{"id":685,"date":"2014-02-12T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2014-02-12T14:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/?p=685"},"modified":"2014-03-12T11:42:41","modified_gmt":"2014-03-12T15:42:41","slug":"case-studies-conversations-exec-ed-director-scott-westfahl-88","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2014\/02\/12\/case-studies-conversations-exec-ed-director-scott-westfahl-88\/","title":{"rendered":"Case Studies Conversations: Exec Ed Director Scott Westfahl \u201988"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Professor Scott Westfahl \u201988, the new faculty director of HLS Executive Education<\/a>, has been using case studies to train better lawyers for years. Not only did Westfahl serve as Director of Professional Development for Goodwin Procter LLP and Chair of the Professional Development Consortium, but he has also co-taught a section of the HLS Problem Solving Workshop yearly since its inception in 2010. I sat down with Westfahl to hear how case studies and experiential learning inform his mission for educating both seasoned professionals and aspiring lawyers:<\/p>\n

Why are case studies important for professional development?<\/em><\/p>\n

People learn best through the power of story and discussion, and professional development requires context.\u00a0 Law firms and legal educators are now realizing that the typical talking-head panel discussions or partner-delivered PowerPoint presentations on legal topics are mostly ineffective for helping lawyers put theory into practice.\u00a0 Lawyers are all smart enough and enough online resources exist for them to come up to speed on basic legal concepts and frameworks.\u00a0 Rather than waste valuable, in-person instruction time regurgitating such content, instructors using the case study method can assume a base level of subject matter competency and move forward to actively helping participants to work with the relevant material and understand how it really matters.<\/p>\n

Other benefits include trust- and respect-building among colleagues who participate together in case-based learning.\u00a0 For a lawyer in one of these professional development programs, there may be an intense discussion going on that applies to your world. If a colleague makes a terrific contribution, respect increases, and your trust in them as a lawyer increases. Lawyers hesitate to collaborate with people they don\u2019t know; if you haven\u2019t seen someone\u2019s thought process, you\u2019re unlikely to make that referral.\u00a0 Trust and collaboration are essential to realizing the business synergy of scale within a law firm.\u00a0 So our teaching method not only sharpens lawyers\u2019 substantive and professional judgment, it also helps build trust, foster collaboration and enhance a firm\u2019s culture.\u00a0\u00a0 Am I going to call the new guy? If I know he\u2019s smart because we\u2019ve solved a problem together in a case-based class, I am a lot more likely to do so.<\/p>\n

Which case studies work well in a lawyer professional development setting?<\/em><\/p>\n

The classic producer-manager case studies are tremendously effective for law firm partners.\u00a0 They\u2019re normally so focused on their work that it\u2019s hard to gain perspective on where they are in their careers, to see all of the competing demands on their time. Advising clients, managing the business, taking on pro bono work or mentoring roles, being a leader in the community, attending bar events, having a family\u2014the list goes on. So when a partner reads one of the producer-manager case studies, they often have a strong emotional reaction and think \u201csomeone else is describing my life.\u201d It\u2019s cathartic, even more so to be in a room of similarly situated peers. Then, they work together in class to identify coping strategies.<\/p>\n

How are you bringing experiential learning to HLS Executive Education?<\/em><\/p>\n

The core of all of our programs \u2013 for law firm leaders, emerging leaders, associates and corporate counsel \u2013 is experiential learning through the heavy use of case studies and discussion-based learning.\u00a0 As we grow our program to include more legal substantive content, we are going to be developing new case studies and \u201ccaselets\u201d with faculty members in order to leverage the full power of this learning method.\u00a0 I\u2019m confident that this is the way to go and is what practicing lawyers want from us and need.\u00a0 Just look at the success HBS has had in doing this with their Executive Education Program (which just opened its third building, with 75 hotel-style rooms and three classrooms!).\u00a0\u00a0 There is great hunger for programs taught by leading experts in an interactive format that allows participants to learn from each other as well.\u00a0 The distinguishing factor for HLS Executive Education needs to continue to be the way we teach.\u00a0 We don\u2019t convene conferences or compete with external CLE providers and don\u2019t want to.\u00a0 We\u2019re thinking: where\u2019s the discussion-based case learning that makes this different? \u00a0If the only thing special about executive education is the invite list, we haven\u2019t achieved anything new or helpful.<\/p>\n

The beauty of case studies and \u201ccaselets,\u201d again, is that participants also learn from each other. They\u2019re seasoned professionals, and case studies facilitate learning by getting them to talk about challenging scenarios. \u00a0There\u2019s no right answer to these challenges.\u00a0 The case studies allow educators to introduce frameworks, research, and concepts. \u00a0Because the case studies are stories rooted in real situations, participants remember them and are able to apply what they heard as soon as they encounter analogous situations.\u00a0 In my previous role leading professional development at a major law firm, it was INCREDIBLY helpful to me when partners had experienced cases on leadership and motivating others; they could draw lessons from those cases and work with me to implement more effective processes and programs to develop junior lawyers.\u00a0 We were talking the same language and they were conversant with leadership and motivation concepts and frameworks because they had worked through cases that cemented the importance of those concepts and frameworks.\u00a0 Priceless.<\/p>\n

How do Problem Solving Workshop case studies compare to case studies you use in professional development programs?<\/em><\/p>\n

I am a huge fan of Harvard Law School\u2019s PSW case studies.\u00a0 I practiced law for ten years, but very little of what I learned in law school directly applied to my work as a practicing lawyer. My dad was a submarine officer and I grew up on Navy bases all around the country\u2014I didn\u2019t know what lawyers did. I didn\u2019t even know any lawyers.\u00a0 I would have benefitted SO much from PSW because its cases place students in the middle of real situations that lawyers face, and ask students to work in teams to figure out what they should do as the lawyers in those situations.\u00a0 PSW case studies directly involve lawyering skills, whereas other case studies focus on specific dilemmas a leader or an organization is facing. In PSW, students get to see what it\u2019s like to be a particular kind of lawyer, which is especially helpful if students are unfamiliar with the legal profession like I was as a law student.<\/p>\n

At their core, PSW case studies are about teaching judgment in addition to substantive law.\u00a0 If practicing law were only about knowing substantive law, we wouldn\u2019t need PSW.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not.\u00a0 When I was running professional development at a large firm, I once conducted an internal study to identify the factors that correlated most highly with strong associate performance ratings in their annual reviews.\u00a0 By a factor of seven times, judgment was the most important factor.\u00a0\u00a0 So a case study method that develops judgment and perspective for law students is a critical complement to the traditional case method through which students learn legal doctrine.\u00a0 For the good of our profession and to fulfill our mission as a professional school as well as an academic institution, I hope we continue to develop the PSW case study approach so that it becomes as big a part of the way we teach as Langdell\u2019s own method.<\/p>\n

Finally, through my professional development background I have seen firsthand the very disappointing levels of dysfunction within legal organizations that arise because lawyers are not trained to work in and\/or lead teams.\u00a0 That\u2019s why I\u2019m most excited about the team element of PSW\u2014it\u2019s the only core curriculum course at Harvard Law School where students work in teams. \u00a0In my view, our graduates will be MUCH more effective, whatever they decide to do, if we help prepare them to be good team members and leaders.\u00a0 We should help them to learn skills like how to give feedback, have challenging conversations, overcome team obstacles, leverage and appreciate<\/em> other peoples\u2019 strengths\u2014skills that are critical in nearly every environment where our graduates will find themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Scott Westfahl \u201988, the new faculty director of HLS Executive Education, has been using case studies to train better lawyers for years. Not only did Westfahl serve as Director of Professional Development for Goodwin Procter LLP and Chair of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5482,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[88578,88569],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-case-development-initiative-blog-posts","category-problem-solving-workshop-blog-posts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4CR8M-b3","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":603,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2013\/09\/10\/new-beginnings-for-cdi-exec-ed-leadership\/","url_meta":{"origin":685,"position":0},"title":"New Beginnings for CDI, Exec Ed Leadership","author":"Elizabeth Moroney","date":"September 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"HLS Professor Ashish Nanda\u2014who founded the Case Development Initiative, a leading contributor to the Case Studies portal\u2014was recently appointed Director of his alma mater, the Indian Institute of Management\u2013Ahmedabad. Nanda held three appointments at Harvard Law School\u2014Robert Braucher Professor of Practice, Faculty Director of Executive Education, and Research Director at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Case Development Initiative Blog Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Case Development Initiative Blog Posts","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/category\/case-development-initiative-blog-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":919,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2015\/01\/28\/case-writer-qa-dr-lisa-rohrer\/","url_meta":{"origin":685,"position":1},"title":"Case Writer Q&A: Dr. Lisa Rohrer","author":"Elizabeth Moroney","date":"January 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"New Products: Sponsorship at Wilmer Cutler & Pickering (A): Yoon-Young Lee Sponsorship at Wilmer Cutler & Pickering (B): The Sponsor\u2019s Perspective Lisa Rohrer is a seasoned case writer and the Executive Director of the Case Development Initiative at Harvard Law School. She co-wrote CDI\u2019s latest two-part case study, Sponsorship at\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Case Development Initiative Blog Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Case Development Initiative Blog Posts","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/category\/case-development-initiative-blog-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":58,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2012\/12\/20\/information-law-and-policy-advanced-problem-solving-workshop\/","url_meta":{"origin":685,"position":2},"title":"Information Law and Policy: Advanced Problem Solving Workshop","author":"Lisa Brem","date":"December 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"HLS Visiting Professor Susan Crawford taught the Information Law and Policy: Advanced Problem Solving Workshop this fall at HLS. The course combines case studies with mini lectures, classroom exercises and guest speakers to provide an interactive, participant centered experience for students. The case studies were developed in last spring's Advanced\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Problem Solving Workshop Blog Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Problem Solving Workshop Blog Posts","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/category\/problem-solving-workshop-blog-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/files\/2012\/12\/10.16.12Crawfrd0771-300x200.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":462,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2013\/06\/25\/suffolk-law-launches-problem-solving-workshop\/","url_meta":{"origin":685,"position":3},"title":"Suffolk Law Launches Problem Solving Workshop","author":"Elizabeth Moroney","date":"June 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cI have no doubt in my mind that this will be the most memorable course I have taken,\u201d said Suffolk Law student Thomas Lessard on his last day attending the Problem Solving Workshop. At the beginning of this year, Suffolk Law adapted Harvard Law School\u2019s Problem Solving Workshop for its\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Problem Solving Workshop Blog Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Problem Solving Workshop Blog Posts","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/category\/problem-solving-workshop-blog-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.law.suffolk.edu\/faculty\/images\/kvinson.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":729,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2014\/03\/25\/check-out-our-menu-makeover\/","url_meta":{"origin":685,"position":4},"title":"Check Out Our Menu Makeover!","author":"Elizabeth Moroney","date":"March 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Better Browsing and Ready-to-Teach Units on HLS Case Studies Site The Case Studies Program is piloting new website features to help customers explore our offerings. Now, visitors can browse by product type: discussion-based case study, workshop-based case study, role play, DVD, international materials, and free materials. Workshop-based case studies generally\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Case Study Program Blog Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Case Study Program Blog Posts","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/category\/case-study-program-blog-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/files\/2014\/03\/New-menu-500x345.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":831,"url":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/2014\/07\/22\/the-problem-solving-workshop-a-video-introduction\/","url_meta":{"origin":685,"position":5},"title":"The Problem Solving Workshop: A Video Introduction","author":"Elizabeth Moroney","date":"July 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Lisa Brem, Case Studies Program Manager The Problem Solving Workshop (PSW)\u2014a mandatory first-year course at Harvard Law School\u2014has been successfully integrated into the curriculum for five years. The course is a major departure from the rest of the first-year doctrinal courses, focusing instead on hands-on participation from students and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Problem Solving Workshop Blog Posts"","block_context":{"text":"Problem Solving Workshop Blog Posts","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/category\/problem-solving-workshop-blog-posts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/cUTXCD4A968\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5482"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":717,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions\/717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hlscasestudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}