Building the Foundations for Practice into Lawyer PD

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The global pandemic, together with renewed calls for improved diversity, equity, and inclusion in our firms, is upending the status quo for legal hiring and professional development.  This can pave the way for creative and innovative approaches to legal talent management.  One potential avenue is the IAALS Foundations for Practice framework – a data-derived set of holistic legal skills, competencies, and characteristics proven to prime lawyers for successful practice.  With law schools now teaching and assessing the Foundations and law firms building the Foundations into their hiring guidelines (often as a DE+I initiative), IAALS is exploring how best to leverage this data for lawyer PD.  In this 60-minute webinar we will share our work in this area and seek your input on how to develop a useful, accessible, and effective approach to Foundations-based PD.

Presenters
Logan Cornett, Director of Research, IAALS
Zachariah DeMeola, Director of Legal Education and the Legal Profession, IAALS
Margee Fawley, Director of Professional Development & Recruiting, Davis Graham & Stubbs LLP
Kristen Uhl Hulse, Assistant Professor of the Practice, University of Denver Sturm College of Law

Learn More about our Speakers:

Logan Cornett, IAALS’ Director of Research, has more than 15 years of experience in empirical research, with the past nine years dedicated to study of legal issues in topics such as legal education, minimum competence for law practice, and access to justice. Cornett has designed, conducted, and published reports for numerous studies and has extensive expertise in research methods, statistics, survey development, conducting interviews and focus groups, and qualitative data analysis.

Zack DeMeola is the Director of Legal Education and the Legal Profession at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (IAALS), a national, independent research center at the University of Denver dedicated to facilitating continuous improvement and advancing excellence in the American legal system. At IAALS, he works to improve the delivery of legal services through a variety of projects that focus on education, licensing and admission into the profession, and the regulation of the legal profession. He is currently leading the IAALS Foundations for Practice Project, which is dedicated to developing learning outcomes and hiring tools to instill and promote the competencies, skills, characteristics, and qualities new lawyers need to be successful after law school. Mr. DeMeola joined IAALS in 2017 after having litigated in private practice for six years. He is a member of the Governing Council of the ABA Center for Innovation and a co-founder and organizing member of the Denver Legal Hackers. Mr. DeMeola graduated from William & Mary School of Law, obtained a Master’s degree in American Studies from the College of William and Mary, and received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Margee Fawley works to achieve Davis Graham & Stubbs’s strategic goals with respect to attorney growth and talent management. She works closely with firm leadership and directs programming and processes for attorney recruiting, integration, attorney advancement, training, mentoring, evaluation, and performance management. She is also the administrative liaison for the firm’s Diversity & Inclusiveness Committee and Women’s Network. As a former practicing attorney, Margee brings a unique perspective to law firm management teams, which she has been a part of for over 18 years. She received her J.D. from Louisiana State University and her B.A. in History from Loyola University in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Kristen Uhl Hulse teaches in the top-ranked Legal Externship Program at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, leveraging over fifteen years of experience lawyering and leading professional development in large and mid-sized law firms and advising law students about private sector legal careers.  She joined Denver Law from the San Francisco-based law firm Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP, where as Director of Attorney Recruitment and Professional Development she worked closely with partners and associates on a broad range of recruitment, retention, mentoring, training, and other professional development initiatives.  Kristen began her legal career as an investment management associate with Dechert LLP in D.C. and London.  To round out her practice with Dechert, she served on multiple firm-wide committees and launched a pro bono clinic for registered charity organizations.  She then transitioned to the law school setting to hold career and professional development advisory roles with Georgetown University Law Center, Columbia Law School, and the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. 

Kristen serves on the Board of Directors for the Professional Development Consortium (PDC).  She is also active in the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) and the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA).  She publishes and presents frequently on strategies for advancement in private practice, emerging legal opportunities, and collaboration between law school faculty and legal employers to produce practice-ready graduates.