Recommendations to improve the mandatory training
I wanted to like the 1L Ethics and Professionalism Training (EPT). I like ethics. I have an undergraduate certificate in ethics and have taken an ethics course at the postgraduate level. I was excited when the 1L EPT was announced. But now I feel like the EPT was just a checkbox exercise.
All of the 1L students I spoke to in writing this article agreed that they wanted EPT training, but were disappointed with the 1L EPT. In this article, I’m going to give some ethics and professionalism advice aimed at improving the 1L EPT.
Recommendation 1: Set clear expectations
What is the purpose of the 1L EPT? I, nor any of the 1L or 2L students I spoke to, were confident they knew what its purpose was. The common guess was that it was to teach students practical legal ethics and professionalism norms.
In a response to my email, Assistant Dean, Academic, Sara Faherty said, “the purpose of the training is to get students thinking about ethics and professionalism very early in their legal careers.” She added that the 1L EPT helps students meet the Law Society of Ontario’s requirement that students complete 36 hours of ethical training to be eligible to write the bar admission exams.
Recommendation 2: Keep your commitments
Do the 1L EPT’s sessions meet their purpose? I cannot say they got me to think about ethics and professionalism very much. The first and third EPT sessions felt more like equity, diversity and inclusion sessions than ethics and professionalism sessions—I didn’t even notice any explicit reference to legal ethics in the third session. The second EPT session was essentially a wellness session, which I guess could fall under professionalism.
I don’t have any issue with equity, diversity, and inclusion, or with wellness sessions (speaking in principle), or any of the EPT speakers—they all seemed well intentioned and spoke within their area of expertise. But if you told me you were going to teach me ethics and professionalism, you should teach me ethics and professionalism.
I, and all of the 1L students I spoke to in writing this article, hoped the EPT sessions would help prepare them for their 1L summer legal jobs. What’s the difference between legal information and legal advice? Is law student-client privilege a thing? The 1L EPT sessions haven’t helped me answer any of these pressing legal ethics and professionalism questions.
Recommendation 3: Set clear deadlines and instructions.
Why has the Faculty not announced deadlines or details for the two essays that students must complete as part of the 1L EPT? Is this good pedagogical practice? Surely not. After repeatedly following up, I can share that the two essays will be due on March 21, be 250 words each and that students will be able to choose among four essay questions.
Recommendation 4: Communicate clearly
The 1L EPT sessions have been rescheduled multiple times. While I understand that the schedule of external speakers can be unpredictable and we are still living in a global pandemic, the Faculty could proactively communicate scheduling changes to 1L students so they can plan accordingly. It appears that 1L students are expected to constantly check the First Year Mandatory Dates webpage for changes to scheduling.
I spoke to a couple students who had to miss work shifts because they were unaware that a 1L EPT session had been moved until the day of the session when they received an email with the session’s Zoom link. Sessions have been cancelled with almost zero notice as well.
Recommendation 5: Be considerate of your clients’ and your audience’s schedules
The biggest complaint I heard from 1L students in regards to the 1L EPT is when the sessions were scheduled. Scheduling an EPT session on 12:30-2:00pm, on January 19 particularly, enflamed a lot of students as applications for the 1L recruit were due the same day at 5:00pm. This scheduling meant that I and about half of the 1L class effectively had lectures from 11:00am-5:00pm that day.
If I wanted to choose the worst possible day in the winter semester to schedule an EPT session (that did not conflict with a class) I would have chosen 12:30-2:00pm on January 19.
Now, 1L students knew about both the 1L recruit application deadline and the January 19 EPT session weeks in advance, but even law students are not immune to procrastination. Why would you schedule a mandatory wellness session right before the 1L recruit application deadline if you wanted students to pay attention?
At the January 19 session, a student mentioned it was very poorly scheduled and Associate Dean Faherty responded that “every week is busy” and that previously students had recommended that these sessions be held early in the winter semester.
Did the Faculty just not realize they scheduled an EPT session on the date of the 1L recruit application deadline or did they not care? At one point the January 28 EPT session was scheduled to conflict with my 90-person contracts class, so I must confess that I do not have confidence that these dates were chosen with care.
Recommendation 6: Don’t be tone deaf
The January 19 EPT session came across as tone deaf. First, it always comes across as tone deaf when institutional actors (U of T) suggest personal solutions to institutional problems (law students’ mental health).
Second, giving me impossible advice is not helpful. Reminding me to break for lunch and take frequent walks throughout the day is not helpful when I’m forced to attend mandatory sessions over my lunch time and have effectively six hours of straight Zoom some days because lecturers often run over time.
These are just a few recommendations on how to improve the EPT sessions. Hopefully, future EPT sessions will take this into consideration and actually deliver on ethics and professionalism.
