Enhancing Emotional Competencies with Law Students

This paper follows a preliminary report titled ‘A Client-Focused Practice: Developing and Testing Emotional Competency in Clinical Legal Interviews’. It provides the final results of research with students at the University of Newcastle Legal Centre, Australia, that was designed to test ways to enhance emotional competencies in clinical placements. In our earlier paper we discussed why it is becoming increasingly important for law students to be introduced to the concept of emotional intelligence (EI) and provided with the opportunity to develop and enhance their EI abilities. As stated there, the Teaching and Learning Outcomes (especially TLO 5) in legal education recognise that employers expect law graduates to have well-developed self-awareness and the kind of good communication skills that require emotional capacities. While this study involves students on placement in a community legal centre practice, the need for law students to enhance their emotional capacities is just as significant for commercial legal practice. In fact, commercial practice often involves billing clients based on time spent which potentially adds another level of stress for the lawyer requiring well-developed emotional competence. The concept of emotional intelligence is relatively recent although the relevance of human emotion has been reflected upon for centuries. In the early 20th century, psychologists developed ‘IQ’ tests to measure intelligence. In the 1990s the possibility of a social intelligence or EI caught the imagination of the public. Unsubstantiated claims about the benefits of EI and controversy over whether it should be considered an ‘ability’ or a ‘trait’ led to distrust about its validity or measurability, however some well-respected tests emerged. ‘Ability’ EI is usually measured through problem-solving tests, which are similar to those used in intelligence tests. ‘Trait’ EI is typically regarded as aspects of character, and includes motivation and social competency, and is generally measured using self-report tests.