Special Interest Track

Studio 3

Finding Meaning in the Practice: How to Assure Success and Significance in Cynical Times

Speaker: Paula A. Franzese, Peter W. Rodino Professor of Law Seton Hall University School of Law

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g Meanin; Through Service

BY PAULA A. FRANZESE

"I have come tothefrightening conclusion thatIam the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes theweather. Ipossess tremendous power to make a life miserable orjoyous. Ican bea tool oftorture oran instrument ofinspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis isescalated or de-escalated, anda person humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. Ifwe treat people asthey ought to be, we help them become what they are capable ofbecoming." Goethe

The ability to derive meaning from our experiences as lawyers depends in significant measure on whether or not we are willing to believe that the law is a good and noble profession. It is not so much the ability to feel optimistic at the start of one's career, when spirits tend to be high and expectations great, but rather the capacity to persist in this hopefulness, over time and against all odds, that is the stuff of greatness.

New JerseyLawyer I December2007 37 hat hopefulness can be found only in service. Albert Schweitzer petty squabbles were getting in the made the point years ago, when he said to a group of graduates, "I way of a real reform effort. I was com don't know what your professional paths will be. But I do know plaining when my father interrupted this. The only ones amongst you who will be happy are those who me and said, "Could it be that you're have sought out, and found, ways to serve." thinking too much about what you're not getting, when you should be Entire books have been devoted to the shortcomings and failings of the legal thinking about what you're not giv profession.1 Lawyers are vilified in countless realms.2 Many in our ranks have opted ing? We get what we give. Is there out.' Others share feelings of significant discontent.' Against this backdrop, it takes something that you are withholding courage to choose to believe that the law can and does afford opportunities to do from this enterprise?" At the close of well and, most essentially, to do good. But it does. And the choice to believe that the conversation, sensing my weari (it's always a choice) becomes its own reward. ness, my dad reminded me that no act We must take care, then, in defining our profession and our place in it. What we of generosity is ever wasted. He con think about most, expands. What we think about most, we move toward. With our tinued, "Our lives are shaped most thoughts and core belief systems, we create a whole range of experiences. In the not by what we take with us, but by world of those experiences, we do not get what we want. We get what we are. A col- what we leave behind." legial and kind practitioner will serve a collegia! and kind profession. Those words became a prophecy of The rewards of compassionate practice are not always immediate. Sometimes sorts. My dad died, unexpectedly, only colleagues disappoint, and matters are fraught with acrimony, but we can choose days later. to hold tight to our esteem for this craft and its participants anyway. We are who Carlos Castaneda wrote, in one of the and what we choose to love, not who or what loves us. True love looks for ways to Don Juan allegories: "The trouble with make other people's lives better. you is, you think you have time." That A few years ago, my daughter Nina, then seven, discovered "The Wizard of Oz" is the trouble with all of us. The time is for the first time.Thereafter, whenever she met someone new, she whispered to me, now for us to remember who we are and "Mommy, is that person a good witch or a bad witch?" It occurred to me that this what we stand for, and to show up, and may be a perfect lens through which to view what we do. As lawyers, we can be speak up, as the givers of hope to people good witches or bad, using the power that comes with our skill and expertise as a and communities in despair. tool to heal or to humiliate, to transcend or to add injury. The challenge is to be a There has never been a more impor good witch in what can sometimes feel like a wicked world. tant time for us, the lawyers, to enter the We all know our share of cynics, described by one writer as "those people fray. Abuses are perpetrated in the name who tell you they see things as they really are, and that things are really rotten. of the law. Too many are denied, by They believethat no one is sincere, and that everyone has secret, selfish reasons poverty or circumstance, access to the for the things they do. They'll tell you that everything isrigged against you, and law. We live in a world divided by fear. no one means what they say. The world, according to the cynic, is a cold and That fear can make us doubt ourselves, cruel place."s believing that we are somehow ill-suited Cynicism has been described as a beliefin nothing.""People who are cynical, or or ill-equipped to meet the challenges at jaded, make their own lives cold because they lack courage. It takes courage to hand. At those times, especially, we believe in things; sometimes things will disappoint you, sometimes people will let must define our mission mightily. Could you down. To havefaith isto risk havingyour heart broken, and the cynic isn't will it be that "our deepest fear is not that we ing to take that risk."7 are inadequate?" Could it be that "our As lawyers, we must be willing to take that risk. People can be mean and cruel and deepest fear is that we are powerful irresponsible, but it is up to us to be good to them anyway, and to help when we beyond measure?'' can. Everyone has their share of sorrows, and everyone has something to teach us. We are here to close the gap between "Ifwe treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they what is and what ought to be. We are ought to be, we help them becomewhat they are capable of becoming."8 To choose here to be the voices of compassionate to see the potential that resides not just in some of us, but in all of us, and to act honesty in a world that is filled with too on that promise, is to risk a broken heart. But a broken heart has more room. much brutality. We are here to make the As a young attorney and new law professor, 1remember phoning home and difference, with one kind impulse and speaking with my dad. I had been working on a pro bono housing court reform one generous response, rendered one project, and felt agitated and disappointed at how local politics, greed and person, one cause and one day at a time.

38 NEW JERSEY LAWYER I December 2007 Seton Hall L. Rev. 488 (1994). lere has never been a more important time for usf 2. Lawyers provide fodder for com the lawyers, to enter the fray. Abuses are perpetrated mentators, comedians and pundits alike. A new book by Marc Galanter, in the name of the law. Too many are denied, by Lowering the Bar: Lawyer Jokes and poverty or circumstance, access to the law.We live in Legal Culture (2005), puts lawyer jokes into an historical perspective a world divided by fear. That fear can make us doubt and concludes that they have ourselves, believing that we are somehow ill-suited or become increasingly nastier and ill-equipped to meet the challenges at hand. At those hostile over time. A reviewer observed: "Historically, lawyer jokes times, especially, we must define our mission mightily. poked fun at lawyers, but did so with some sense of appreciation for their ability to be persuasive and We are here to use our unique expertise out as quickly as it is, what you're doing eloquent at a moment's notice. to give people hope. And this is what we doesn't matter?" 'The boy looks down at Over the past few decades, however, as lawyers do, first and foremost. We the starfish in his hand, the one whose they have become downright give people hope. life is about to be spared. With tremen cruel." Kate Coscarelli, "A Man When all is said and done, our clients dous sincerity and strength of purpose, Walks Into a Bar Association...," may not remember what we did or what the boy replies: "But it does matter to The Star Ledger 25 (Oct. 11, 2005). we said. But they will remember how we this starfish." 3. Examples of attrition in the legal made them feel.10 The antidote to hate is As I write this, as you read this, there profession abound. not more hate. The antidote to fear is is a starfish in each of our hands. Seek 4. Benjamin Sells has written not more fear. It is our capacity to love the wisdom lo see that it is there, and poignantly about the feelings of that softens the hard edges and lightens find the courage to respond with com depression, alienation, and loss of the dark places. passion. We heal this world not with the meaning experienced by many When I was in fifth grade, our grand or sweeping gesture, but with the lawyers. Benjamin Sells, The Soul of teacher challenged us to raise dollars for earnest effort, rendered one person at a the Law (1994). afflicted families. I took this imperative time. After all, the person who saves one 5. Phillip van Munching, Boys Will Put very seriously. I worked hard, going life saves the entire world. 6'a You on a Pedestal (2004). from door to door to raise funds. Final 6. Id. ly, I had collected $27. When I present Endnotes 7. Id. ed it, some of my classmates made fun 1. See, e.g., Sol M. Linowitz with Martin 8. Goethe. of me. (I will not mention names, but I Mayer, The Betrayed Profession: 9. Nelson Mandela, inaugural address could.) They passed notes around to lawyering at the End of the Twentieth as president of the Republic of each other. One said: "Who does she Century, (1994), (recounting inade South Africa, 1994. think she is?" I felt ashamed. I came quacies and shortcomings of con 10. Maya Angelou wrote: "When all is home, and on television that night were temporary law practice); Anthony T. said and done, people won't clips of a young Robert Kennedy, chal Kronman, The Lost Lawyer, (1993), remember what you did or what lenging Americans to be catalysts for the (deploring near-disappearance of you said. They will remember how good. He told the story of the starfish. A the "lawyer-statesman ideal."). you made them feel." young boy is enjoying the seashore, as These themes are explored in some are thousands of beautiful, living of the author's earlier writings. See, Paula A. Franzese is the Peter W. Rodi- starfish. Suddenly, the tide begins to e.g, Paula A. Franzese, To Be the no professor of law at Seton Hall Law pull out, leaving the starfish stranded. Change: Finding Higher Ground in School. Portions ofthis articleare excerpted The boy begins picking them up, one at the Law, 50 Maine L. Rev. 11 (1998); from her contributions to the new book The a time, and casting them back out to Paula A. Franzese, Back to the Affective Assistance of Counsel: The Prac sea. Soon, a man happens by, observes Future: Reclaiming Our Noble Pro tice of Law as a Healing Profession (M. the scene and says: "Hey, kid, give it up. fession (Book Review of Linowitz & Silver, ed., Carolina Academic Press, 2007), Can't you see that with the tide pulling Mayer, The Betrayed Profession), 25 and are reprinted here with permission.

newJersey Lawyer | December 2007 39

LEARN FROM THE UNPRECEDENTED TEN-TIME RECIPIENT OF THE PROFESSOR OF THE YEAR AWARD HOW TO BE YOUR BEST SELF IN LAW SCHOOL, AT WORK AND IN LIFE

A Short & Happy Guide to Being a Law Student A Daily Companion for School, Work and Life By Paula A. Franzese Peter W. Rodino Professor of Law Seton Hall Law School Creator and Editor of the Short & Happy Guide Series™

In this important volume, Prof. Paula Franzese, a nationally acclaimed educator, shares essential wisdom on how to be one’s best self in law school, in the practice of law and in life. A SHORT & HAPPY GUIDE TO BEING A LAW STUDENT is an inspirational companion for law students and practitioners. It presents five guideposts for success as well as advice on how to prepare for class, how to succeed in class and on exams, how to do well on job interviews and how to find meaning in the practice of law. For the past three decades, Paula A. Franzese, the Peter W. Rodino professor of Property, Commercial Law, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and First Amendment Values at Seton Hall Law School, has shared the messages in this book with her students. The result is this compendium to help students of all ages to find success and significance on the law’s path.

Dispelling the cynic’s view of the legal profession, the book presents cause for hope and celebration in the promise and practice of law. It offers heartwarming motivation and useful insights as it guides students and practitioners on how to navigate the challenges of law school, career and daily life. A SHORT & HAPPY GUIDE TO BEING A LAW STUDENT presents the antidote for fear, worry and doubt and an answer to the naysayers.

The book sets forth ways to cope with stress, how to create value in and out of class and at work, how to find teachers and mentors who inspire, what to do in classes and jobs that are uninspiring, how to use social media responsibly, how to find the right career path, how to handle conflict or adversity, what to do before the semester ends, how to prepare for exams and how to avoid common exam-taking pitfalls.

A SHORT & HAPPY GUIDE TO BEING A LAW STUDENT includes:

• A primer on how to read a case book • How to be prepared for class • How to use the language of the law to shine in class • How to present a case, an oral argument or a speech • What do to when you get called on but do not have an answer • What do to in classes that leave you uninspired • How to build an outline to review and study the course material • The interview: How to make a good first impression • Exam preparation’s seven points of light • Exam-taking: Writing a good essay and preparing for objective questions

More than a just a practical, down-to-earth guidebook, A SHORT & HAPPY GUIDE TO BEING A LAW STUDENT inspires and motivates the student and practitioner to pursue excellence and integrity in the pursuit of equal access to justice for all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Paula A. Franzese, the Peter W. Rodino Professor of Law at Seton Hall Law School, is the creator and editor of the Short and Happy Guide series, and is the author of A Short and Happy Guide to Property and A Short and Happy Guide to Being a College Student. She is an accomplished scholar in the arenas of government ethics, social justice and the allocation of property rights. Nationally renowned for her excellence in teaching, she is the unprecedented ten-time recipient of the Student Bar Association’s Professor of the Year Award, has been named “Exemplary Teacher” by the American Association of Higher Education and most recently was named one of only 26 “best law teachers in the United States.’’ Photo by Sean Sime ([email protected])

A Short & Happy Guide to Being a Law Student by Paula A. Franzese will be published by West Academic Publishing in March, 2014. All royalties go to public interest law fellowships. For more information, please visit: http://home.westacademic.com/

LEARN FROM THE UNPRECEDENTED TEN-TIME RECIPIENT OF THE PROFESSOR OF THE YEAR AWARD HOW TO BE YOUR BEST SELF IN SCHOOL, AT WORK AND IN LIFE

A Short & Happy Guide to Being a College Student A Daily Companion for School, Work and Life By Paula A. Franzese Peter W. Rodino Professor of Law Seton Hall Law School Creator and Editor of the Short & Happy Series™

In this important volume for every student, Prof. Paula Franzese, a nationally acclaimed educator, shares essential wisdom on how to be one’s best self in school and in life. A SHORT & HAPPY GUIDE TO BEING A COLLEGE STUDENT began as a set of letters that Professor Franzese wrote to her son as he was about to start college. The letters contained guidance, inspiration and motivation, particularly for those moments when doubt, worry or fear might come creeping in. As the letters piled up, her son said, “Mom, you should write a book.” The result is this inspirational companion for students of all ages to learn how to be the best they can be in and out of class.

The book shares insights from one of the country’s top professors on how to navigate the academic and social challenges that school presents. It sets forth five guideposts for success as well as advice on how to succeed in class, on exams, on job interviews, at work and in relationships.

A SHORT & HAPPY GUIDE TO BEING A COLLEGE STUDENT reveals how to find teachers and mentors who inspire, what to do in classes that are uninspiring, how to cope with stress and how to create value every day. It contains practical insights to help students navigate their way through new terrain to achieve success and, most essentially, significance. The book issues a call to service and a return to first principles. All royalties go to public interest law fellowships to help students to heed that call.

A SHORT & HAPPY GUIDE TO BEING A COLLEGE STUDENT contains chapters for students of all ages on:

• How to arrive at a meaningful set of first principles • How to make wise choices • What to do in the presence of conflict or adversity • How to prepare for class and how to comport oneself in class • The interview: How to make a good first impression • What to remember whenever rejected or criticized • How to cope with a lackluster grade • How to successfully prepare for exams • How to write a good exam • How to find a career path • How to use social media responsibly.

More than a just a practical, down-to-earth guidebook, A SHORT & HAPPY GUIDE TO BEING A COLLEGE STUDENT inspires and motivates students to pursue excellence and integrity in everything they do.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Paula A. Franzese, the Peter W. Rodino Professor of Law at Seton Hall Law School, is the creator and editor of the Short and Happy Guide series, and is the author of A Short and Happy Guide to Property and A Short and Happy Guide to Being a Law Student. She is a leading scholar in the arenas of government ethics, social justice and the allocation of property rights. Nationally renowned for her excellence in teaching, she is the unprecedented ten-time recipient of the Student Bar Association’s Professor of the Year Award, has been named “Exemplary Teacher” by the American Association of Higher Education and most recently was named one of only 26 “best law teachers in the United States.’’ Photo by Sean Sime ([email protected])

A Short & Happy Guide to Being a College Student by Paula A. Franzese will be published by West Academic Publishing in March, 2014. For more information, please visit: http://home.westacademic.com/

Paula A. Franzese Peter W. Rodino Professor of Law

Professor Paula Franzese, the Peter W. Rodino Professor of Law, is one of the country's leading experts in property law as well as government ethics. She has spearheaded ethics reform initiatives on behalf of three governors, serving as Special Ethics Counsel to Governor Richard Codey, Chair of the State Ethics Commission, Vice-Chair of the Election Law Enforcement Commission and as ethics advisor to state and local governments across the country, including Mayor Cory Booker's administration in Newark. In 2014, Professor Franzese was appointed Vice-Chair of the New Jersey Supreme Court Special Committee on Attorney Ethics and Admissions. The author of numerous publications, her scholarship in the area of Property Law includes critical examination of common interest communities, homeowners associations and the dilemma of privatization, the law of servitudes, exclusionary zoning, affordable housing, adverse possession doctrine and takings law. She joined in the submission to the U.S. Supreme Court of an amicus brief in the Kelo Case, and has written and presented on takings law reform. She has been elected a Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, a highly coveted honor, is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, and the recipient of numerous accolades, including the Sir Thomas More Medal of Honor, the YWCA Woman of Influence Award, the Women Lawyers Association's Trailblazer Award, and the State Bar Foundation's Medal of Honor. Most recently, in 2013 she received the Woman of Achievement Award from the NJ Federation of Women's Clubs. In 2011, she was presented with the National Council on Governmental Ethics Laws(COGEL)Award, the highest form of recognition conferred by the organization, in honor of her "significant,demonstrable and positive contributions to the fields of campaign finance, elections, ethics, freedom of information and lobbying over a significant period of time." Amongst her groundbreaking initiatives in those arenas, she and Justice Daniel J. O'Hern promulgated the Uniform Ethics Code, a pioneering statutory achievement and a model for national replication. Professor Franzese is the creator of the acclaimed Short and Happy Guide book series (West Publishing) and is the author of A Short and Happy Guide to Property (2d ed.), A Short and Happy Guide to Being a Law Student and A Short and Happy Guide to Being a College Student. She is the author of Strategies and Techniques for Teaching Property (Aspen), is a contributor to the books America's Second Gilded Age? Perspectives on Law and Class Differences (NYU Press), The Affective Assistance of Counsel: Practicing Law as a Healing Profession (Carolina Academic Press), and Reaction and Reform in New Jersey (Hall Institute). She co-authored Property Law and the Public Interest (with Callies, Mandelker & Hylton), which expansively explored the public interest dimensions of Property law. She serves on the editorial board of the Land Use and Environmental Law Review, a prestigious peer-reviewed scholarly journal. She has published extensively on the anatomy of ethics reform of state and local government, and in the areas of law teaching and attorney professionalism. Nationally renowned for her excellence in law teaching, a new book names Professor Franzese one of only 26 "best law teachers in the United States." The book, What the Best Law Teachers Do (Harvard University Press 2013), profiles in detail the pedagogical approach that renders her a "dazzlingly effective model of rigor, hard work, creativity and humility." Professor Franzese is the unprecedented ten-time recipient of the Student Bar Association's Professor of the Year Award, has been named "Exemplary Teacher" by the American Association of Higher Education and was ranked the Top Law Professor in New Jersey by the New Jersey Law Journal. She has demonstrated and deconstructed her pedagogical expertise on teaching as both art and science at workshops and colloquia across the country. She is the Gilbert's "Legend of the Law" in Property (CD series, Lexis) and the national Property lecturer for the BAR/BRI bar review course. She is the past Chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Teaching Methods and serves as Vice-Chair of the Legal Education Section of the American Bar Association. Professor Franzese was a litigator with Cahill, Gordon, and Reindel in New York City, where she also served as a member of the New York Housing Court Reform Project and the Governor's Task Force on Life and Law. She clerked for Justice Alan B. Handler of the New Jersey Supreme Court. She received her B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Barnard College, Columbia University, where she was awarded the Bryson Prize, Alpha Zeta Fellowship, Marion Churchill White Prize, Davidson-Foreman Foundation Award and Barnard Alumnae Fellowship, and her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, where she was an International Fellow, Teaching Fellow and recipient of the prestigious Rosenman Prize for excellence in public law courses.