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This is only going to elevate the importance of the human el- ement of lawyering. As machines take on some of the techni- cal work, the human element of lawyering will become all the more important.
Another potential concern is that this talk about character downplays the significance of systems and structures. It is ori- ented too individualistically. It does not have to be. There are ways of thinking about character education that are very indi- vidualistically oriented but which do not have to be and should not be. We should be aware that many of the problems that we face require both system-level work and individual-level work. We must not think about all problems as structural and struc-
tural only. We otherwise run the risk of leaving our students and leaving our lawyers with little sense of how they can make any difference on their own.
There are three broad categories where the Wake Forest Lead- ership and Character program focuses. Student focus. Faculty focus. Outward focus.
Student focus work begins before classes even start, in orien- tation. Students complete a character and professional iden- tity survey and then participate in four seventy-five-minute sessions, focused on community and collaboration, trust and teamwork, resilience and intellectual humility, and values and purpose. These sessions help prime students for the ongoing engagement that we hope they will have with this leadership and character content.
After orientation, opportunities for further development exist, including the chance to be part of some very focused pro- grams. Perhaps most significant is the Leadership and Char- acter in the Law Cohort, which includes five 1Ls, 2Ls, and
You may say, “Isn’t something like character already formed early in life, well before law school? Aren’t we wasting our time?” There is a growing body of evidence, including some of the work being done at Wake Forest, that shows that it is not too late. It may just be a bit harder.
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