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Download - juridikum, zeitschrift für kritik | recht | gesellschaft

Download - juridikum, zeitschrift für kritik | recht | gesellschaft

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different provisions in the Code of Professional Conduct ofthe Law Society of Siovenia, the CCBE Code, and the ABAModel Rules. I was impressed on how the students appreciatedthat different approaches reflect economics, as weil as thecultural and political context in which professionals practicelaw and make decisions.I was also pleased to see how engaged the students werein the second portion ofthe dass devoted to exploring moralresponsibility of attorneys. On a weekly basis the law studentsat the Ljubljana Law Faculty and my horne law school inTexas completed readings relating to the role ofattorneys andmoral discourse with dients. 26 Then they would exchangeviews, addressing specific questions that I posed via e-mail. Inthe weekly dass meetings the students would explore whatthey learned from the exchanges. During the dass meetingsthe students also participated in exercises and role-plays.I also required that they interview a practitioner. The studentsshared their interview reports with their e-mail partners.This enabled the students to get perspectives of an attorneyin their own country as weil the views of an attorneyfrom another country. The students indicated that theyfound the interviews to be productive and insightful. A fewcommented that the interview exercise gave them a reasonto interview an attorney.The attorney interviews complemented the students'on-line chat with a "holistic" attorney. After they had read anartide on the attorney which induded his views on "therapeuticjurisprudence" they posed questions to hirn on thedass website. A number of students recognized the value ofthe exchange in giving them a perspective on how a goodperson can be a good lawyer.Wh at We Learned from the ExperienceThe comparative legal ethics dass proved to be a very meaningfulexperience for me as the course leader and hopefullyfor the students as participants. The students on both sidesof the Atlantic commented on how much they valued the opportunityto learn from law students and attorneys in a differentculture and legal system, as weil as those in their owncountry. The Siovenian law students realized that Americantelevision programs and movies do not provide a representativeportrayal of law practice in the U. S. The U. S. law studentswho te nd to know little about other legal systemslearned a great deal from personal communications with fu-ture attorneys in former socialist country with a civillaw system.In their final essays, many students noted on the extentto which their e-mail partners shared similar values andviews.The students also appreciated the reflection exercisesand questions. Many explained that they had gone throughtheir legal education spending little or no time seriouslythinking about their role and moral responsibility as attorneys.Given that students in civil law countries tend to pursuea legal education following secondary school, they canonly benefit from experiences that challenge them to considerattorneys' position as public servants. At the same time,the U. S. law students who had previously only taken regulatoryethics dasses blossomed in the exchanges. Some commentedthat they openly expressed themselves in e-mailcommunications, although they seldom spoke in their otherlaw dasses. Based on my experience in teaching the comparativelegal ethics dass I am resolved to create more opportunitiesfor students to reflect on moral responsibility and discoursewith dients.AChalienge for the FutureFor professors who are interested in offering a comparativelegal ethics dass, ample course material is now available. 27Regardless of the emphasis of the course, the Internet willcontinue to be a multi-faceted tool for exploring comparativeethics. By using the Internet and ot.her resources we cantrain our students as internationallawyers who are groundedin their own legal system and "particularly attuned to issuesthat may arise in other jurisdictions."28I hope that my reflections on teaching a comparative legalethics dass provide an impetus for law faculties who are consideringhow to train future attorneys for the challenges theywill face in the twenty-first century. As legal educators it isour responsibility to continuously re-examine our curriculumgenerally and the content of our courses specifically. By criticallyevaluating our students' needs and our teaching objectiveswe recognize our own professional responsibility asgatekeepers ofthe legal profession.Professor Susan Fortney teaches at TexasTech University School of Law; in 2001 shestayed as a Fulbright Scholar at the Universityof Ljubljana Law Faculty.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 The readings principally came from LAWYERS,CliENTS, AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY byThomasL. Shaffer and Robert F. Cochran, Jr. (1994).27 The following materials provide good suggestionsfor structuring a comparative legal ethicscourse: (1) the conference materials from theAmerican Association of law School and AmericanSociety of International Law Workshop on ShiftingBoundaries: Globalization and its Discontents, January4,2000; and (2) a Mary C. Daly article entitled,The Ethicallmplications ofthe Globalizationofthe Legal Profession: AChallenge to the Teachingof Professional Responsibility in the Twenty-FirstCentury, 21 FORDHAM INTERNATIONAL LAW JOUR-NAL 1239,1251 (1998).1 am happyto provide copiesofthese items as weil as my course syllabus.28 Emmanuel Gaillard, A Comparative Look at theRoles, Fundions, and Adivities of U. s. Lawyers andThose in Major European Countries, in A COMPAR­ATIVE VIEW, supra note 22, 221, 224.<strong>juridikum</strong> 3/01 verla~sterreich Seite 147

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