Available CLE Credit:    Diversity + Inclusion (1 credit), Professional Practice (2 credits), Ethics (1 credit)                 

Course Description: This 4-hour seminar is a comprehensive look at racial justice in courthouse practice, including the ethical, tactical, and strategic decisions individual practitioners are confronted with in courthouse practice and the mechanisms by which to ensure diversity and inclusion in practice.  Although the modules focus heavily on criminal and family court practice, there is a significant focus on the dynamics race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity in communication, transaction, and negotiation between counsel, between counsel and justices, and between counsel and clients. 

In a two-hour professional practice module, practitioners will learn about race, gender, and Intersectionality in the justice system, including applications of racial in/justice in the different organs of the justice system, statistics on the impact of race and racial justice interventions in the justice system, and key considerations for practitioners in representing clients. In a one-hour ETHICS module, practitioners will review relevant provisions of the rules of professional conduct and consider hypothetical scenarios that implicate these rules, expressedly and impliedly.  Practitioners will have the opportunity to reflect on their putative conduct in relation to the rules and the general obligation to  protect and promote the ethical practice of law.  In a one-hour DIVERSITY + INCLUSION module, practitioners will be informed about the impact of race, gender, and sexuality dynamics in practice, particularly in court.  Practitioners will reflect on whether common or routine dynamics in the courthouse or in their offices actually perpetuate or sustain an intersectional form of racial injustice (which may include and be complicated by misogyny, homophobia, or transphobia).

Course Faculty: Dominique Day, J.D. (see attached bio)