We all crave guidance for our life journey. Ideally, we connect with friends and mentors who dispense useful wisdom that helps us find our way. That sage Yogi Berra is credited with saying, ‘’When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” There can be much value hidden in the enigma of koan-like guidance, but we hope that our mentors can do a little better than this.

As a law professor, I have encountered many students who need guidance about their professional journeys. Some of them even seek it out. Like the rest of us, they hope to find a path that will deliver opportunities for achievement and service that suit their interests, talents, and dispositions. Academics may have a special formative role, but mentoring responsibilities are enjoyed and shared by all members of the bar. Transmitting knowledge and practical wisdom stored in your own reservoir of experience is an implicit duty associated with membership in a profession. We benefit from sharing by others, and we pay it forward by helping others when we can.

The Jesuit approach to education leans away from giving specific directions in response to general requests for guidance. While perhaps not as reserved as Yogi Berra’s approach, we are taught to help each person find answers to deeper questions involving meaning and value. Instead of telling people what to do (putting aside cases when people are going off the rails and getting into trouble), we seek instead to cultivate the internal capacity for discernment and judgment. Classical education models also embrace this approach, which allows people to think for themselves and find their own way, thereby fostering self-guidance in the future and perpetuating a model based on discovery, experimentation, and learning through sharing outcomes.

This reluctance to direct is also rooted in a form of humility about our capacity to know enough about others to truly help them. If each person is a singularity possessing unique gifts and talents, only the Creator would have sufficient knowledge to optimize his or her path toward human flourishing. Although we encourage consultation with the Creator on these and other matters (which seems to occur more regularly around exam time), we still draw from our reservoir to share as much as we can, sometimes providing signposts to identify ideas, opportunities, and experiences that may help them succeed.

If we are truly fortunate, we sometimes get to witness progress toward maturity in those we are allowed to help in some small way. This is a meaningful and rich experience that I hope will motivate all to embrace mentoring opportunities that come your way. What might seem to be an interruption might instead become something more meaningful and important than what we thought we were supposed to be doing.

Curricula for study provide an important tool for guiding young people on their path for development. By channeling students through forms and ideas that others have found useful, a properly designed curriculum develops a common framework that supports formation of the human person. In following the framework, students acquire not only substantive knowledge in key disciplines, but also habits and dispositions that sup­ port their success. Much learning comes from lessons that are caught more than taught. We should not underestimate the power of formation that comes from imitating good models provided by mentors, friends, and colleagues.

Although our forebears in the legal profession relied primarily from an apprenticeship model, programs for academic study eventually developed to provide the initial stages of professional development. Despite different geographical and charismatic influences, these programs show remarkable cohesion. Some similarities may be driven by accreditation practices, but they are also influenced by the traditions, customs, and habits of professional life. Of course, the demands and customs of legal practice change over time to reflect the current environment, requiring academic programs to change as well.

When I joined the Creighton faculty in 1994, students were required to take prescribed courses during the first year. This curricular design had been followed for many years, and other schools had done the same. Within this model, after completing the first-year requirements that introduced them to legal methods, students had free rein during their second and third years to choose their upper-level electives based upon whatever legal subjects might interest them. Students were expected to find their own way, preparing themselves for the modest challenge of the bar examination and even greater challenges of professional life that would lie ahead.

Most students took common electives that addressed substantive knowledge and practical skills to help them, but these selections came from informal custom rather than formal design. Our faculty began wrestling with questions about how to enhance the student success, variation in completing key electives – particularly covering topics found on the bar examination – was identified as a potential area for change. 

In 2001, the law school faculty joined with members of our Alumni Advisory Board (then chaired by Judge Joseph Bataillon) in working to revise the required curriculum. Our process was open and collaborative, drawing upon alumni for insights from their experiences in private practice, business, and judging, as well as the academic and pedagogical insights from faculty members. We chose to expand beyond the required first-year courses in common law subjects (property, torts, criminal law, and contracts), legal research and writing, constitutional law, and civil procedure, to add other required topics in the second and third years, including evidence, criminal procedure, trusts and estates, business associations, and commercial law.

Catalysts affecting reform come from many sources. Government regulation and accreditation demands can provide external pressures for change. But the desire to meet perceived needs in the marketplace also influence adaptation. University education serves other needs beyond the marketplace, but market needs can be especially forceful in the context of professional education.

Law schools are in the middle of a two-sided market, where student demand for education is influenced strongly by employer demand for their future services. Both students and employers have keen interests in the quality of professional formation. Not all electives will provide the same level of preparation for each student’s particular area of interest.

It is common for lawyers to retool themselves along the way by finding and learning a new area of practice. Self-study, CLE, and graduate programs can all play a role in that process. But taking the right courses in law school will offer many benefits in preparing to develop skills in a particular practice area. With proper guidance, students who know enough to have an inkling about a general trajectory for practice may be able to enhance their ability to explore and assess whether it is right for them.

Our faculty reflected on commonalities within various trajectories that students have commonly chosen, identifying core areas of competency and subject matter expertise that would be helpful for continued development. It became clear to us that our students might benefit from additional guidance. However, rather than imposing requirements on all students, this guidance would provide signposts to help students decide for themselves about their own journeys. When they came to a fork in the road, we wanted them to have a good idea about how to choose which fork and to equip them to succeed on that journey.

Concentrations emerged to provide these signposts for our students. They would identify critical elective courses that form a core foundation for a particular area, while allowing choice among other electives tailored to individual interests and goals. A substantial project would also be required to demonstrate additional skill development in that area, as well as the commitment to growth and development. The concentrations would also provide signals to employers about the commitment and preparation from students who completed them.

Initially we provided four concentrations, which included Business, Tax, and Commercial Law; Criminal Law and Procedure; Family Law; and Litigation. Those four concentrations have now expanded to nine as other trajectories have emerged with a critical mass of students interested in pursuing them.

Business, Tax, and Commercial Law is a general topic that potentially encompasses many different specializations. However, the fork in the road for specialization often occurs after the journey progresses. Accordingly, this concentration has the modest goal of equipping students to continue their journey in serving clients in business and related areas.

Students must complete four core courses totaling 13 credit hours: Federal Income Tax, Securities Regulation, Taxation of Business Enterprises, and Business Planning. Tax courses develop skills in understanding and reading statutes, regulations, and other administrative guidance, as well as the application of accounting and economic principles commonly encountered in the business environment. Securities Regulation likewise provides a rigorous substantive foundation for developing analytical skills, as well as for thinking about regulatory systems and processes in the context of capital formation. Significant policy debates and ethical considerations can also be found in these subjects, which bear upon complexities in our modern world.

The fourth required course, Business Planning, is a cap-stone course that incorporates substantive knowledge gleaned from other courses into designing and implementing solutions to particular business models and fundamental transactions. This course was taught for years by Professor Roland Santoni, who was renowned within the bar for his skills and insights in this area. Gary Batenhorst followed Professor Santoni as an adjunct faculty member, teaching this course for several years while juggling the responsibilities of his busy law practice. My former student, Amanda Swisher, continues this tradition as a new adjunct faculty teaching this course.

These four core courses are added to related requirements for all students, including Contracts I and II, Business Associations, and Commercial Law. Students complete the concentration by choosing five additional credit hours from more than 20 other elective courses, ranging from antitrust law to trademarks. Electives provide a mix of substantive law and skill development, including drafting and negotiation. For example, Professor Sieberson’s International Business Contracting course includes negotiations with students in Europe to develop and draft solutions to various cross-border legal problems. This course draws upon his own considerable practice expertise, which has benefited numerous students.

Students must maintain at least a B grade in courses they use to fulfill the concentration. They must also complete a substantial writing project, which further demonstrates skill development and commitment that goes beyond already rigorous requirements of completing a law school education. Students who have completed this concentration have gone on to successful careers in private practice, business, and government. Some also have gone on to LLM programs in taxation.

As we all know so well, law school only begins the journey of professional preparation, which extends throughout our lives. The academic mission of a professional school cannot be fulfilled in isolation. Success depends on relationships of trust and engagement that extend outside the academy. Creighton has been blessed with generosity from members of the bar serving in legal, business, and government settings who have been willing to share skills, knowledge, and wisdom to help form the next generation. Let us continue this worthy tradition of channeling good decisions together.

Edward A. Morse is a professor of law and holds the McGrath North Endowed Chair in Business Law at Creighton University School of Law. This article was republished from The Nebraska Lawyer, the official publication of the Nebraska State Bar Association. Find more at nebar.com.