Professionalism: Why Manners Matter in Legal Ethics

Many (if not most or all) lawyers would never take a seminar on "professionalism" unless required to do so by their mandatory CLE requirements.  Why?  James Wrenn, Jr. has been a lawyer since 1972 – long before mandatory CLE, and in those days, the better or best lawyers voluntarily attended three-to-six two-hour CLE seminars every year, most of which were on subjects directly related to their particular field of practice -- i.e., subjects serving their economic interests rather than subjects focusing on broader, generic aspects of good lawyering.  Mr. Wrenn was the representative from the "Young Lawyers Conference" on his state bar's CLE Committee.  (He was against proposals for mandatory CLE.)  Lawyers other than those he deemed the "better or best" tended to attend only one or two CLE seminars, if any, per year.  One of the committee's goals was to increase attendance at high-quality CLE seminars among all lawyers.  This included encouraging the embedding of contextually important ethics issues (including those focusing on broader, generic aspects of good lawyering) in virtually all bar-sponsored CLE seminars (all of which were voluntary rather than mandatory).

Virtually all lawyers agreed that regularly incorporating such ethics issues into seminars improved them, which otherwise focused almost entirely on subjects related to particular fields of practice. This is not meant to imply that before such "embedding," there were never seminars focusing entirely on ethics. Still, they were rare and usually served the purpose of informing lawyers of changes to the Rules governing ethics or procedures for enforcing them.  Although not all jurisdictions mandate CLE courses on "professionalism" (which is one reason attorneys "should attend" this seminar), there are essential good-lawyering and public-interest reasons that lawyers ought to attend this program on "professionalism" because it helps those not already among the "better/best" lawyers to progress into that group of lawyers.

Even though standards for what the CLE-Mandating/Approving Authorities deem to be "Professionalism" are "aspirational" in contrast to the mandatory legal-ethics standards (i.e., the Rules of Professional Conduct), they are nevertheless quite important despite the absence of enforceability in the same way the Rules are.

The format of this program combines the lecture method with the Socratic method, fostering extensive interactive participation and critical analysis of a broad range of issues relevant to the seminar's subject matter. This approach goes beyond merely chronological descriptions of specific topics and subtopics.  In other words, the content of each workshop (and the order and extent of emphasis upon particular topics and subtopics) will be substantially influenced by the nature and extent of interactive participation regarding specific aspects thereof. Depending on the number of participants in a particular seminar, the format typically results in most, if not all, participants engaging in conversational-style, interactive discussions and analyses of specific topics during the seminar, and also permits interruptions, questions, challenges, and other contributions throughout the seminar. Think of collegially enjoyable and enlightening round-table discussions.  It's a form of learning that involves thinking while interactively participating, rather than learning solely by listening (the latter of which is the lecture method).

This course is suitable for attorneys with any level of experience who are interested in professionalism and legal ethics. Even a lawyer deeming "professionalism" standards to be idealistic notions resting on a presumption that lawyers (and judges) are snowflakes easily melted by the heat of the adversarial system, absent what advocates of "professionalism" deem to be the cooling effects of civility, courtesy, collegiality, clarity, cooperativeness, and circumspection, is encouraged to attend.

Learning Objectives:

1. Refresh lawyer's common knowledge of unique aspects of the legal profession in contrast to all other professions, occupations, etc.:  It's the effect of the Constitution's (and each state constitution's) vesting of "the judicial power" of the sovereign in its "Supreme Court"  and its thereby incorporation of the evolutionary nature of the judiciary's common law inherent judicial power (i.e., sui generis power) to define, prescribe, and enforce educational, moral, ethical and civil standards for the practice of law and the status of lawyers as officers of the courts.
2. Explore how exercising such common law inherent judicial power (sui generis power) in an adversarial system created under common law, the supreme court of the sovereign (i.e., the U.S. Supreme Court and each state supreme court) creates structural and functional tools for the administration of justice -- i.e.,  rules of evidence, burdens of proof, procedural rules, and regulatory control over the conduct of attorneys. 
3. Examine how the judiciary generally encourages lawyers to participate actively in the regulatory control over the legal profession and the conduct of lawyers individually.  Therefore, each attorney must keep abreast of such disciplinary and regulatory activities and, as much as possible, actively participate (pro bono, of course) in and support such activities.
4. Assess how and why what CLE authorities describe as "professionalism" is vital as a factor likely to increase, rather than diminish, the public's confidence in the system of justice.
5. Analyze the variety of ways in which a variety of states (but not all states) have formally promulgated rules describing behavioral attributes of conduct by lawyers evincing "professionalism" even though a number of such states have declined to use "professionalism" as the proper description of the mode of behavior – to learn that there's no one-size-fits-all definition of such behavior. 
6. Differentiate among the many duties imposed on lawyers; one of them is to apply critical analysis to all of the legal ethics standards as well as the procedural standards for their enforcement to perhaps motivate legal professionals to try harder to comply, to understand better the "spirit" (rather than merely the "letter") of such standards, and to be willing to serve on Bar committees to study (and potentially propose modifications of) such standards.

Course Time Schedule:

Eastern Time: 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Central Time: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Mountain Time: 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Pacific Time:  10:00 AM - 12:00 PM
Alaska Time: 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Hawaii-Aleutian Time: 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM

This course is also being presented on the following dates:

Tuesday, January 13, 2026
Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Tuesday, January 27, 2026
Tuesday, February 3, 2026
Tuesday, February 10, 2026