identity, power & professional responsiblity

Editors: Leslie Patrice Culver, J.D.; Robert J. Razzante, Ph.D.

Carolina Academic Press (forthcoming 2026).

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law & Communication

Identity, Power & Professional Responsibility: represents the first comprehensive examination of identity performance in the legal profession through a human dignity framework. While traditional professional responsibility courses teach the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, this interdisciplinary casebook bridges Law and Communication scholarship to address what institutional diversity efforts have failed to provide: practical navigation tools for conscious identity choices.

The legal profession has studied its diversity challenges for decades. What remains absent are frameworks equipping individual lawyers to navigate professional identity formation with cultural awareness and agency. This book places interdisciplinary knowledge before readers—spanning dignity violations, professional exclusion, categorical thinking, and the social construction of inherited professional advantage—knowledge that, once learned, cannot be unlearned. Where legal scholarship identified identity strategies as evidence of discrimination, communication scholarship provides micro-level communication skills students can apply immediately.

The book's contribution is inspiring individuals to bring human dignity to daily interactions with members of the Bench and Bar, so differences no longer cost access or advancement.

aBA profile of the Legal Profession

These demographic realities represent the American Bar Association's Profile of the Legal Profession in 2024. Despite decades of commission reports and diversity initiatives aimed at eliminating bias and enhancing full participation by those historically excluded, the profession remains predominately European American and male.

Because of these demographics, the book focuses specifically on how ethnicity and gender operate as categories structuring professional identity formation. The book further examines the specific historical construction of racial and gender categories that created the professional architecture today's lawyers must navigate, where identity performance remains a documented survival strategy for those outside the dominant demographic.

This focus reveals a crucial insight: institutional mechanisms cannot mandate what only individuals can choose—to honor dignity in daily interactions. Understanding these demographics means recognizing that lawyers navigate a professional culture built on exclusion, where differences continue to cost access and advancement.

an invitation to readers...

This book will give readers language for what has been previously unnamed.

Readers will understand the mechanisms. They will see the history. They will learn the frameworks. What remains is choice: How will you respond?

This is not about guilt. It does not demand allyship or call readers to become "woke." It asks only that readers recognize what decades of scholarship have documented—that differences cost in the legal profession—and offers tools for conscious choice-making rather than reactive performance.

Every interaction with colleagues, opposing counsel, clients, judges, and court staff is an opportunity to either perpetuate inherited patterns or honor human dignity. The profession's exclusionary architecture is inherited, not inevitable. Readers are not bound by any of it.

This book equips readers to make conscious choices about identity performance, so differences no longer cost access or advancement.

2L, Spring 2023

"Pause and Reflect”

Identity and power used to be politicized in my mind, however, this class has opened my eyes to a growing and critical field of study that is trying to provide solutions or frameworks to issues around identity and power in society. Many of the studies and research read in this class are things I wouldn’t have read on my own and I am very grateful to have been guided through this topic and research.

As I work on cultural awareness throughout my life, this class reminds me to pause and reflect more on my thoughts, biases, and interactions. Rather than putting people in a box when I first meet them, this class has taught me to allow others to introduce, define, and highlight who they are as a person instead. These two lessons, among many others I have learned this semester, are what I hope to incorporate into my practice of law and the rest of my time in law school.

3L, Spring 2022

"Overwhelmed by Gratitude"

I have been pushed in more ways than one this semester. Yet, as the end of term approaches, I am overwhelmed by one emotion–gratitude.

2L Spring 2023

"Finding the Words"

One of the things that surprised me with this class . . . , was the vocabulary that we all learned. In some ways it seems silly to say that learning new words could make such a big difference, particularly because we are all highly educated people to begin with at this point. But having the language to discuss these topics made such a huge difference! In some ways I think that vocabulary and language can really bring people together. When you have experienced something personally and you don’t really know how to describe it, then you finally find a word that perfectly describes your experience, I feel like [it] lets you know that you are not alone. Other people experience so many of the same challenges, and being able to call them out by name is so powerful.

A human Dignity philosophy

This book grounds its analysis in a human dignity framework—a principle with theological, philosophical, and legal foundations spanning centuries. Human dignity does not resolve social stratification, but it provides a foundation for the legal profession to move toward human interactions and human unity both in view of and across differences in a dignified way. Where institutional mechanisms have repeatedly failed, dignity places the work where it belongs: with individuals making daily choices about how to treat each other.

Other Books

If you’re going to law school but have no idea what to expect, you’re not alone. Law school can be overwhelming. You’re learning a new way of thinking and doing an enormous amount of work, and maybe struggling to reach the same level of achievement you have in the past. On top of that, you’re still finding your path in a new profession, learning its rules, expectations, and possibilities.

The aim of this book is to help prepare you for the challenges ahead. It tells you what to expect and how to make sure that you end up on a career path that you’re happy with. Covering everything from preparing for law school to becoming an attorney, this book is your guide to what’s really important over the next few years. We’ll talk about what law school is like, how to stay healthy and avoid burnout, and how to get the most out of your experience so that you set yourself up for success as a lawyer. Law school is challenging, but you can handle it with strategic planning and advice from people who have been there.

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