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Professional Development Center for Professional Formation

Center for Professional Formation

Celebrating its Tenth Anniversary, the Center for Professional Formation (formerly Center for Ethical Formation & Legal Education Reform) develops and manages the programs and resources that Regent Law has designed to develop a student’s professional identity. The Center accentuates Regent Law’s expertise in providing practical training that cultivates the judgment essential to the practice of law. Find us on Instagram

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Giving Opportunities

You can be part of the great work we’re doing here at the Center for Professional Formation through giving opportunities, gift matching, and tribute gifts. If you would like to make a gift to the Center for Professional Formation, please contact Pat Trompeter, our Director of Law School Advancement at 757.352.4092 or ptrompeter@regent.edu.

MISSION STATEMENT

The Center’s mission is to help aspiring young lawyers discern God’s purpose in their law practice. The Center achieves its mission in several ways. First, the Center’s nationally recognized mentor program connects students with Christian lawyers and judges who help them recognize how their mentor has responded to God’s call and demonstrate how they can do the same. Second, the Center shows students the process by which they can develop a concrete plan in each of the three years of law school. With this discernment plan as a guide, students are better equipped to explore potential ways to serve God in law. Students refine their discernment plan throughout their law school experience with the support of their alumni and faculty mentors who God has matched according to the student’s gifts and legal needs. Third, the Center provides training in moral development and decision-making. Students hear from their mentors and practicing lawyers about the moral dilemmas inherent in legal practice and how to resolve them. In addition, the Center engages the community by offering Continuing Legal Education (CLE) programs.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

The Center’s faculty publishes and presents on the topic of professional identity formation nationwide. The Center also fosters scholarly inquiry into the pedagogy of moral formation by promoting how law professors can learn to teach within both cognitive and affective paradigms. In this effort, the Center has collaborated with individual professors to incorporate ethical formation instruction into their doctrinal teaching. Director Madison co-authored a chapter on the values important to the legal profession in the influential follow-up to the Carnegie Report, Building on Best Practices in Legal Education: Transforming Legal Education in a Changing World (2015).

MENTORING PROGRAM

The Center pairs incoming first-year students with practicing legal professionals who embody integrity and strong moral character. Mentors assist students in preparing for the challenges of the legal profession and in developing a moral compass. For the 10 years that this program has been in existence, 1,000 students have been paired with alumni mentors across the nation.

EVENT PROGRAMMING

The Center sponsors presentations and panels on topics related to ethical decision-making, professional identity development, and character formation—all relevant to real-life practice settings.

As Director Ben Madison observed, “We are on the cutting edge of legal education.  The Christian approach to educating lawyers has proved to be a strength in responding to legitimate critiques of legal education’s need to focus not just on intellect but also on the whole person.”   The Carnegie Foundation’s landmark report, Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Practice of Law (2007)  indicted law schools for emphasizing intellectual prowess, without spending appropriate time and resources on developing students as professionals.   “Regent Law’s mission as a law school to develop Christian leaders to change the world has already led our school to encourage the development of an intentional, Christian, and professional approach to law practice,” Madison observed.  Our experience doing so has allowed us to become a leader in the nationwide movement to improve the professional formation of law students.   

Last year the American Bar Association adopted standards that require every law school to provide substantial opportunities to students for the development of a student’s professional identity.   Regent Law started the process of enhancing its focus on the entire person, and to help that student know that being a professional requires both intellect and character.   As a result, we are well ahead of other law schools in meeting the ABA standards.     

The Center’s goal is to produce lawyers who understand the nature and purpose of the legal profession and are committed to the ethical practice of law. To that end, the Center has developed the Mentor Program to foster students’ understanding of what it means to practice law with professional and personal integrity. Our mentors represent a variety of practice and geographical legal communities around the country, but each seeks to support and encourage the Center’s mission of encouraging students’ professional identity formation.

During its 10-year existence, the Center has connected nearly 1,000 students to mentors across the nation. Additionally, the Center has been nominated for the ABA’s Gambrell award.  It is fair to say that Regent Law is a leader in the movement to educate law students beyond intellectual knowledge and to help develop character.

CORE COURSEWORK

Core courses such as “Christian Foundations of Law” introduce students to classic texts on the nature of the law and legal ethics. Additionally, the “Foundations of Practice” course exposes students to potential ethical problems and how to solve such problems that they may face when practicing in various areas of law.   The course also requires students to develop a Discernment Plan, in which they explore—with the help of mentors, faculty, and alumni—the areas of law in which the student is best suited to serve others.

In 2024, Regent Law and the Center for Professional Formation were praised for supporting student success in preLaw Magazine’s write-up on the nation’s “Best Value Law Schools.” In ranking Regent Law as the third best value law school in the nation, it stated, “Regent Law has a required 1L course called Foundations of Practice, which allows students to think about the kinds of lawyers they want to be and sets them up for employment success. In that course, students are exposed to a variety of career paths and paired with mentors to help them take practical steps toward the types of jobs they are seeking.”

PROFESSIONAL FORMATION

All courses, where possible, encourage students to produce a critical reflection paper on value conflicts and ethical dilemmas, encouraging students to go beyond simply “learning the rules” of ethical practice.

CRITICAL REFLECTION

Every class includes an extra period of reflection designed to explore the dynamics of moral formation and ethical legal practice in the context of biblical principles, virtue ethics, and natural law.

The Center for Professional Formation introduced its Fellowship Program in 2024. This program offers students a Fellowship opportunity where they partner with the Center in activities and receive opportunities to visit judges, interact with lawyers from different practice areas, and have a form of student leadership. The Fellows are asked to be a resource for new students and help all students on the path of professional identity development. If you are a current student and would like to join this nonexclusive program, please contact Benjamin Madison via email.

At this time, we have welcomed over 30 Fellows including:

Heidi Carey, Harrison Hunter, Diana McBride, Amber Walliser, Lawson Harsch, Katelyn Miller, Naomi Bach, Kyle Pasquerella, Hailey Harp, Bryce Lienemann, Jessica Overbay, Elizabeth Harper, Ruth Jones, Moriah Gaskill, Peter  Keay, Madison Shupe, Pierce Norman, Alexandria Hayward, Ashley Ogden, Ryan Richardson, Justin Velasco, Callum Okie, Hannah Holmes, Natalie Deniston, Cameron Wall, Elie El-Habr, Tucker Blythe, Dade Steiniger, Dillon Stafford,  Hannah Waters, George Alston, Grace Lilly, and Dylan Barton.

Center Staff

Professor Benjamin V. Madison III

Professor Benjamin V. Madison III teaches Civil Procedure and Pretrial Practice and Procedure. His pretrial practice casebook, Civil Procedure for All States: A Context and Practice Casebook (2010), has drawn praise as one of the first casebooks designed according to the recommendations of the Carnegie Institute in its groundbreaking work, Educating Lawyers (2007).  Professor Madison speaks and publishes regularly on helping students discern their calling and develop an integrated professional identity.

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“I encourage all of you to join the CEFLER mentoring program. It’s critical for development because you have to rely on more than just a set of rules; you have to rely on a moral compass.”
K. Barrett Luxhoj,
“I was paired with Mr. Brandon Delfunt, a district attorney near the Atlanta area. He has given me very solid advice, in regard to law school and personally. He told me about how crazy everything can seem in law school with all the assignments and the extra-curricular activities that can pile up. But he also told me that he is glad that he did it. This was very encouraging for me personally because I know what it’s like to feel overwhelmed. I know the day will come when I look back and am glad that I did it, as well.”
Carter Budwell, Mentoring Program Mentee
“The Regent Mentoring Program has been a great experience both in my law school career and beyond. My mentor is Ashley Warner, and we met at the end of my 1L summer. Ashley provided great insight and encouragement regarding the challenges of law school. We stayed in touch after our initial meeting and I interned at the same firm where she practiced during the summer after my 2L year. After graduation from Regent Law, I practiced law at that same firm.”
Stockton Brown, Mentoring Program Mentee