There is increasing pressure to evaluate and document the capabilities of students exiting teacher education programs. A professional portfolio can serve as an effective tool for documenting this process. Faculty wishing to institute portfolios in pre-service teacher assessment should be aware of the difficulties that arise during discourse and planning. Court ruling on professional practice should be incorporated into the mind-set of committees when developing procedures and polices of portfolio management. The notion of teacher professionalism as identified by the courts should serve as fuel for continued deliberations to incorporate portfolio assessment strategies into a program. A positive offshoot of portfolio deliberations can be the development of program-wide mission statement or vision for the teaching profession.