBY, JUDITH WELCH WEGNER, LLOYD BOND, & LEE S.
SHULMAN, EDUCATING LAWYERS 15-17 (2007). This work is the culmination of a two-year
study of legal education involving a comprehensive look at teaching and learning in sixteen
American and Canadian law schools. In discussing the challenges of preparing law students
for the practice of law and evaluating how well law schools are meeting this task, the authors
write that:
[l]egal education may have a problem of diminishing returns — one that
a better integration of the cognitive apprenticeship with the practical and
professional could help to prevent. On the curricula level, this need for
integration points toward a reconfigured third year (and probably some
reconfiguration of the second year as well), marked by pedagogies of
practice and professionalism that enable students to shift from the role of
students to that of apprentice professionals.
Id. at 77.
2
Id. at 90. A main contention of this book is that legal education could be significantly
improved to provide more balanced learning between the theoretical and the practical. In
fact, there has been movement in this direction: according to the authors, the past decade has
seen “significant progress in legitimating and advancing the concerns of advocates of a dif-
ferent epistemology of professional learning, one that more intimately connects theoretical
understanding with practical competence.” Id. at 91.
3
Id. at 200-01. In turn, this reflective process will lead to innovations in teaching and
scholarship, whereby the entire legal community will be enriched. SULLIVAN, ET AL., supra
note 1, at 202.
4
Id. at 200-01.

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Foundation‟s report, there is no doubt that the report will serve as a

catalyst for rethinking the nature of legal education. Educating
Lawyers raises critical questions and concerns, most notably the need
for integration of the law student‟s learning experience. 5 Certainly it
will take the commitment and creativity of all involved to achieve the
level of integration envisioned by the Carnegie Foundation. 6 Very
likely, it will also take changes to the core curriculum and to the way
learning itself is structured and assessed.7 These are major undertak-
ings and will not occur without considerable thought, discussion,
work, and time.
Still, it might be possible to introduce some changes without
disruption or difficulty by building, wherever possible, on what is
already in place. Clinical-legal education comes first to mind when
combining the theoretical with the practical but it is not our only
teaching opportunity for doing so.8 The clinic is not the only
academic setting for integrative teaching because it is not the only
place where we teach, and students learn, by example. As law
professors, we teach by example all the time, yet we do not make the
practice deliberate.9 But we could. We could do this when we use
the case method to teach the principle of stare decisis and develop-
ment of the common law. We could do this when we use cases to

5
Id. at 191 (“We endorse a different strategy, which we call integrative rather than addi-
tive.”).
6
Id. at 200 (“On the part of faculty, it will require both drawing more fully on one‟s own
experience and learning from each other. It will also require creativity.”).
7
Id. at 88 (“Making part of the standard legal curriculum students‟ preparation for the
transition to practice is likely to make law school a better support for the legal profession as
a whole by providing more breadth and balance in students‟ education.”).
8
SULLIVAN, ET AL., supra note 1, at 121. The Foundation observes that “clinics can be a
key setting for integrating all of the elements of legal education, as students draw on and de-
velop their doctrinal reasoning, lawyering skills, and ethical engagement, extending to con-
textual issues such as policy environment.”
9
If it is said of History that it is “philosophy teaching by examples,” so it is with law.
Henry Steele Commager, THE STUDY OF HISTORY 91 (1966). In writing about the nature and
study of History, Professor Commager quotes this most familiar definition of History. He
writes:
[t]he phrase is Bolingbroke‟s, but Dionysius of Halicarnassus said the
same thing two thousand years ago, and fifteen centuries later, Sir Wal-
ter Raleigh, who was an historian as well as an explorer, wrote that “the
end and scope of all history” is “to teach us by examples of times past
such wisdom as my guide our desires and actions.”
Id.

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teach mastery of the fundamentals of IRAC, the “Issue, Rule, Appli-

cation, Conclusion” structure of legal analysis. We could do this
when we use the Socratic Method to teach our students how to
engage in the dialectic essential for critical analysis.10 We could do
this when we use hypotheticals in class and on exams to simulate the
types of problems our students might encounter in practice. Finally,
we could do this when we use moot court competitions, drafting ex-
ercises, and client counseling and negotiations sessions to allow stu-
dents to experience their future professional roles.
If we were to teach these areas deliberately, we would make
visible that which is largely invisible — the process by which we
think — and provide a model for our students to follow. By explain-
ing what we expected our students to learn from these exercises
rather than relying on them to make the connections for themselves,
we would be providing the critical link for integrative thinking.11
This type of deliberate and directed teaching would take more effort
on our part but not so much as to make it unduly burdensome.
It is more likely, however, that the first steps toward enhanced
integrative learning will occur in the clinical setting. But even here it
is possible to combine more than theory with practice: guided by
appropriate “leading questions,” students can be directed to expand
their substantive and ethical understanding as well as develop their
practical lawyering skills. Moreover, the clinic can be used as a
vehicle for developing self-reflection, an essential skill for integrative
learning.

10
SULLIVAN, ET AL., supra note 1, at 47. The case-dialogue method of teaching is the sub-
ject of much discussion in Educating Lawyers. In assessing the Socratic Method as a means
of teaching students “to think like lawyers,” the authors acknowledge that the approach is
often less than obvious to students. Id. Nonetheless, the case method remains the “signature
pedagogy” of law school learning. Id.
11
Id. at 109. In comparing contemporary legal writing instruction with Scott Turow‟s
experience in the middle 1970s, the authors note that today‟s instructor “guides the analysis,
providing feedback and modeling the use of the prompts in constructing a well-honed docu-
ment.” SULLIVAN, ET AL., supra note 1, at 109. This type of learning in context consists of
four steps: (1) the instructor defines the task; (2) the instructor provides a scaffold of
prompts for engaging in the learning activity; (3) the student practices the activity; (4) the
instructor coaches and models the activity to improve performance and provide strategies for
improvement.

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II. TOURO’S CIVIL PRACTICE EXTERNSHIP

In teaching Touro‟s Civil Practice Externship, Judge Battaglia

used journal keeping to cultivate the skill of self-reflection. While
not the only route for meeting the Foundation‟s call for law schools
to more fully integrate the development of cognitive, practical, and
ethical competencies, journal writing offers one possibility. And it
does so in the simplest and most direct way possible: by requiring
students to think and write about their clinic activities, the habit of
learning to “think like a lawyer” is cultivated while performing the
tasks of the lawyer.12
The Civil Practice Externship allows students to work in a
wide variety of law office placements: private law firms; corporate
law departments, government offices, public interest organizations,
and non-profit settings. Consequently, students‟ experiences are as
varied as the offices they join and their assignments are equally wide-
ranging: they may attend court, mediation or arbitration proceedings,
engage in interviewing, negotiating and counseling of clients, prepare
government filings, and research and draft litigation documents. The
placement choice is usually the student‟s own, assuring a high level
of motivation to pursue a genuine area of interest.
In addition to the hours spent in the practice setting, extern-
ship students attend a three-hour weekly seminar. The seminar
serves as a forum for sharing the students‟ experiences and thoughts
on their placements. An experienced attorney (usually a faculty
member with extensive practical experience) directs the seminar
discussions and serves as the students‟ mentor throughout the
process. Because of the wide range of possible student placements, it
is necessary to find a common theme for discussions and assigned
readings; the meaning of professionalism and the law student‟s
development into a member of the legal profession provides this
focus.
When I was a student in the externship, writing the journal
required me to think about what I had learned over the course of my
placement assignments in a way that just completing those assign-
ments would not have let me do — nor would it have allowed me to
recall them quite as vividly. This is true despite the variety and

12
Id. at 81. The authors refer to this as a need for “A Continuum of Integration.”

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novelty of the research and writing assignments, negotiation and

arbitration sessions, and attorney and client meetings. It was the
reflection process that both ingrained the memory of these activities
and caused me to consider their larger significance.
Clearly, this was the very reason for the journal requirement.
Reflection is a critical part of the learning process and makes for an
optimal learning experience.13 By going back over what had
happened in the course of each assignment or activity, I was reliving
them. In describing them to my professor, I was explaining them to
myself. I was drawing inferences and making connections I would
not otherwise have made. And the connections were analytic as well
as practical because I was seeing the process of law as it worked with
its substance.
Once again, this is nothing new: journal writing is a widely-
used teaching tool.14 It was simply that I had not encountered it in
any other aspect of my legal education — nor would I. Yet the
processes of reflective thinking and writing are essential to the legal
enterprise — how better to instill them in our students than to begin
in as painless and profitable a means as journal writing. The benefits
of such writing are long-term and its applications extend well beyond

13
Cognitivist learning theorists “believe that learners should be taught, as a regular part of
course instruction, to be expert at metacognition. The term metacognition refers to the set of
learning and study skills which encourage learners to be introspective, conscious, and vigi-
lant about their own learning.” Michael Hunter Schwartz, Teaching Law By Design: How
Learning Theory and Instructional Design Can Inform and Reform Law Teaching, 38 SAN
DIEGO L. REV. 347, 376 (2001). See also Roy Stuckey, Papers Presented at the UCLA/IALS
conference on Enriching Clinical Education: Teaching with Purpose: Defining and Achiev-
ing Desired Outcomes in Clinical Law Courses, 13 CLINICAL L. REV. 807, 813 (2007). He
writes that:
Optimal learning from experience involves a continuous, circular four
state sequence of experience, reflection, theory, and application. Expe-
rience is the immersing of one‟s self in a task or similar event — the
doing. Reflection involves stepping back and reflecting on both the cog-
nitive and affective aspects of what happened or was done. Theory en-
tails interpreting the task or event, making generalizations, or seeing the
experience in a larger context. Application enables one to plan for or
make predictions about encountering the event or task a second time.
Id.
Similarly, the authors of EDUCATING LAWYERS include the process of reflection as an im-
portant learning strategy implicit in the Socratic Method dialogue, noting that “[s]tudents
learn best when they can „reflect on‟ their knowledge and performance in relation to models
supplied by the teacher.” See SULLIVAN, ET. AL., supra note 1, at 61.
14
Id. at 93.

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a law school seminar log; the inculcation of the practice of reflective

writing in law school would serve our students just as well when they
enter the practice or teaching of law.
For example, I keep a log of my meetings with students.
After each meeting, I note the topics we covered and my thoughts
with respect to the student‟s progress and understanding of the
material. If our meetings continue over time, which indeed many of
them do, this lets me track an individual‟s development and see when
and how real “learning moments” occurred. By capturing these
moments on paper and reflecting on what we were engaged in that
led to them, I can use what I have learned from working with one
student to help other students in similar situations.15 This process has
allowed me to replicate my experiences on a much larger scale and
share what I have learned in other student meetings, in the classroom,
and in writing texts on preparing for law school exams16 and the bar
exam.17

III. CREATING JOURNAL WRITING OPPORTUNITIES FOR LAW

STUDENTS

Unfortunately, not all students have the opportunity to take a

clinic or a course where journal writing is required. Still, there are
other areas in the law school curriculum that lend themselves to such
an activity without creating an undue burden for our students or
ourselves.18 One such possibility can be found in teaching assistant

15
While I value the process and nature of one-on-one work with students, it is incredibly
demanding and time consuming. If such work can yield results beyond the individual, it
should. The scarcity of resources at most law schools demands that if more can be made of
the effort, then it should be.
16
I wrote Mastering the Law School Exam because I found that there were enough com-
mon mistakes among law students in the way they approached their task of learning the law
and how that translated on exams. SUZANNE DARROW-KLEINHAUS, MASTERING THE LAW
SCHOOL EXAM (2007). Just think of how many bluebooks where you have written, “sketchy
on the law,” “conclusory statement,” “missing analysis,” and “disorganized.” I suppose that
deficiencies in law school exam writing are more akin to Tolstoy‟s happy families than the
unhappy ones: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own
way.” LEO TOLSTOY, ANNA KARENINA, 17 (David Magarshack trans. 1961).
17
Similarly, I wrote the Bar Exam in a Nutshell after working one-on-one with dozens of
New York bar exam “re-takers,” reading several hundred “failing” bar exam essays, and
finding the same mistakes being made over and over again. SUZANNE DARROW-KLEINHAUS,
BAR EXAM IN A NUTSHELL (2d ed. 2009).
18
This requires some creativity on our part and the investment of time as well since we

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programs. While each school‟s teaching assistant program is struc-

tured differently, in most cases there is a need for teaching assistants
(“TAs”) to be accountable for their time and activities. A log or
journal fills this requirement quite nicely.
I had not considered this possibility until one of the Teaching
Assistants in the program started sending me weekly reports describ-
ing what was happening during his sessions. What I liked most was
that his reports were not simply laundry lists of tasks and topics;
instead, he offered his commentary on what he thought was working
and what was not. His “reflections” provided a window into what
was going on during the sessions and resulted in program changes to
make it more responsive to student needs. While critiquing TA
sessions to assess their effectiveness is a subject discussed at weekly
TA training sessions, there is never enough time to go into much
detail — nor is this type of insight typically the result of a general
discussion.
The TA report nicely fills this gap and serves two additional
purposes as well: my need for accountability and insight into the
program‟s daily operations, and the TA‟s need to reflect on the
process in order to write thoughtfully about it. I drafted a form for
TAs to follow, identifying basic topics to discuss as a guide, and
required them to submit weekly status reports.
There is another reason I would like to see students have an
opportunity to keep a journal at some point during their law school
years. I want them to enjoy the same experience I had when reading

must read the journals and provide feedback for them to be of any real value to the student.
In fact, we should welcome this opportunity to provide written feedback on our students‟
work. Behaviorist learning theory emphasizes the importance of opportunities for practice
and structured feedback on such performance as essential for effective learning. See, e.g.,
Schwartz, supra note 13, at 361-62 (discussing the negative impact of law school economics
and professors‟ disincentive to employ more effective methods of teaching). Unfortunately,
most law students receive little feedback on their work where it is limited to once, or at most
twice, in a semester, through midterms and final exams. Id. Given the large size of most
law classes, the difficulty for faculty of providing detailed feedback and personalized atten-
tion is just not practicable. Id. On the other hand, the small sections typical of clinic courses
makes this a real possibility.
Not only is feedback essential to the learning process, but “Gen-Xers” expect it and seek
it out. See Robin A. Boyle and Joanne Ingham, Generation X in Law School: How These
Law Students Are Different From Those Who Teach Them, 56 J. LEGAL EDUC. 282 (June
2008) (“Students prefer to work with an authority figure present. An authority figure might
be a professor, an advisor, an employer, or a mentor. Learners with this characteristic are
most productive when they can ask questions, discuss ideas, or seek feedback from a person
of authority.”).

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something I had written years before as a student. It was as if I had

opened a time capsule and stepped back in time and place. Journals
let us do this. They are a way to remind ourselves of where we have
been so we will know where it is we want to go. We need such
markers to help us remember.
I want my students to write so they, too, will remember. I
want them to remember why they came to law school and what they
learned along the way. I want them to remember how they struggled
with the material and learned it when they thought they never would.
I want them to remember that the time they spent learning the law
will be with them always, and if ever they forget what it is all about,
they have only to find it again in what they wrote. Or so it has been
for me.

IV. THE VALUE OF THE CLINIC PLACEMENT: PROVIDING THE

ABILITY TO CHOOSE

The value of an externship or clinic experience, as well as its

role in helping students learn about and adjust to their future roles as
professionals, is heavily discussed and debated in the academic litera-
ture.19 From what I have read, much of what has been written has
been from the institution‟s point of view.20 A student‟s perspective
might be of some value in the discussion. Since my experience

19
See Stuckey, supra note 13, at 814-816. The author‟s belief is that “clinical teachers
have failed to articulate and demonstrate the important learning that occurs uniquely or can
be accomplished best in clinical law courses.” Id. at 807. Even a brief excursion into the
literature indicates a wealth of scholarship and competing visions as to what should be taught
in clinical programs and how. Id.
20
Brook K. Baker, Beyond MacCrate: The Role of Context, Experience, Theory and Ref-
lection in Ecological Learning, 36 ARIZ. L. REV. 287, 290 (1994). In observing that much
has been written about the conventional Langdellian classroom and the supervisory process
of clinicians, Professor Baker notes:
Most legal scholars . . . have written primarily from an educator-centered
and school-centered perspective because teaching in the classroom and
the clinic constitute the context and practice of the people who write law
review articles. But what about the students‟ learning perspective and
what about the non-clinical world of practice? . . . Is there data which il-
luminates whether and under what circumstances students learn well “on
the job” and what distinguishes a better learning experience from a
worse one?
Id.

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reflects both that of the student and the educator,21 it might be

helpful. It is from this dual perspective that I offer what I have writ-
ten about my externship experience.
I chose my placement in a public sector labor law firm. I
needed to see if the type of law I thought I wanted to practice was
indeed what it seemed to be. I needed to be pretty sure before I made
my next career move. Hopefully, the externship experience would
help me with this decision. I suspect many law students share this
view — that externships and clinics are a good way to get a sense of
what a particular area of law might be like while getting some hands-
on experience to build a resume. I was ready for this; I just wasn‟t
ready for the rest of what I learned — which had far more to do about
what I wanted from the practice of law than the practice of law itself.
The following was my final assignment for the Civil Practice
Externship. I have made no changes or corrections; it is exactly as I
submitted it at the end of the semester.

My first thought when confronted with this assignment to

assess my clinic experience was “thank goodness I chose the civil
clinic.” It was everything I had wanted it to be — and not because I
received a job offer — but because it provided me with hands-on,
practical experience in a law office setting. I needed this opportunity
to determine whether I really wanted to practice labor and employ-
ment law; I needed it as well to learn about the type of environment
in which I wanted to practice.
One of the most difficult decisions any person will make is
choosing a career. Yet so many of us choose without any real know-
ledge. As we discussed in our seminar, many of us came to law
school because others, usually our family or friends, said that we
would “make good lawyers.” They thought so because we had good
communications skills or we were always arguing or we were good
writers. But we did not know that we would “make good lawyers”
because we really did not know what lawyers “did” — unless we
were lucky enough to have one in the family and even then our know-

21
Since 2003, I have been responsible for directing Touro‟s Academic Development pro-
grams, which span the entire length of the legal educational process, from orientation to bar
examination preparation and counseling. This includes training and supervising teaching
assistants, teaching sections of Contracts for students in academic difficulty, working with
students on an individual basis, conducting skills training workshops, developing appropriate
student learning materials, and coordinating and teaching in bar-preparation programs.

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ledge was limited to that particular lawyer’s experience.

I liked this seminar discussion because it made me examine
my decision to be a lawyer once again and from a new perspective.
This time I was looking at my choice from the vantage point of having
made it through most of my legal education and after having worked
for several months in a law office. Perhaps now I was in a better
position to judge whether or not I had finally taken the right road. I
had thought about my decision many times, and I had been asked
about it many times. I had written about why I wanted to go to law
school when I filled out applications to law school and then again
when one of my professors had asked his students to write about why
we were in law school so that he would have a better understanding
of us.
I have had a rather extensive work history before coming to
law school. But never a career. There is an enormous difference
between having a job (even a well-paying, respected job) and having
a professional career but I had never realized just how great this
difference was until we started to examine in our seminar discussions
just what makes the law a profession.
As a technical writer for one of the most dynamic, high tech-
nology companies on Long Island, I had enjoyed some celebrity.
Since “technical” has acquired an almost “sexy” connotation, mean-
ing “cutting-edge,” when people learned where I worked and the
kind of work I performed, they were often impressed. Although they
did not really understand the nature of my work (not even my mother
understood what I did), because it was technical and involved
computers, they were somewhat in awe. I was too, but not for the
same reasons.
During my college career, there were no courses in technical
writing and I had never even remotely contemplated such a future. I
learned on the job out of necessity, not out of choice. I had been a
history major in both undergraduate and graduate school and while
history majors are not known for their technical expertise, we are
recognized for our ability to think logically and critically, research
and organize information, and find order in chaos. I learned to use
common sense and trust my judgment. I realized the importance of
asking questions and paying close attention to every detail.
I believe that these skills enabled me to achieve some success
in law school and have prepared me as well for actual practice. I

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have relied on them often during my internship. They have given me

perspective and an ability to appreciate my clinic experience for what
it has been — a unique opportunity to choose my future based on
knowledge rather than be forced by necessity and happenstance into
just any area of the law or firm which makes me an offer.
As a result of my clinic experience, I have gained an under-
standing of what it is I want from my work, and it is not just a
sizeable paycheck. Money is important because we cannot exist
without it but there are other considerations which are equally
important. First, I learned that my time has enormous value to me
and I want to work in an environment which values it as well. After
working for so many years for employers who had no consideration
for the lives or well-being of their employees, I wanted to work for
and with people who did. This goes to the quality of life and there is
a quality to one’s work life just as there is a quality to one’s life in
general and it is particularly true that the one directly affects the
other.
Second, I realized how important it was that I feel comforta-
ble with the people with whom I would be working. This would allow
me to focus on learning without fear — fear of making a mistake or
saying the wrong thing. Unfortunately, in my prior work experience,
I had worked for a company where every word and facial expression
was scrutinized and criticized. The management style was to create
an atmosphere of fear and terror. Every action of the employee was
controlled and analyzed so that it had come to the point where I no
longer had any confidence in my ability to think for myself. I worried
endlessly over every little thing and I no longer felt competent to
choose even the type of copy paper to use for a particular manual.
This was precisely the effect my manager had sought to achieve.
Well, it might have been her goal but it was certainly not mine. So I
found another job but it took months before I recovered my feelings
of self-worth and competence. Despite my horrible experience, I
learned a valuable lesson: I would never again work for an employer
that required complete domination and control over its employees.
Third, I understood how important it was to me to be
connected to my work. For the very first time, I feel as if I own my
work — I am connected to what I do, and what I write, and what I
think. For all of my years in the workplace, I had felt separate from
my work but now I am not. It is who I am. I know that this may be

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hard for you to believe as you read these words, but I am actually
crying as I write them — crying because I am so happy. I never
thought that I would feel this way. Before coming to Touro, I had
stopped believing in the future and in finding a way out of the cubicle
in which I had been working. I thought that all I had to look forward
to was more years writing manuals about products I had not
designed and “ghostwriting” articles for others about their work and
achievements. The words may have been mine but nothing else.
Coming to law school and working at Solomon, Richman,
Greenberg has changed all that. Gone is the frustration and hope-
lessness and despair I had felt for so many years. Yes, law school
has been demanding, but no more demanding than any of my employ-
ers. Learning the law has been liberating and sometimes I feel
selfish but mostly I feel privileged to be here. I have taken delight in
every class (even Civil Procedure) and it has been a joy to return to
the world of ideas, where the need to question is valued and assump-
tions are to be challenged.
I suppose that my years in the workplace have had a lot to do
with how much I have enjoyed law school. Certainly it has colored
my choice of which area of the law to pursue. Since the workplace
has been so much a part of my life, it seems only natural that I would
feel most comfortable with labor and employment law. And as we all
know, we are likely to be most productive and successful when we are
doing that which we like and that for which we are best suited.
In thinking about the nature of my work experience at Solo-
mon, Richman, Greenberg, I can honestly say that it has been varied
and challenging enough to give me a true sense of what I can look
forward to when I begin my permanent, full-time employment. I
know that I have so much to learn, but I know that I will be able to
learn in a nurturing, caring environment where my judgment and
skills are valued. There is an easy balance between control, supervi-
sion, and independence so that I feel comfortable in undertaking each
assignment.
The clinic has been invaluable to me and as far as I can see,
my classmates are likely to tell you the same. It appears that we have
all chosen our placements wisely (except, perhaps for the one or two
who ended up with supervisors who were less than “supervisory”
and that, of course, was not the student’s choice) in that we have
selected the area of law or type of environment in which we thought

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we would like to concentrate. This is critical to the success of the

experience. So if I were to have a suggestion about the future of the
clinic, I would strongly recommend that each student come to the
clinic with a strong sense of what he or she wants to get out of it — to
test some theories about what they think they want against the reali-
ties. In this way, the student will be in the best possible position to
choose a future direction.
I so strongly believe in the value of a clinic experience that I
have encouraged my daughter to participate in the internships
offered at her university. While in life, there are no dress rehearsals,
the clinic is a close second for career choices. A clinic will be
invaluable to her in helping her decide whether a career in marketing
is really what she would like to pursue. I would, however, also like to
see her participate in the type of seminar we have enjoyed. In think-
ing about our seminars, I have realized that even though my work
experience was limited to only one particular setting, by listening and
talking to the other students in the clinic, I learned about a dozen
other law practices and practitioners.
I have learned so much because we have been so sharing with
each other. I have vicariously experienced what the other students
have experienced and can say that no, I would never want to work for
an insurance company or “do” personal liability work or spend my
days working in a clinic with the “about to be homeless.” I have
learned that there are those people who prefer the order and security
of insurance work but that is not me. It sounds too much like the
routine of the workplace I had in working for software companies
and manufacturers. Even the structure of the work environment
would not be to my liking since it appears so political — I have had
enough of that! And while at first I thought I would like to be
in-house counsel to a corporation, I have learned that this too has its
downside and would be very much like the experience I have already
had and know all too well. Of course this time around I would be the
“attorney” and a “professional” but from what we have learned
from Phyllis and Jennifer, in-house counsel can be and often is
treated just like any other “employee” and is subject to the whims
and personalities of the CEO and the balance sheet.
I can hear you saying to yourself as you read this that I am
jumping to conclusions and that even in a law firm, I am subject to
the personalities of the partners and my supervisor, and of course the

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demand for billable hours never ceases, so that I have not escaped
these demons. But there are major differences between “working for
a corporation” as compared to “practicing in a law firm”: law firms
have clients and so there is greater opportunity to vary the type of
work, dilute the impact of any one personality, and perhaps most
important, influence the direction of the firm. It also allows for more
opportunity for growth for the lawyer — he or she can bring in
clients and add to the growth of the firm. In-house counsel, on the
other hand, can advise in legal matters and write procedures to ward
off potential litigation (i.e., Jennifer’s sexual harassment manual) but
for the most part, in-house counsel plays a minor role in setting
corporate policy and mission. That is most usually determined by the
corporation’s product itself. Counsel offers legal support, answers
legal questions, and bails the corporation out of legal problems, but
the legal matters of the corporation are really peripheral to the oper-
ations of the corporation whereas in a law firm, the law is central to
its operation.
And I want to be where the law itself is at the center of what I
do and where it is valued and used, and not seen as something that
just gets in the way of what the corporation really wants to do. I may
be somewhat harsh in my criticism but I have worked for a corpora-
tion in a position which is usually reserved for attorneys (regulatory
compliance) and this position is seen by management as a necessary
evil. I would research the applicable statutory provisions and advise
on corporate policy but mostly I was a lone voice which management
did not want to hear if it conflicted in any way with what they wanted
to do — compliance with the law was a “nuisance.” While every-
thing is not perfect in a law firm and clients would prefer not to hear
that the law requires them to take an action they would rather not,
the position of the attorney in this case is different — and it goes to
independence, the very topic we discussed in class. I believe that the
lawyer practicing in a law firm with other attorneys is more indepen-
dent in his relation to the law than the attorney who works for a
corporation. While in theory there is not supposed to be a difference
(the Code of Professional Responsibility certainly does not distin-
guish in the attorney’s obligation to his profession according to the
setting) my experience and those of my classmates seem to indicate
that quite the opposite is true.
Actually, this is not so difficult to understand. A corporation

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has an identity and a mission and it has nothing to do with the law.
The law never enters into the equation. There is only an implicit
understanding that what the corporation intends to do is not an illeg-
al enterprise. But a law firm is first and foremost about the practice
of law. And for me, right now, this is exactly where I want to be and
where I need to be.

“Professionalism” and “the Type of Lawyer I Want to Be”

In thinking further about our class discussions and my

Professional Responsibility class discussions on “Professionalism,” I
had the following thoughts:
The idea of professionalism comes from both within and with-
out. The “without” is all the outward manifestations and trappings
of “professionalism” — the associations, the regulation or self-
regulation, the Codes and the Rules, the licenses, the status, etc.
But the “within” is the sense of professionalism with which
the individual imbues each task and act he or she performs. In this
respect, I believe that I was a “professional” in the work I performed
prior to law school. Professionalism was in my behavior with others
and in the work I produced. In some sense, professionalism has more
to do with the way one conducts oneself than simply the fact that
there is an association or special rules of conduct. I believe the
whole debate about “professionalism” is about an attempt to impose
it from without on individuals who are sorely lacking it from within.
And we have seen evidence of it all semester: attorneys who are not
prepared at EBTs or hearings, or trials, attorneys who are late to
appointments, to court, with their papers.
Thus while the outward trappings of professionalism are im-
portant to the outside community, what may be most important is the
sense of professionalism which each of us brings to the endeavor. In
thinking about what type of lawyer I want to be, therefore, I think the
real question is what type of person I want to be. It is the type of
person I am that determines the type of lawyer I will be. I believe
that this is what I have responded to in Harry’s personality [Harry is
a partner in the law firm and my supervising attorney] and how he
practices law. He treats clients the way he wants to be treated —
with honesty and fairness. He listens carefully and responds, not
reacts. Yes, I have heard him pound his fist on the table when the

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battle becomes heated, but he knows how to leave something on the

negotiating table and not to go so far that there is no going back.
This is not something the law can teach you. It is about what it
means to be a human being.

Some Final Thoughts

1. The importance of good writing skills

In many respects, I have been successful in law school and in

my placement because I have strong writing skills. I have been asked
many times how I learned to write for so many varied enterprises and
especially how I made the transition to legal writing. If I have been
successful at all, it has been because I have taken Hemingway’s
advice as my guide: “a writer’s problem does not change. It is how
to write truly and having found what is true, to project it in such a
way that it becomes part of the experience of the person who reads
it.”

I have shared this advice with others and they have found it
helpful. Even now, when I am not sure where to begin or how to
proceed, I read these words and they guide me. I think that too many
people think that writing is a mystery and it is simply a dialogue
between the writer and the reader.

2. What is exciting about the law

During one of our seminar discussions about the practice of

law as an art, you mentioned that part of the art of law is the fact that
lawyers “create” law. This is so true and a very large part of the
reason I came to law school. What I had found most challenging and
interesting about the regulatory work I had performed at Bennett X-
Ray involved the vague areas, where the FDA has not yet provided
formal guidelines and had left it open to interpretation. This allowed
room for innovation and creativity. What I had not realized at that
time was this was how the law evolved.

3. Building bridges and connections

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As a history major, I had learned the value of reading careful-

ly, thinking critically, and writing clearly. But the discipline of histo-
ry also teaches us to see beyond the immediate, to escape “present-
mindedness” in order to take a larger perspective. It teaches the
value of diversity and the need to keep an openness of mind and spirit
to knowledge and understanding from all disciplines and from all
people. I believe that the same approach applies to the study and
practice of law. To do otherwise is limiting and destructive.

4. The value of patience, humility, and perseverance

These are the most difficult lessons to learn but learn them we
must. And once again, history is our teacher. I have learned to
measure progress as change over time and therefore I am not to be
defeated by what at first appears hopeless. I can appreciate the
value of taking small steps forward and not be overwhelmed by the
entirety of an enterprise. I have learned the value of perseverance
and hard work because that is all there is in the end — the triumph
usually goes to the one who carefully prepares and endures.
It may seem strange that as I begin the practice of law, I take
with me the same heroes who have accompanied me thus far —
Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, F. Scott Fitzgerald and now,
Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. — but maybe not so strange after all.

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