The Center for Applied Legal Ethics is committed to ensuring USF School of Law's continued involvement on issues affecting legal ethics nationally. Equally important is working locally-at the law school and in the community-to make the subject of legal ethics better understood and more accessible, while increasing both the extent and depth of the discussion on ethical issues of significance to the profession.

• Orientation
• Ethics Symposium Issue of Law Review
• Legal Ethics Essay Contest
• Advanced Ethics Seminars
• On-Campus Speaking Programs
• Public Service Involvement
• Website, Discussion Threads, and Survey

• Seminars for the clinical curriculum
• Interdisciplinary courses and expanded access
• Positions and policy statements on important ethical issues
• Conferences and continuing education programs

CURRENT PROJECTS

Orientation: Incoming USF law students participate in a half-day ethics program during their orientation under the supervision of the CALE and its director, Richard Zitrin. First, they read a book over the summer that focuses on the behavior of lawyers in America. For the past two years, students have read The Moral Compass of the American Lawyer (Ballantine 1999) by Zitrin and USF adjunct professor Carol M. Langford. During August orientation, students attend small-group workshops led jointly by practitioners and USF law faculty that focus on the extent to which being a lawyer is about "Truth" or "Justice," and how financial issues, the demands and ethical requirements of the legal system, and other pressures might affect their adherence to truth and justice, and their own morality, once they enter practice.

These workshops expose students to some of the tensions and ethical dilemmas that they will face in the real world of modern legal practice. After the workshops, the students are brought together for interactive discussions with Professor Zitrin. These discussions allow for a strong practical reality check about the "real world" of lawyering, while at the same time conveying to students that they do not have to give up their sense of morality in order to be an ethical-and excellent-lawyer.

These orientation programs have been replicated at a number of law schools around the country, including several where Professor Zitrin has been invited to lead discussions.

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