Law Matters: A Conversation With Vice Dean and Professor Christine Lazaro

As Vice Dean for Academic Affairs, Christine Lazaro oversees academic programming at St. John’s Law. She also teaches a course on Leadership for Lawyers, which she designed, and is Co-Director of the Law School’s in-house Securities Arbitration Clinic. Those diverse roles give her a unique perspective on the hands-on learning that helps today’s law students build impactful and rewarding legal careers. Here, she talks with Dean Jelani Jefferson Exum about the importance of experiential learning in and beyond the classroom.

JJE: Legal practice is deeply practical. Why is experiential learning so essential to preparing students for success as lawyers today?

CL: Students often learn best by doing, and experiential opportunities allow them to apply the legal doctrine they’re learning at St. John’s Law to real-life situations, bridging theory and practice. For example, in our clinics, students help real clients navigate real legal issues. Through our Externship Program, students build practical knowledge and skills working in a variety of legal settings. There are courses where they hone their lawyering skills through exercises that mimic real-world scenarios, such as mock trials and by drafting legal documents. Students also engage with experiential learning outside of the classroom as participants in pro bono activities sponsored by our DiMartino/Smith Public Interest Center and through co-curricular programs like our student-run journals and advocacy competition teams. All these opportunities equip our students to be practice-ready at graduation, so they quickly make meaningful contributions in the field.

JJE: Experiential learning includes reflection and self-evaluation. Why are those elements so important to students’ professional development?

CL: Many students start law school with a perception of what makes a lawyer effective and successful, and often that image isn’t consistent with who they are as authentic individuals. Inauthenticity can lead to career dissatisfaction and burnout. So, at St. John’s Law, we’ve designed the curriculum to help students understand and forge their unique professional identities. That includes opportunities in and beyond the classroom for reflection and self-evaluation. Students come to know their strengths and preferences and find a path that allows them to focus on and amplify them both. Greater authenticity usually leads to greater professional fulfillment.

JJE: You designed the Securities Arbitration Clinic’s seminar component and later developed the Leadership for Lawyers course. How did your Clinic experience shape your approach to teaching students about leadership?

CL: In the Clinic, we teach students how to manage cases and clients with emotional intelligence. But there really wasn’t any other place in the Law School curriculum where we were teaching those skills intentionally. I developed Leadership for Lawyers to help students build that vital skillset while recognizing their leadership role as a lawyer in relation to their clients. They learn about leadership theory and style, and the impact of personality on each. Through small group assignments focused on the growth mindset, they develop the grit and resilience needed to effectively manage challenges. The course also focuses on goal setting, giving and receiving feedback, developing relationships, leading as a follower, effective communication, identifying and managing bias, cultural intelligence, and emotional intelligence. In the Clinic, and now in the Leadership course, guest speakers give students a broad perspective on legal practice styles and help them gain confidence to be their true selves.

JJE: As the profession moves toward the NextGen Bar Exam, with its emphasis on real-world lawyering skills, how does experiential learning help students develop the competencies they’ll need to succeed at licensure?

CL: The NextGen Bar Exam will test our graduates more extensively on skills that make a lawyer effective and successful, including legal research and writing, interviewing and counseling, and dispute resolution. Experiential learning allows students to practice these skills in depth. For example, some classes focus on research and writing legal memos and briefs. Some focus on client representation: interviewing the client, engaging in fact investigation and then counseling the client about their options and providing advice. Some classes focus on client advocacy, in mediation, arbitration, and civil and criminal litigation. Our graduates will be able to demonstrate competency on the new Bar Exam because they will have practiced the requisite skills while learning the law hands on at St. John’s.