 Lester Kissel Professor of Law
Director, Program on the Legal Profession
Harvard Law School
1575 Massachusetts Avenue
Hauser Hall #312
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: +1 (617) 495-0958
Fax: +1 (617) 496-8489
E-mail: dwilkins@law.harvard.edu
Professor Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Program on the Legal Profession and the Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry at Harvard Law School. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a Faculty Associate of the Harvard University Edmond J.
Safra Foundation Center for Ethics.
Professor Wilkins has written extensively on the legal profession in leading scholarly journals and the popular press and is the co-author (along with his Harvard Law School colleague Andrew Kaufman) of one of the leading casebooks in the field. His current scholarly projects on the profession include After the JD, a ten-year nationwide longitudinal study of lawyers' careers, the Harvard Law School Career Study, a quantitative and qualitative examination of how corporations purchase legal services, an empirical project on the development of "ethical infrastructure" in large law firms based on a series of focus groups with leading practitioners and regulators, an examination of the practice of “offshoring” legal work to India, and over 200 in-depth interviews in connection with a forthcoming Oxford University Press book on the development of the black corporate bar.
Professor Wilkins teaches several courses on lawyers and other related professionals, including the country's first four credit Legal Profession course, and seminars on Legal Education for the Twenty-First Century: Global Perspectives on Preparing Lawyers for Global Careers, Cause Lawyers, and The Future(s) of the Large Law Firm. He is also one of seven Harvard Law School faculty members who will teach the school’s new required course for all first-year students entitled Problem Solving. Professor Wilkins is a principal faculty member in the Law School’s Executive Education program, where he teaches courses on Leadership in Law Firms and Leadership in Corporate Counsel. He has also served on several Law School and University committees, including the University-wide Task Force on Professional Schools.
Professor Wilkins is a frequent speaker at academic institutions and conferences, bar organizations, and law firms and other professional service organizations in the United States and around the world. He has received numerous honors and awards, including being selected as the 2009 Commencement Speaker at the University of Iowa College of Law and the 2008 Distinguished Scholar by the Order of the Coif.
AB, Harvard College, 1977
JD, Harvard Law School, 1980
PROBLEMS IN PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR A CHANGING PROFESSION, Carolina Academic Press (with Andrew Kaufman) (5th edition forthcoming 2009).
Preliminary Report, After the JD: Wave II (with Terry Adams, Ronit Dinovitzer, Bryant Garth, Robert Nelson, Gabriele Plickert, Joyce Sterling, Gita Wilder, and Rebecca Sandefur) (forthcoming 2009).
Team of Rivals? Toward a New Model of the Corporate Attorney/Client Relationship, in CURRENT LEGAL PROBLEMS 2009 (forthcoming Oxford University Press 2009).
Valuing diversity: Some Cautionary Lessons from the American Experience, in MANAGING THE MODERN LAW FIRM: NEW CHALLENGES, NEW PERSPECTIVES, Laura Empson, ed., Oxford University Press (2007).
Why Are There So Few Black Lawyers in Corporate Law Firms?: An Institutional Analysis, 84 Cal. L. Rev. 493 (1996) (with G. Mitu Gulati).
Who Should Regulate Lawyers?, 105 Harv. L. Rev. 801 (1992).
Legal Profession, Fall 2009 [course description]
Problem Solving, Winter 2010 [course description]
Seminar: Legal Education for the Twenty-First Century: Global Perspectives on Preparing Lawyers for Global Careers, Spring 2010 [course description]
Commencement Speaker, University of Iowa Law School (5/09)
University of the Future, COUR Symposium, Harvard University (5/09)
A Timely Discussion of Ethics and Professionalism, Judge Alvin B. Rubin Symposium, Federal Bar Association, New Orleans Chapter, (5/09)
Team of Rivals? Toward a New Model of the Corporate Attorney-Client Relationship, Russell Sage Foundation, New York (4/09)
After the JD: Legal Careers in Transition, Annual Education Conference, The Association for Legal Career Professionals (NALP), Washington, DC (4/09)
After the JD: Legal Careers in the Twenty First Century, The J. Donald Mawhinney Lectureship in Professional Ethics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (3/09)
Team of Rivals? Toward a New Model of the Corporate Attorney-Client Relationship, University of Iceland (2/09)
New Results from After the JD, Wave II: Seven Years into a Lawyer's Career, American Bar Foundation, Boston (2/09)
Progress? The Academy, Profession, Race and Gender: Empirical Findings, Research Issues, Potential Projects and Funding Opportunities, Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, San Diego (1/09)
Archive (pre-2009)
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