Professor Louis M Brown Father of Preventive Law
and the Client Counseling Competition pres
As law students worldwide learn the skills of interviewing and counseling in their colleges and through national and international competitions, we all owe a debt of gratitude to one man for his foresight and perseverance: Professor Louis M. Brown. Professor Brown was a tax lawyer who contributed cutting edge books and articles throughout his career and taught law students at the University of Southern California. His goal: to teach law students the skills that they could use in practice rather than just focus on theory and case law. As one example, Professor Brown believed that students should learn interviewing and negotiation in law office environments rather than the standard classroom setting. He invented the Law Office Classroom at his home law school and donated funds for other law office classrooms at other law schools throughout the year. Professor Brown personally invented the field of Preventive Law which is now taught worldwide as a discipline to help clients avoid future conflict and have lawyers become legal wellness providers. Rather than just talk about client counseling, Professor Brown wanted law students to do it. He urged students to perform simulations evaluated not just by lawyers, but also by mental health professionals and counselors from various disciplines. In addition to teaching his own students, he arranged and personally funded inter-law school competitions and eventually urged the American Bar Association to sponsor a national competition. The main bar was not interested, but the ABA Law Student Division adopted this law school competition because many of their teachers would not offer this practical experience. Professor Brown chaired the ABA Law Student Division Committee that managed the competition for many years, and I was very proud to succeed him as ABA Chair in 1984 and as International Chair in 1989. Professor Brown dreamed that Client Counseling would go international. He started by integrating Canadian Law Schools as competitors in the ABA event and in 1986, England-Wales, Canada, and the US formed the International Counseling Competition which has grown into its present form with much expansion planned for the future. In many countries, law students are the moving force for students to form national competitions and expand clinical educational offerings to better prepare them to help clients throughout their careers. Forrest S. Mosten La Jolla, California March 2024 Here are some articles written by Professor Brown about the competition:
Access Professor Brown's prescient agenda for the world and legal profession here. To learn more about Louis M Brown and his enormous contribution to the competition, preventive lawyering, and the education of law students, check out some of these sources: |