Foreword: Symposium on Current Issues in Professional Identity Formation

On March 8, 2024, the Mercer Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism, in partnership with the Mercer Law Review, held the 24th Annual Georgia Symposium on Ethics and Professionalism. These symposia rotate among Mercer University School of Law, Georgia State University College of Law, Emory University School of Law, and the University of Georgia School of Law. Funding for the symposia comes from endowments created by the settlement of claims of litigation misconduct against the DuPont Corporation and its counsel in litigation in the 1990s. The initiative for the structure of the settlement came from the late Judge Hugh Lawson of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia.

The settlement also endowed professorial chairs in ethics and professionalism at each of these four law schools and created an endowment for the Georgia Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism.