Professional Identity Formation of law students

Professional identity formation in law school denotes the processes through which law students acquire the norms, values and attitudes prevalent in the legal profession. It entails forming a professional identity alongside one’s personal identities. This process can be largely tacit, or it can be an acknowledged learning goal within a law school’s curriculum. Various internal and external factors in law school fulfil important roles in the process of forming a professional identity, such as the roles of professors, peers and pedagogy as well as the way in which students become acquainted with the profession during their legal education. Certain distinct features of the culture of the legal profession and how the law is educated in law school define the direction of legal professional identity formation. These features result in students being transformed in different ways during law school.