Mastering persuasion, navigating professional disagreements, managing the distractions of social media, and unlocking the power of effective listening—these essential skills took center stage on Aug. 22 as first-year students gathered to hear a panel of Fordham Law alumni share insights and strategies for navigating these challenges in their legal careers.
The Professionalism Panel, an annual tradition at the Law School capping orientation, is a unique part of programming for Fordham’s first-year law students. As students assembled en masse in the Constantino Room, the event marked one of the few times the entire class would come together in the same space until they graduate.
The panel featured four alumni from diverse disciplines of the legal profession—Julie Albert ’13, partner at Baker Botts; Khasim Lockhart ’18, associate and co-chair of the Racial Justice Task Force, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz LLP; Katharine Parker ’92, U.S. magistrate judge, Southern District of New York; and Jay Sullivan ’89, consultant, Exec|Comm. The discussion was moderated by Dean Joseph Landau.
The importance of listening—to clients, colleagues, and adversaries—was a recurring theme, especially when it came to a lawyer’s ability to effectively persuade others.
“There is no persuasion without listening,” said Albert. “If you come in hot and say, I’m going to tell you exactly why I’m right, and don’t bother to listen first, you’re not going to get through the door, and you’ve lost before you’ve begun.”
A critical ingredient to listening, in Parker’s view, is empathy. “I learned as a judge to try to understand where someone is coming from, to try to understand what the needs are of the other person or the party,” she said. “I do a lot of settlement conferences. So especially in settlement conferences, it’s really important to understand what are the needs of each side, and how can those be met to resolve a conflict.”
Nodding in agreement, Lockhart added that empathy has a direct relationship to persuasion. “Once you understand where people come from, and you can really … empathize with their emotions … it allows you to be a more persuasive person and allows you to be a better lawyer as well.”
As he recalled his days working at the nonprofit Covenant House in the 1980s with HIV-positive teens who were sheltering there, Sullivan noted that being empathetic is not always easy. “You will never be able to actually put yourself in that person’s position,” Sullivan said. “But doing the best you can to do that, to figure out how to listen better to this person makes all the difference in the world, because you can’t be persuasive if you don’t know their perspective on things.”
Following the panel, which was sponsored by the Fordham Law Alumni Association, Judge Parker led the students in reciting the Fordham Law Professional Oath, a pledge taken by all Fordham Law students to act ethically and with integrity in law school and in their legal careers.
As they stood and raised their hands together, they said in unison:
As I enter into the legal profession and begin my legal studies at Fordham Law School, I pledge to act with the utmost good faith and integrity. I will study diligently, commit myself to honest performance on every assignment and examination, and uphold, at all times, Fordham Law School’s Code of Academic Conduct. I will interact with colleagues and adversaries alike with honesty, professionalism, and civility. I will seek opportunities to provide leadership and to serve my community and will behave in ways that reflect positively on me, Fordham Law School, and the legal profession.