Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

The accreditation standards of the American Bar Association Section on Legal Education and Admission require every school to "provide substantial opportunities to students for . .. the development of a professional identity." The standards include Interpretation 303-5, which provides guidance about what professional identity means for lawyers and how law schools should seek to shape the professional identities of their students: "Professional identity focuses on what it means to be a lawyer and the special obligations lawyers have to their clients and society. The development of professional identity should involve an intentional exploration of the values, guiding principles, and well-being practices considered foundational to successful legal practice."

Notice that this explanation refers to "the values, guiding principles, and well-being practices considered foundational. .. ." The assumption behind this statement is that there is a universal set of such values, principles, and practices that are non-negotiable for all lawyers, regardless of the lawyer's type of practice. In the last few years, faculty members of the Mercer University School of Law have written and spoken extensively about what those values and principles are.  With this symposium, "Parts of a Whole: The Multiple Roles of a Lawyer and Professional Identity," Mercer has taken the next step in exploring what students should learn about professional identity. The symposium participants were asked to reflect on how these the non-negotiable values and guiding principles play out for lawyers who serve in the different roles of advocate, counselor, neutral, and active participant in public life.

Additionally, Mercer asked whether there are elements of professional identity in a specific role that go beyond the basics and whether there is there anything we can learn from consideration of these questions that might lead us to refine or add to the existing set of universal values and principals. In this Article, we take up those questions in the specific context of one type of advocate: the "cause lawyer." In Part II, we summarize the non-negotiable aspects of professional identity for all lawyers as taught at Mercer. In Part III, we define "cause lawyering" and provide examples. We discuss special challenges that cause lawyers face in living up to the bedrock values and principles of the legal profession. In Part IV, we consider one lesson that all lawyers should learn from cause lawyers about professional identity, and we discuss ways to teach that lesson to law students

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