Published: “Insights from Psychology: Teaching Behavioral Legal Ethics as a Core Element of Professional Responsibility”

The final version of my article, Insights from Psychology: Teaching Behavioral Legal Ethics as a Core Element of Professional Responsibility, has been published in the Michigan State Law Review.  It is available here.

ABSTRACT

The field of behavioral legal ethics—which draws on a large body of empirical research   to   explore  how   subtle   and   often   unconscious psychological factors  influence  ethical  decision-making  by  lawyers—has gained significant attention recently, including by many scholars who have called  for  a pedagogy  that  incorporates  behavioral  lessons  into  the professional  responsibility  curriculum.  This Article provides one of the first comprehensive accounts of how law teachers can meet this challenge. Based on an approach that employs a variety of experiential techniques to immerse students in the contextual and emotional aspects of legal practice, it provides a detailed model of how to teach legal ethics from a behavioral perspective.   Reflections   on   the   approach,   including   the   encouraging   response   expressed   by   students   to   this   interdisciplinary   method   of  instruction, are also discussed.

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