Name: Rebecca Morgan & Roberta Flowers

Title: Professors of Law

School: Stetson University College of Law

Mailing Address:

1401 61st Street S

Gulfport, Florida 33707

Phone: 727-562-7872

Email: morgan@law.stetson.edu

Home Page: http://www.law.stetson.edu/faculty/morgan.htm

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Summary Description:

Program Title: Ethics in an Elder Law Practice (an interactive presentation)

Rebecca C. Morgan

Boston Asset Management Faculty Chair in Elder Law

Director, Center for Excellence in Elder Law

Professor of Law

Roberta K. Flowers

Director, Center for Excellence in Advocacy

Professor of Law

This program is an interactive multimedia presentation of ethical and professionalism issues encountered in an elder law practice. Several different attorney-client scenarios were developed and videotaped that contain various ethical and professionalism situations. Students view the video of an initial client interview where several questionable issues arise. The students then answer a series of multiple choice questions using an audience responder system. The answers, the appropriate ethics rules and professionalism questions are then discussed along with practice tips on how to avoid encountering the ethical problem in practice.

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Program History:

The program videotape was filmed over a year ago and the program has been used every semester since in an Interviewing, Counseling and Negotiation class (course that applies theory and practice of lawyering skills, client counseling, interviewing, and negotiating) and in an Elder Law Seminar (research course on legal topics that impact the elderly). A total of 75 law school graduates have taken these courses and participated in this program. The program is being used at least four times during the current academic year: twice during the current Fall semester in the two courses listed above and twice during the Spring 2004 semester, again in both courses listed above.

At a recent international conference on the future of aging, this program was presented to over 160 law students, practitioners and legal scholars who were in attendance. The presentation content of the program overwhelmingly received the highest rating of all sessions from that conference. This program has also been used in five other seminars and conferences, each time receiving rave reviews for presentation and content.

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Confidential Items:

Confidential Materials Not to be Distributed or Published:

1.Multiple Choice Questions

2.The Video Vignettes. For demonstrative purposes, we can allow certain excerpts of the video to be shown. Please let us know how long of a sample is necessary.

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Expanded Program Description (Optional):

The goal of this program is to teach ethics and professionalism to the students in an interactive and applied way. The video vignettes are a vital part of the program as they show how ethical and professionalism problems can occur in real life and how these problems can develop when an attorney least expects it. The video allows the students to see and experience an attorney who finds themselves in a questionable situation. The multiple choice questions and follow-up discussion provide students with the necessary tools for analyzing and answering real life ethical and professionalism problems. By referencing the Professional Conduct Rules and some case law, we hope to give students practice tips on avoiding ethical and professionalism problems from occurring in their practices.

One of the assessment strategies that we employ is the multiple choice questions given after a vignette is viewed. The students utilize a responder system, which allows for anonymous (and hopefully more genuine) responses to the questions. The objective is to gather the answers to the questions, determine the number of students who picked the “right” answer and discuss the reasoning for the answers given. Most of the questions have more than one right answer, but it is most important to stress to the students the need to pay attention to potential professional pitfalls. We hope this exercise will give the students a reference point for making decisions when dealing with clients by placing them in the practitioners shoes.

Five additional ethical and professionalism interviews are currently being produced and will be added to the program video. Ongoing research will track the responses of students who have participated in this program. With the viewing of the program by practicing lawyers at various seminars and conferences, we are able to gather additional data and future research will compare the responses from students and practitioners. As more vignettes are developed, it is hoped that students who first participated in this program can be tracked once they enter their professional lives and participate in the program at these other conferences and seminars. We will continue to collect the response data and write on this topic once sufficient research has been completed.

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Supporting Materials:

Supporting materials hard copies to be mailed

- Program Outline (digital version will hopefully be emailed)

- Multiple Choice Questions

- Video Vignettes