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Article here.  Abstract:

In this article, I argue that law schools fail to prepare students to face the personal challenges of lawyering because they do not emphasize the central role that personal values play in making career decisions. I then argue that this failure should be remedied through a required first-year course on professional satisfaction. Implementing a course that teaches law students how to approach the difficult professional decisions they must make in a manner that comports with their personal values would ameliorate the growing trend of lawyer dissatisfaction, producing happier law students, well-adjusted lawyers, and a more fruitful and impactful legal profession. It is incumbent upon law schools to stop ignoring the growing problem around them, and to address it.

I then provide a framework for teaching law students to make careers decisions based upon personal values: the personal constitution. Creating a personal constitution requires: (1) establishing a preamble by identifying one?s personal values as they relate to professional life as a lawyer; (2) creating the articles by identifying employment opportunities that correspond to this value system; and (3) amending the personal constitution over time as experience brings new insight to the relationship between personal values and professional life. I conclude by demonstrating how the personal constitution might be used to structure a class on professional satisfaction.

In discussions with Serota, i suggested that his definition of personal satisfaction was too narrow because a thriving lawyer needs to consider the social impact and economic realities of practice.  In reply, he has stated that personal satisfaction should be read more broadly to include those factors -- in which case, I applaud his take on this.

Btw, Indiana - Bloomington (Maurer School of Law) has a 4-credit, first year, PR course in which students learn the law of lawyering through problem solving in team settings; explore the various work possibilities that may suit their skills and ethical sensibilities (including networking projects and panels with lawyers from a wide variety of practice settings); and learn about the competencies mastered by successful lawyers.  It's a project master-minded by Bill Henderson and Dean Lauren Robel, and Dean Fromm,  I am one of the co-teachers of that course in the Spring semester, along with Carwina Weng, Dean Robel, and as of next year Carole Silver.  The career services and student counseling professional also play a huge role.

I'm sure that other schools have similar programs, so feel free to leave a comment and I can update the post.

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