Michele DeStefano Beardslee
Associate Professor of Law

University of Miami School of Law
1311 Miller Drive, Room G284
Coral Gables, FL 33146

Tel: +1 (305) 284-2411
Email: mdbeardslee@law.miami.edu

Professor Michele DeStefano Beardslee was a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, where she was previously the Associate Research Director of the Program on the Legal Profession. Her primary area of scholarly interest is in the growing intersection between law and business, how this intersection is reshaping the role of both inside and outside counsel, and the consequences of these developments for clients, the profession, and the public. Employing a mix of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, Professor Beardslee’s current research investigates the role general counsels play in managing public relations for high profile corporate legal controversies. She teaches courses in professional responsibility, civil procedure, and business associations.

Full Bio and Publications

Department of Sociology
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637

Tel: +1 (773) 702-6515
E-mail: rlancast@uchicago.edu

Ryon Lancaster is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago.  He spent 2004-05 as a graduate fellow with the Program on the Legal Profession. His main project is a study of the processes by which the Medieval Catholic Church in England became a bureaucratic organization over the course of the 12th century. He is also beginning a study of the social determinants of monastery foundings in England prior to the Protestant Reformation.

Additionally, Professor Lancaster is working on two projects that explore the intersection of law and organizations in the modern US. One project explores the changing economic behavior and organizational structures of large US law firms. The second project is affiliated with the American Bar Foundation and explores how the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission processes employment discrimination cases, and how they filter cases into the federal courts. Professor Lancaster's primary research and teaching interests are in organizational sociology, sociology of law, economic sociology, and historical sociology.

American Bar Foundation
750 N. Lakeshore Drive, 4th Floor
Chicago, IL 60611

Tel: +1 (312) 988-6532
Fax: +1 (312) 988-6579
E-mail: rnelson@abfn.org

Professor Nelson is an affiliated faculty member with the Program on the Legal Profession and Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry.  He is a professor of sociology at Northwestern University and Director of the American Bar Foundation.  Professor Nelson has done extensive research on the changing legal profession and award-winning work on discrimination and the law. 

Professor Nelson is a former chair of Northwestern University’s sociology department and the founding director of the American Bar Foundation’s Center for Legal Studies.  His book “Legalizing Gender Equality: U.S. Courts, Markets and Unequal Pay for Women,” which he co-authored with William Bridges, received the Distinguished Publication Award from the American Sociological Association for best book in sociology.  He has served on the Council of the American Sociological Association's Section on the Sociology of Law, the Board of Trustees of the Law and Society Association, and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Law and Society Review.

Full Bio and Publications

Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department
The Wharton School
University of Pennsylvania
3730 Walnut Street, 650 Huntsman Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6340
Tel: (215) 573-4864
Email: gsarfaty@wharton.upenn.edu
website

Galit A. Sarfaty is an Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She holds a JD from Yale Law School and an AB summa cum laude from Harvard College. She is also completing her PhD in Anthropology at the University of Chicago. Ms. Sarfaty expands the focus of the Center’s work by bringing an international and ethical dimension to its research agenda. Her scholarship offers an anthropological perspective to the study of international law and institutions. It uses ethnographic methods to understand the internal dynamics of organizations, the role of lawyers within them, and the diffusion of human rights norms. Her writing is informed by her work experience in a number of organizations, including the World Bank, the International Labor Organization, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

Ms. Sarfaty is currently writing up her dissertation research on human rights and the organizational culture of the World Bank, based on fieldwork conducted at the institution over a four year period. Her future research projects will continue to fit within the Program’s goals of examining the global transformation of the legal profession and the ethical problems confronting it.

Full Bio and Publications

Ann Southworth
Founding Faculty

University of California Irvine School of Law
401 East Peltason Drive, 3500-A
Irvine, CA 92697-8000

Tel: +1 (949) 824-2917
Email: asouthworth@law.uci.edu

Ann Southworth is a founding member of the Faculty of the University of California Irvine School of Law. She was previously a Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University where she taught courses on the legal profession, professional responsibility, and civil procedure. Her research focuses on the norms and practices of the legal profession.  She has written extensively about civil rights and poverty lawyers, and is now writing a book on lawyers of the conservative coalition. 

From 2004-05, Professor Southworth was the Covington & Burling Distinguished Visitor at Harvard Law School.  In addition to her other collaborative work with the Program, she taught a special seminar on “Cause Lawyering” during her time with the Program at HLS in conjunction with Professor Wilkins.

University of Texas School of Law
727 E. Dean Keeton Street
Austin, TX 78705

Tel: +1 (512) 232-1353
E-mail: swilliams@law.utexas.edu

Sean Williams is Assistant Professor at the University of Texas School of Law where he teaches Family Law. He worked with the Program from 2007-2008 following two years as a Climenko Fellow at Harvard Law School.  As part of the Program’s Corporate Purchasing Project, he interviewed general counsels at Fortune 500 pharmaceutical companies to ascertain how they hire, fire, and manage outside counsel.  Sean brings both legal and survey experience to the Center.  Prior to attending law school at the University of Chicago, Sean worked as a statistical programmer for The Urban Institute and the National Institutes of Health.

Mr. Williams has published three papers on adolescent health issues and contributed to many other public health research projects.  After law school, he clerked for Judge Cynthia Hall on the Ninth Circuit and then came to Harvard Law School as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law.  As a Climenko Fellow he taught Legal Writing to first year law students.  His most recent legal publication, Postnuptial Agreements, is forthcoming in the Wisconsin Law Review.