by
Wednesday, April 15, 2008
Harvard Law School
Monday, April 21, 2008
Harvard Law School
The program will feature a presentation by Dr. Christopher McKenna, Reader in Business History and Strategy at the Clifford Chance Centre for the Management of Professional Service Firms at Oxford University's Saïd Business School. Dr. McKenna will discuss his award winning book on the growth of the elite management consulting firms, The World's Newest Profession, which received the 2004-06 Newcomen-Harvard Book Award by the Business History Review, was awarded the 2007 Hagley Prize by the Business History Conference, and was named one of the best books of the year by the Financial Times.
About the Clifford Chance Centre:
Based at Oxford University's Saïd Business School, the Clifford Chance Centre is a hub for academic research into the management of professional service firms. Its members work closely with top practitioners to explore the key challenges confronting the professional services sector, conduct research into the internal and external dynamics of professional service firms, and provide a program of innovative teaching, based on research and with the collaboration of practitioners. The Centre brings together theory and practice in order to:
- Shape the field of professional service firms research and build a network for academic activity in this field.
- Provide managers of top professional service firms with intellectually rigorous and empirically-based insights into the challenges they face.
- Provide policy makers with cross-disciplinary perspectives on regulation of the professions, free from professional bias
by David Wilkins
March 18, 2008
University College London
a talk by Galit Sarfaty, PLP Fellow
March 17, 2008
Harvard Law School
read bio
guest speaker, Legal Profession
March 13, 2008
by David Wilkins
March 12, 2008
Nichols Lecture
Stetson University
a panel discussion
March 5, 2008
Harvard Law School
Gregory M. Lipper, Associate, Covington & Burling LLP read bio
Suma Nair, Associate, Goulston & Storrs read bio
Steven Schulman, Partner, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Field LLP read bio
read bio
guest speaker, Future(s) of the Large Law Firm
February 28, 2008
by David Wilkins
Yale Law School
February 11, 2008
watch video
a talk by John Coates
Monday, February 4, 2008
Harvard Law School
PLP faculty memeber John Coates delivered a lecture on the occasion
of his appointment as the John F. Cogan Jr. Professor of Law and Economics at Harvard Law School.
Read more about this event.
View a webcast of this event.
September 5, 2007
Harvard Law School, Hark 205
This event included presentations by Professors Wilkins and Nanda about the Program’s research initiatives and new course offerings. Dr. Nersessian, the Program’s Executive Director, also briefed attendees on a new pilot program aimed at funding empirical student research on the legal profession, as well as the other ways in which HLS students could become involved with the Program and its work.
May 20-25, 2007
Harvard Law School
Today’s large law firms face the challenge of being both high-quality professional service providers and large, complex businesses. Yet those who are asked to lead these institutions often have had little training in managing these complex tensions. Leadership in Law Firms is an intensive five-day course designed to sharpen the leadership skills of managing partners, office heads and law firm practice leaders.
Participants in the 2007 offering included high-level managing partners and practice group leaders from law firms worldwide. More than a third of the participants came from outside the United States, including lawyers currently practicing in England, Ireland, Spain, Germany, China, Colombia, and Australia
The program included a comprehensive series of lectures, case studies, and small group discussions across 12-hour days. In an ongoing dialogue with the faculty, the 43 participants discussed the role of strategy in law firms, organizational culture, the changing needs of the marketplace, and recruitment and staff development. The course provided a unique opportunity for managing lawyers to engage with each other and discuss cutting-edge best practices and to learn new and better strategies for promoting, building, and leading their law firms into the rapidly-changing legal services environment.
The core program faculty included Professors Wilkins, Nanda, and Coates. Additional faculty perspectives were provided by Benjamin Heineman, the Program’s Senior Distinguished Fellow and former chief legal officer at General Electric, and Daniel DiPietro, a visiting faculty member who is the client head of the Law Firm Group at the Citigroup Private Bank.
Sloan Industry Studies Program Annual Meeting
April 25-27, 2007
Cambridge, MA
Program description and materials
Jews and the Legal Profession
October 22-24, 2006
Cardozo Law School
The Program also co-sponsored this conference with the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, Fordham Law School’s Institute on Religion, Law and Lawyer’s Work, and New York Law School’s Center for Professional Values and Practice. The program included scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, as well as practitioners and advocates from around the world, reflecting upon and discussing the history and current standing of Jewish lawyers and the lessons the issues facing this community hold for the profession generally.
Program Description and Materials
Sloan Industry Studies Program Annual Meeting
December 14-16, 2005
Cambridge, MA
Program description and materials
PLP Conference on the Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry
September 23, 2004
On September 23, 2004 the Program on the Legal Profession held its kickoff conference on the Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry. A number of leading general counsels, law firm partners, and academics were at hand for the conference. The first steps were laid down for the Program's first project to examine how corporations purchase legal services. Among the questions investigated were the following:
- How do companies determine which matters are sent to outside counsel, and at what level in the organization is this decision made (i.e. subordinate lawyers within the general counsels office, the general counsel, the CEO or others with line authority, the board)?
- What leads firms to choose one firm over another for any given type of matter? Specifically, how important are factors such as firm reputation, lawyer reputation, pre-existing relationships, cost, experience, demographics, marketing, advertising, size, disciplinary scope, and geographic breadth?
- How do companies go about gathering information on the factors they deem most important (i.e. market research, word of mouth, published sources, evaluating proposals, auditing)?
- How often is the decision to retain a particular firm reviewed?
- Is external regulation, either of the company or of law firms, a significant factor in purchasing decisions?
The conference closed with the presentation of three academic papers, which was followed by a dialogue in which expert lawyers practicing in the field provided commentary and additional perspectives on the matters raised in the academic papers:
Post-Siliconix Freeze-Outs: Theory & Evidence
Guhan Subramanian, Harvard Law School
Commentary by Robert Kindler, Managing Director, J.P. Morgan Securities, Inc.
Legal Advisors: Popularity Versus Economic Performance in Acquisitions
C.N.V. Krishnan, Case Western Reserve University
Paul Laux, University of Delaware
Commentary by Stephen Fraidin, Partner, Kirkland & Ellis
Innovation in Boilerplate Contracts: An Empirical Examination of Sovereign Bonds
Mitu Gulati, Georgetown University Law Center
Stephen Choi, University of California, Berkeley, Law School
Commentary by Lee Buchheit, Partner, Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton
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