Liz Ryan Cole
Faculty Directory

Liz Ryan Cole

Titles

  • Professor of Law Emerita

Degrees

  • JD, Boston University, 1973
  • BA, Oberlin College, 1968

Contact

Phone: 802-831-1240

Biography

Professor Liz Ryan Cole specializes in legal ethics and clinical legal education. As founding director of the Semester in Practice, she designed the field placement course and taught and supervised full-time and part-time clinical externships all over the world from 1984 to 2012. She currently teaches Legal Ethics in the Practice of Law, a problem based course in professional responsibility, and actively supports adopters of the course book, Legal Ethics in the Practice of Law, 4th ed. Zitrin, Langford and Cole. A fifth edition, designed for use in multiple settings, not only the classroom but also in internal clinics and externships, will be published in the summer of 2018.

Professor Cole’s formal education includes a BA (Oberlin College, 1968), a JD (Boston University, 1973) and coursework at Yale’s School of Organization and Management, and the National Training Labs (Bethel, Maine). She practiced law in San Jose, California from 1974 to 1977, both with Community Legal Services and as a partner in the firm of Katz, Cole and Beam. She was the Legal Services Training and Advocacy Project’s training coordinator in New Haven, Connecticut, from 1978 to 1980, and the Legal Services Corporation Region II training coordinator from 1980 to 1983.

Professor Cole joined Vermont Law School’s faculty in 1984 as director of the Semester in Practice program and director of the Office of Career Services. She has been a trustee of Vermont Legal Aid and served on several committees for the Vermont Bar Association. She was a founder and first president of the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) and in 2002 received CLEA’s Outstanding Advocate for Clinical Legal Education Award. She is a member of the Global Alliance for Justice Education (GAJE), and pursues her interest in international collaboration across legal cultures whenever possible. She writes and speaks on legal education, including comparative and clinical legal education, legal ethics, and the training and supervision of law students and lawyers. Professor Cole is qualified to administer the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator©, and uses this instrument often with students and lawyers as they improve their understanding of how they make decisions. She is an owner/developer of Pinnacle Project, a co-housing community, a member of the CoHo/US Advocacy & Affordability team, a member of her town’s planning commission and conducts workshops for lawyers and judges on improving their ability to give and receive feedback.

Expertise

  • Legal Education

Courses Taught

  • Independent Research Project
  • Interviewing and Counseling
  • Legal Profession