David Wilkins

A program at the University of Baltimore School of Law recruits African-American undergraduates to confront the disproportionately small number of black lawyers in the U.S....David B. Wilkins, faculty director for the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School, said the gap is especially pronounced when looking at the most prestigious and highly paid positions, such as law firm partners. What makes people think our legal system is fair, in part, is when they believe all views are represented, Wilkins said. “If an important demographic in our country feels less valued in the profession, this is going to make the system seem less legitimate, particularly to black Americans.”...A report by the Center on the Legal Profession about black graduates of Harvard’s law school took a deeper look at African-Americans working in the legal profession. Surveying virtually all of the law school’s living African-American graduates, the report looked at their current jobs, career trajectories, levels of satisfaction and attitudes on race relations.

We know the number of blacks in the profession is still abysmal, but what about those who graduate from tippy-top law schools? Do they enjoy an advantage? The short answer is yes—with qualifiers. That's the finding of Harvard Law School's 2016 study of its black alumni authored by Harvard law professor David Wilkins, the report takes an exhaustive look at the career patterns of black graduates from 2000-2016, painting a picture that's both hopeful and ominous...In fact, respondents to the survey rated HLS's prestige factor (the "H-Bomb") as "extremely important" to their career advancement, outranking all diversity initiatives. "It provides credential and network—and those things are way more important if you're black," says Wilkins.

Hundreds of friends, family members, and colleagues of Law School professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr. celebrated his lifetime of legal work at an event announcing a professorship endowed in his honor earlier this month. Law School professor David B. Wilkins said the idea of endowing a Law School professorship in Ogletree’s honor came about during a discussion between some of Ogletree’s good friends, including Harvard Corporation members Kenneth I. Chenault and Ted V. Wells...Tomiko Brown-Nagin, a Law School professor and the current faculty director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute, also emphasized Ogletree's work regarding sexual harassment..."He also helped raise consciousness about the sexual harassment of working women—an enduring issue for women across a range of industries—through his representation of Professor Anita Hill,” Brown Nagin wrote in an email.

It felt like a family reunion — with 600 relatives. That many friends, former students, colleagues, and well-wishers gathered Monday in a joyful celebration of the life and career of Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree, advocate for Civil Rights, author of books on race and justice, and mentor to former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama...And when John Manning, the Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law at HLS, announced that a group of Ogletree’s friends had established an endowed professorship in his honor, the Charles J. Ogletree Jr. Chair in Race and Criminal Justice, the news brought down the house...The chair was made possible through the generosity of a group of Ogletree’s close friends, said David Wilkins, Lester Kissel Professor of Law. “When the history of Harvard Law School in the 20th century is written, Charles Ogletree’s name will be among the first ones mentioned,” said Wilkins...The panelists told stories to “bring home the Tree-ness of Tree,” as Randall Kennedy, Michael R. Klein Professor of Law, explained...Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law, said, “Throughout his career, Ogletree has embodied law in the service of society, just the same as other great beacons of the American legal profession, men and women like Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, and Charles Hamilton Houston.”...Another frequent participant was Obama classmate Kenneth Mack ’91, the Lawrence D. Biele Professor of Law. Mack said he learned about Houston in a Saturday School class. It was a time, he added, when few people knew about the lawyer whom Ogletree deemed one of the 20th century’s greatest legal minds and Civil Rights lawyers.

Ten Harvard Law School student affinity groups have endorsed Professor David B. Wilkins ’77 to be the next Dean of the Law School in a letter published in The Harvard Law Record Wednesday...Natalie D. Vernon [`17], who co-wrote the letter and is the president of the Women’s Law Association, said drafters of the letter started by determining the qualities of an individual who would be best suited to the deanship. “We started with a big picture conversation about the qualities we think a dean should possess,” Vernon said. “We took a look around and we had some conversations about who would best meet these qualities, and Professor Wilkins is above and beyond the best candidate for the job.” Kristin A. Turner [`17], who also co-wrote the letter and is the president of the Black Law Students’ Association, said the students who drafted the letter decided to endorse a specific candidate to offer a concrete option.

...The firm celebrates its 100 anniversary this year. Established by William Vinson and James Elkins, the two-person law firm has grown to about 700 attorneys with 16 offices across the world — with the largest office still in Houston...Henderson said a 2010 study of law firms showed many of the top-performing law firms in the 1940s had strong relationships with major commercial and investment banks. Almost 70 years later, those firms were still some of the largest firms, he said. In the early 20th century, many law firms located their offices in the banks they represented, according to David Wilkins, professor at Harvard Law School. “This is unusual in its origin story, but the basic story is very similar,” Wilkins said.

In a move that illustrates how the professional services market is changing, about half of General Electric’s tax department — once described as as ‘the world’s best tax law firm’ — is moving to PwC in April...David Wilkins, a Harvard Law Professor who is researching the Big Four, said it is an example of how these firms have expanded beyond accounting, and gained a foothold in the legal market by selling their expertise across a broad range of areas well beyond tax, and into compliance, regulatory planning and other specialties. “It is the evolution of the professional service firm model,” said Wilkins, who is faculty director of the Harvard’s Center on the Legal Profession.

In the wake of Donald Trump's election, several Big Law leaders are calling on the profession to take a more vocal and visible stand to protect the rule of law. "Given the election and its many implications, there has been no moment in recent memory when it has been more important for lawyers to fulfill their professional responsibilities," says William Lee, former co-chairman of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. "As a profession, we must ensure that the rule of law that is our fundamental core value is our highest priority and applicable and available to everyone."...Two years ago, Wilmer's Lee and two other prominent lawyers made a clarion call in an article entitled "Lawyers as Professionals and as Citizens." Lee and the two other authors—former General Electric Corp. general counsel Benjamin Heineman Jr. and Harvard Law School professor David Wilkins—argued that law firms should play a bigger role defending the rule of law. The article, published by the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School, called for the emergence a new generation of leaders in the mold of Robert Fiske of Davis Polk & Wardwell and the late Lloyd Cutler of Wilmer.

Chapman & Cutler took a bruising during a City Council committee meeting last month for the racial uniformity among its lawyers. It was a public display of what some companies tell their law firms in private: Improve diversity within your ranks or lose our business..."If you talk to general counsels, they'll say things like, 'Diversity is the most important thing when we hire people; if a law firm isn't diverse enough, we kick them to the curb,' " says David Wilkins, director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. "If that were true, (law firms) would look a lot different." Wilkins, a Hyde Park native, wrote two seminal studies in the 1990s that examined the dearth of black partners in large law firms, with Chicago as his main laboratory. The two typical explanations for the underrepresentation of minorities, particularly African-Americans, in Big Law are implicit bias and a shallow pool of qualified lawyers. Both explanations have merit, he says, and neither goes far enough.

Ken Gormley kicked off his official start as president of Duquesne University with good news for his employees: They're all getting a 2 percent raise...“With his new responsibilities,” said David Wilkins, Gormley's longtime associate and Harvard Law School professor, “he is destined to become a central figure in the world of higher education generally, at a time when universities desperately need the kind of subtle intelligence, openness of mind” and perseverance Gormley demonstrates.

When Bishop C. Holifield was a student at Harvard Law School in 1967 at the apex of the civil rights movement, the fledgling organization he had founded—the Harvard Black Law Students Association—had just two members: himself and co-founder Reginald E. Gilliam. Nearly 50 years and six deans later, BLSA has a membership of around 150 students, the Law School has seen a marked increase in the numbers of black students and faculty, and several waves of race-related activism have swept its campus...The Celebration of Black Alumni was started by alumnus and Law professor David B. Wilkins in 2000 to showcase the accomplishments of black Law School graduates and entice them back to campus. He said he had observed that many black alumni previously avoided general class reunions, because of their troubled relationship with the Law School. “For many of the black alumni, it was a difficult experience for a variety of reasons and one of them was they didn’t feel welcomed or included in the school in many ways,” Wilkins said. “[CBA] was a kind of transformative experience for people, and it gave them an opportunity to work through some of the pain that they had associated with the school, and to reconcile with themselves that the school had actually done wonderful things for them over the years.”

A week after Harvard Law School’s seal change became final, a group of faculty members are publicly speaking out in support of Law School Dean Martha L. Minow, charging that student activists at the school have not given her due credit for her efforts to address racial issues on campus. Seven Law School faculty members—Glenn Cohen, Randall L. Kennedy, Richard J. Lazarus, Todd D. Rakoff, Carol S. Steiker, Kristen A. Stilt, and David B. Wilkins—published an open letter in the Harvard Law Record Monday defending Minow. They wrote, “Our goal here is… to express our support and deep appreciation for Dean Minow and all that she has done during this difficult and important process, and to advance the cause of justice throughout her long and distinguished career.”

The thought of returning to law school just a few years after graduation would fill many young lawyers with dread. But for midlevel associates Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, a unique training program at Harvard Law School has become a prized rite of passage...The Milbank@Harvard program is unique in its focus on teaching law firm associates applied business skills, said Scott Westfahl, faculty director of executive education and professor of practice at Harvard Law School. “I don’t know of another program like this,” Westfahl said. It is administered in conjunction with the Harvard Law School Executive Education Program, which was founded by Professors David Wilkins and Ashish Nanda about eight years ago.