Center on the Legal Profession

On Dec. 11, Harvard Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession (PLP) and the Indian School of Business (ISB) co-hosted a major international conference on the future of corporate business in India and the role of the legal profession. The event was held at the ISB campus in Hyderabad, India.

Stockholm University conferred an honorary doctoral degree on Harvard Law School Professor David B. Wilkins ’80, director of the Program on the Legal Profession and vice dean for global initiatives on the legal profession.

Viet D. Dinh '93, founding partner of Bancroft and a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, spoke at Harvard Law School on Sept. 18 at an event sponsored by Harvard Law School's Program on the Legal Profession. Dinh, who served as U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy from 2001 to 2003 and played a key role in developing legal policy initiatives to combat terrorism, focused his remarks on “Peripatetic Reflections: Government, Academia and Boutique Law Practice."

Over the past 40 years the role of the general counsel has changed dramatically, according to HLS Professor David Wilkins '80, “so that it has become, in my view, the most important position in the legal profession, particularly in the corporate legal world,” he says. But until recently, that model remained uniquely American.

On February 27, the Harvard Law School Program on the Legal Profession sponsored a lecture by ABA President William Robinson III about a critical issue facing the legal system – state court underfunding. Robinson outlined facts and figures that speak to the enormity of the crisis, and underscored what those numbers mean to those seeking justice and to the American concept of democracy.

In today’s NY Times ‘Room for Debate’ online forum, Harvard Law School Professor David Wilkins ’80 writes on the topic of whether or not the Socratic method should still have a role in American legal education today.

It was hard to see him though the cheering crowd when he first walked in, a small, amiable-looking man. By the end of the session, he had gotten his message across about the importance of global leadership and youth empowerment. He was even able to get a room full of people to recite poetry with him. He is Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the 11th president of India.

According to attorney and author Grover E. Cleveland, young lawyers should be reassured by assignments that require all-nighters. “If a senior lawyer left work on your desk and went to sleep, that means that you’ve successfully earned her trust,” he said. Cleveland offered this and other nuggets of wisdom at “Swimming Lessons for Baby Sharks: Thriving in the First Two Years of Law Practice,” an event jointly sponsored by the Harvard Law School Program on the Legal Profession and Office of Career Services on October 4.

Harvard Law School Professor David B. Wilkins will receive the Outstanding Scholar Award from The Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. The award is given annually to a member of the academy who has engaged in outstanding scholarship in the law or in government.

In a Jan. 27 talk titled “Line of Fire: On Being a 'Fortune 10' General Counsel," sponsored by the HLS Program on the Legal Profession, Stephen F. Gates ’72 (M.B.A. ’72) addressed the role and responsibilities of in-house counsel in today’s changing world of legal practice, and he spoke candidly about some of the specific situations he has faced in the “line of fire.”

Legal education is in a period of profound and much-needed change. That was the unanimous assessment of a group of experts at FutureEd2, a major conference at Harvard Law School that attracted more than 150 legal educators, practitioners, businesspeople and students from around the world.

On October 15 and 16, 2010, the Harvard Law School Program on the Legal Profession hosted FutureEd 2: Making Lawyers for the 21st Century. Legal scholars, practitioners and regulators from around the world gathered in Cambridge to discuss the evolution and future of legal education, and to present proposals for change.

Raj Kumar LL.M. ’00 wants to reform India’s legal system—one law student at a time.

Harvard Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession (PLP) and leading European law firm Plesner announced a strategic collaboration today. Plesner will become the first European affiliate and supporter of PLP’s Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry, which conducts and sponsors empirical research on the central questions facing the legal services industry.

Robert D. Joffe ’67, former presiding partner of Cravath, Swaine & Moore and an active member of the HLS alumni community, died Thursday, Jan. 28.  He was 66.

In the wake of the current economic crisis and growing globalization, the job market for lawyers is tougher than at any time in recent history. We asked Professor David Wilkins ’80, head of HLS’s Program on the Legal Profession, how these factors will shape legal practice and education.

Erik D. Ramanathan ’96 was named executive director of the Harvard Law School Program on the Legal Profession and its Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry. Professor David Wilkins, faculty director of the program since 1991, was recently appointed by Dean Martha Minow as the new vice dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession.

Ashish Nanda, Robert Braucher Professor of Practice at HLS, wrote “Lawyers should be recruited like doctors,” an op-ed that appeared in the October 13, 2009, issue of The American Lawyer. Nanda is the faculty director of executive education, and research director at the Program on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School.

David Wilkins, the Lester Kissel Professor of Law at HLS, has been selected to be the 2009 commencement speaker at the University of Iowa College of Law's graduation ceremony on Saturday, May 16.

Law, too, is going offshore. Two Harvard Law students are getting a firsthand look.