W. Lee Burge Chair in Law & Ethics: The Burge Chair was established by an endowment from the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, using funds collected for alleged lawyer misconduct to promote ethics, professionalism and access to justice.
Clark D. Cunningham, professor of law and the inaugural holder of the W. Lee Burge Chair in Law & Ethics, is the director of the National Institute for Teaching Ethics & Professionalism, a consortium of ethics centers at six universities, and the co-editor of the International Forum on Teaching Legal Ethics & Professionalism. He is one of the world’s leading experts on teaching legal ethics and on reform in legal education.
He designed and teaches two innovative courses that provide an accelerated transition to practice by teaching fundamental knowledge, skills and values needed to begin a legal career in a wide variety of settings: Fundamentals of Law Practice and Transition to Practice. In both courses, students appear in Superior Court representing domestic violence victims in civil protection order proceedings and do fieldwork with a private attorney working in a practice area of interest to them. He also teaches The Client Relationship, which satisfies the professional responsibility requirement.
The International Forum on Teaching Legal Ethics and Professionalism website is designed as an online gathering place, resource repository, and clearinghouse for an international community of ethics teachers, scholars, and practitioners. The website provides an organizing tool for efforts to change the culture of legal education and to increase the emphasis on ethics and professionalism education across jurisdictions and throughout law schools’ curricula.