David Wilkins

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.

In the 1990’s and accelerating into the 2000’s, a number of major law firms adopted a two-tier partnership structure, mainly for economic reasons, legal experts said...Recently, though, that model has been coming under pressure. “When the market went in the downturn, firms found themselves with a lot of non-equity partners who had very little incentive to actually go out and get business, who were being paid a lot of money,” said David Wilkins, a professor at Harvard Law School who has studied the legal profession.

At least three general counsel—Mark Roellig of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., Mark Holden of Koch Industries Inc. and Brad Smith of Microsoft Corp.—are making news for their efforts to improve racial diversity in the business world...The panel will examine the rapid change that has hit all aspects of legal services, driven by technology and globalization, according to LCLC, and relate it to plans for improved diversity. “We're living through one of the greatest disruptions in history," said professor David Wilkins of Harvard Law School, the group's president. “The legal profession is never going to be the same.”

Female lawyers work on average four more hours a week than their male counterparts do, are more likely to not have children and are vastly more likely to work part time or leave the profession altogether once they do have a child, according to a Harvard Law School survey of its graduates, released Monday...“It is painfully evident that female lawyers still bear the overwhelming burden of the legal profession’s continuing struggles to integrate work and family,” the study’s authors said...It is titled “The Women and Men of Harvard Law School: Preliminary Results from the HLS Career Study” and was authored by David B. Wilkins, Bryan Fong and Ronit Dinovitzer.

It’s well-known that women in nearly every sector earn less than their male peers, but in the legal profession the gap appears to actually have grown starting in 1975. That news comes from an empirical study conducted by Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession...“The most important explanatory factor appears to be the fact that men are far more likely than women to work in business (not practicing law), particularly in more recent [classes], and that when they do, they earn total compensation that is far in excess of even their highly paid law firm peers,” the report’s authors wrote. According to the study, authored by David Wilkins, the Lester Kissel Professor of Law at HLS, and also Bryon Fong, assistant research director at HLS’s Center on the Legal Profession, and Ronit Dinovitzer, an associate professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, men from the class of 1995 whose incomes fell in the 75 percentile of those that participated in the survey, made in excess of $1.625 million. Since women in that class were less likely to work in the business sector than their male classmates, they were less likely to earn such outsized compensation, the report notes.

Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession on Monday released the results of a widespread survey of its graduates which suggests women work more hours on average than men, among other potentially myth-busting findings. Through a survey of HLS graduates from the classes of 1975, 1985, 1995 and 2000 and other research, it provides a detailed portrait of the gender gap within the legal profession, including all the ways women have advanced or failed to advance. Entitled, “The Women and Men of Harvard Law School,” it collected data on the four HLS classes through a survey that was sent by mail between 2009 and 2010 and is also available online...The authors include David Wilkins, who is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law at HLS, and also Bryon Fong, assistant research director at HLS’s Center on the Legal Profession, and Ronit Dinovitzer, an associate professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto.

Where is the legal star power on this year’s law school commencement circuit? It seems the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will sit out the 2015 graduation grind. ... Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, seems the 2015 law school graduation MVP. He is slated to deliver remarks during the University of California, Berkeley School of Law’s May 15 ceremony, followed by graduations at Pace Law School on May 17 and New York University School of Law on May 21. Bharara is a veteran on the law commencement scene—he earned rave reviews along with actress Mindy Kaling when they spoke together during Harvard Law School’s class day in 2014. For this year’s class day event, Harvard law students will hear from former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly. The couple has advocated gun control since Giffords was wounded in a 2011 mass shooting. ... At least three Harvard law professors will address students at other schools: Cass Sunstein at the University of Pennsylvania Law School; Charles Fried at Columbia Law School; and David Wilkins at the University of Iowa College of Law.

“There is widespread agreement that the legal profession is in a period of stress and transition; its economic models are under duress; the concepts of its professional uniqueness are narrow and outdated; and, as a result, its ethical imperatives are weakened and their sources ill-defined.” That’s the premise put forth in a paper presented at Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Profession conference today. Authored by former general counsel of the General Electric Corporation Benjamin W. Heineman, Jr., Wilmer Hale partner William F. Lee, and Harvard Law School Vice Dean of the Legal Profession David B. Wilkins, the paper contemplates lawyers’ ethical responsibilities and their role as the profession grows increasingly competitive.

The Standard Indian Legal Citation (SILC) standard has been recognised by Harvard Law School as one of six citation standards and the only citation manual from Asia. The style which had been accepted by around 32 law schools in 2014 shortly after its launch, as reported by Legally India at the time, has seen an adoption and been downloaded by more than 100 colleges...In a press release, Professor David B Wilkins, Harvard Law School’s vice dean for global initiatives on the legal profession and faculty director of the Center on the Legal Profession, said: “In 1926, Erwin Griswold and his student colleagues at the Harvard Law Review published the first edition of “A Uniform System of Citation,” today commonly referred to as “The Blue Book.”

David Wilkins, professor of law at Harvard University and Director of the Center on the Legal Profession, said partners are increasingly switching firms in groups — as demonstrated by at least 12 Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman partners who are joining Winston & Strawn. Wilkins explained what’s driving this trend, and why he expects it to continue at major law firms.

The best law firm websites are complete destinations, not pit stops. Many law firms focus more on the design aspect of their websites, rather than looking at the big picture...It is said that people hire attorneys as much as they hire law firms, and that they deeply value thought leadership. I interviewed Prof. David Wilkins of Harvard Law School and he had this to say about leading with content and ideas. “So I think that thought leadership is very important and I think it’s increasingly important and this is something I think is true at all levels, wherever a lawyer is practicing. That’s because clients understand that the world is becoming increasingly complex and that they are looking for lawyers who can demonstrate an understanding of that complexity and also an ability to help them to navigate that complexity.

Amid the quarterly reports of law firm performance and rankings in various league tables, three vaunted lawyers are calling on firms, in-house counsel and law schools to re-evaluate their priorities and obligations. Ben Heineman Jr., the former general counsel of General Electric Co.; William Lee, a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP; and David Wilkins, a professor at Harvard Law School, have co-written “Lawyers as Professionals and as Citizens: Key Roles and Responsibilities in the 21st Century.” The essay, prompted by a discussion with Harvard Dean Martha Minow, is intended to address the current state of legal practice and education. The three write that there is “widespread agreement that the legal profession is in a period of stress and transition; its economic models are under duress; the concepts of its professional uniqueness are narrow and outdated; and, as a result, its ethical imperatives are weakened and their sources ill-defined.”

Harvard Law School’s Center on the Legal Professionnhas announced the release of their revamped website and the launch of the first-of-its-kind digital magazine, The Practice