Ellis Liang ’19 is one of 14 law students and early-career attorneys chosen by the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE) to participate in a two-week program in Germany and Poland this spring. The program uses the conduct of lawyers and judges in Nazi-occupied Europe as a way to reflect on ethics in the legal profession today.
FASPE provides a historical lens to engage graduate students in professional schools as well as early-stage practitioners in five fields (business, journalism, law, medicine and seminary) in an intensive course of study focused on contemporary ethical issues in their professions.
“By educating students about the causes of the Holocaust and the power of their chosen professions, FASPE seeks to instill a sense of professional responsibility for the ethical and moral choices that the Fellows will make in their careers and in their professional relationships,” said David Goldman, FASPE’s founder and chairman.
Liang said that by participating in the program she “will be more capable of ethically serving my organization and community as I enter the legal practice this fall. I know there are no right answers for the hypotheticals FASPE presents, but I hope the program will give me the tools to ask the right questions when faced with an ethical dilemma.”
Liang is a third-year J.D.-M.B.A. student at Yale Law School and Yale School of Management. She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a B.A. in economics and minor in political economy.
In May, Liang will join 70 FASPE fellows from around the world. They will begin their trip in Berlin before continuing to Poland, where they will attend seminars at Jagiellonian University in Krakow and conclude the program at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Oświęcim.
This article originally appeared in Yale Law School today.