Anneka Ferguson, Australian National University Legal Workshop (Australia); Ernest Ojukwu, Network of University Legal Aid Institutions (NULAI) (Nigeria); Ahmed Al-Hawamdeh, Jerash University (Jordan); Neil Gold, University of Windsor (Canada); Elida Nogoibaeva, American University of Central Asia (Kyrgyz Republic); Veronika Tomoszková, Palacky University (Czech Republic); and Leah Wortham, The Catholic University of America (US) (Moderator)

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: The Ethical Law School

Felix Frankfurter said in a letter to a friend: "In the last analysis, the law is what the lawyers are. And the law and the lawyers are what law schools make them." This session will consider how a law school’s environment and institutional structures contribute or detract from forming ethical professionals who will contribute to fair and just legal systems, grounding the discussion in U.S. and Australian empirical research and adding a comparative perspective. The session will focus on not only the place of legal ethics courses, but also the overall institutional messages that students receive. Anneka Ferguson, whose Australian empirical research with Stephen Tang and others builds on the pioneering U.S. work of Lawrence Krieger and Kennon Sheldon, will lead off and be followed by Ernest Ojukwu, a leader in ethics education in Nigeria, who has spoken extensively on the relationship of individual professional formation to societal transformation. Panelists, with considerable law teaching and administrative experience in additional parts of the world, will comment regarding the changes in the educational environment within their countries or regions that they believe would foster graduates operating with the integrity, professionalism, and ethical norms they would like to see.

View other papers within this theme.