By Steve Thorpe
Legal News
Amy Timmer realized that teaching professionalism and ethics was important long before she arrived in academia.
“When I was practicing law, I saw so many unethical things happening — lawyers engaging in dirty tricks, stealing documents, lying to the court, and simply being uncivil — that I was inspired for a lifetime to try to change the profession for the better,” she said.
Timmer is the associate dean of Students and Professionalism at Thomas M. Cooley Law School’s Lansing campus and oversaw a recent update of the school’s professionalism program.
The law school adopted its first Professionalism Plan in 2002. The plan was recognized in 2006 by the American Bar Association when the ABA Standing Committee on Professionalism awarded Cooley the E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award for its efforts.
The original plan included multiple initiatives focused in five areas of professionalism:
• Be Accountable.
• Be Professional.
• Serve the Community.
• Focus on Students.
• Promote an Ethical School Community.
In 2012 the school re-examined the program and, while satisfied with its accomplishments, decided to add to it. A Professionalism Advisory Committee was created with members from the school’s faculty and staff as well as attorneys in practice and judges. Twenty five initiatives came out of the effort and were added to a new version of the program.
“This (initial) plan was too old. Even if it sounds fresh to an outsider, we needed a new infusion,” Timmer said.
Although Timmer had plenty of her own ideas for improvements, she thought it would be worthwhile to reach out and ask others in the field for input.
“At some point I felt I was running out of creative ideas,” she said. “The program wasn’t changing and evolving like I knew our students were changing and evolving. The legal profession was also changing very rapidly.
“We thought it would make sense to reach out to two different sets of people who could guide us on what else we ought to be doing,” Timmer said. “Those two groups were lawyers, who hopefully are going to hire our students, and out higher education partners, who have a real good birds eye view of what’s coming to us.” Between those two groups, I needed to learn how students are changing and what do we need to do with them while they’re here so that they fit this new world.
Once the committee had done its work, the ideas were brought back “in house” for reaction and refinement.
“We showed the recommendations to our students, our faculty and our staff and they began to take shape in to the new plan,” Timmer said. “We didn’t do everything they recommended, but we took the best of it and made it fit into our world.”
Some the features of the new program include:
• Professional Identity Development.
• Civic Professionalism Obligation.
• Business, Management and Professional Skills Training.
• Improving Relations with the Legal and Business Communities.
There are also two major areas, skills and pro bono, that receive particular focus in the new plan.
“There’s a much bigger emphasis on skills,” Timmer said. “Cooley has always had a ‘skills mission,’ but this just cemented for us the importance of continuing down the path we’re on, which is less talking at students and more getting them to do stuff, so that they are practicing law by the time they leave here.
“We also have a greater emphasis on pro bono and access to justice. We’ve always encouraged our students in that direction, but we wanted to be even more active in that area. There are a lot of other reasons to do it, but we wanted them to experience the joy pro bono can bring. We wanted to emphasize that it feels good and it’s right and true.”
Timmer sees the pace of evolution quickening on professionalism programs as changes in the legal field take place at a faster rate.
“Professionalism used to be about civility and following rules,” Timmer said. “It didn’t mean pro bono or service work or anything like that. Now it’s all about who the people are … looking inward and reflecting on the kind of person you want to be.
“I’ve seen our students commit to service and ethics on a deeply personal level. It works.”
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