Law Commons^™

Reflections Upon Transitions: An Essay On Learning How To Teach After Practicing Law, C. Benjie Louis

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

Every academic year, new law school faculty enter legal academia. Many of these new teachers are practitioners with varying levels of legal practice experience. While the transition from practice to teaching is particular to each person, for clinical professors there are some specific challenges that transform our professional identity. Clinical professors wear many hats: teacher, lawyer, mentor, and scholar. Navigating those many hats and adjusting to various goals of teaching emerging attorneys is only a couple of challenges. Other challenges include changing the focus of our professional identity from career-centered, in its many facets, to student centered.

A core component …