This winter, students from the University of Tennessee College of Law’s Institute for Professional Leadership, accompanied by Douglas Blaze and Brad Morgan, learned valuable leadership lessons with their Australian peers by teaming up for a new short course co-offered by the University of Queensland TC Beirne School of Law.
The inaugural offering of the Leading as Lawyers: Trans-Pacific Perspectives course introduced students to basic leadership principles and the value of service through the lens of a lawyer. Students had the opportunity to discuss subtleties in styles and approaches within the two legal systems on either side of the Pacific.
Students from both universities stayed at Emmanuel College on the UQ campus. While the course involved classroom lectures and individual meetings with instructors, the extracurricular cultural activities and excursions were a highlight for UT Law students.
Positive feedback from UT Law students illustrated the value of this innovative course. Raquel Martin (’16) says the experience was eye-opening.
I learned the importance of being honest with myself, knowing who I am and who I want to be and determining how my strengths, weaknesses, and personality traits affect my interactions with others.
“I discovered a lot about myself and my classmates, the future leaders of the American and Australian legal professions,” says Martin. “What I’ll likely never be able to fully articulate, and what I most appreciate, are the lasting relationships I formed with fourteen amazing men and women who ensured that I had the most enlightening and fulfilling experience of my law school career. I can’t thank them enough!”
This course allowed us to ask the hard questions about the legal practice and essentially find ourselves through our studies, our professors, and our interactions with our peers, whether Australian or American.
Hannah Hunt (’17) says the course was “by far” the most important one she would take during her studies.
“While classes and the daily routine of law school can sometimes feel rote, engaging in a seminar setting in Leading as Lawyers—with a different country as the backdrop—has personalized my legal education in ways I could never have imagined,” says Hunt. “My peers and professors have challenged me to seriously contemplate both the type of lawyer and person I want to be and how I can harness the power of positivity, leadership, and more to better myself, the profession, and my community. This is the type of program I will give to in the future as an alumna. It singlehandedly lent meaning to my entire law school career and will continue to inform and inspire my work as a lawyer for many years to come.”
This story was adapted with permission from a story originally published by UQ Law.