Recommended Citation

Mireille Butler and Jaclyn Celebrezze, Teaching Cross-Cultural Communication in Law School: Lessons from Medicine, Social Work, and Business, 16 St. Mary's J. on Legal Malpractice & Ethics 45 (2026), https://digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/faculty-articles/1161

Authors

Mireille Butler, University of Washington School of LawFollow
Jaclyn Celebrezze, University of Washington School of LawFollow

Teaching Cross-Cultural Communication in Law School: Lessons from Medicine, Social Work, and Business

Publication Title

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Legal clients in the United States are increasingly multilingual and multicultural. More than 71 million people living in the United States communicate in a language other than English. Consequently, the lawyer’s duty of shared understanding is taking on new meaning. With the advent of ABA Ethics Opinion 500, cross-cultural communication skills are a lawyer’s ethical duty and a law school’s mandate. Additionally, ABA Standard 303(c) and the potential of increased experiential learning credit requirements make clear that immediate curricular changes are needed. To prepare for the modern practice of law, tomorrow’s lawyers need to develop cross-cultural skills while in law school. Yet only sixty-seven schools list cultural competence as a learning objective.

This Article proceeds in three parts. In Part II, this Article assesses the need for comprehensive cross-cultural competency training in law school, outlining how and when cross-cultural communication skills specifically can—and should—be incorporated into the legal curriculum. In Part III, this Article reviews the cross-cultural competency training and best practices of similarly situated professional fields, identifying common components of cross-cultural competence duties, curricular approaches, and best practices for fostering effective cross-cultural and cross-lingual professional relationships. In Part IV, this Article reviews legal education’s pedagogical approaches to cross-cultural competence, centers our discussion on cross-cultural communication in that framework, and identifies four key concepts necessary for cross-cultural communication and how to incorporate them across the first-year curriculum.