The Practice
Bridging academic research and practical advice, The Practice offers thoughtful analysis and perspectives on the legal profession for a global audience.
Bridging academic research and practical advice, The Practice offers thoughtful analysis and perspectives on the legal profession for a global audience.
Just released!
"Redefining Leadership in the Age of the SDGs: Accelerating and Scaling Up Delivery Through Innovation and Inclusion"
Written by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women and Rangita de Silva de Alwis Associate Dean of International Affairs at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
This Preliminary Report on The Women and Men of Harvard Law School presents the results of the Harvard Law School Career Study (HLSCS), conducted by the school’s Center on the Legal Profession (CLP). The study seeks to deepen the understanding of the career choices made by HLS graduates by providing for the first time systematic empirical information about the careers trajectories of graduates from different points in the school’s history. In this Preliminary Report, we offer a first look at the Study’s findings about the salient similarities and differences between the careers of the school’s female and male graduates.
LEARN MORE HERE
In 2016, the Center produced an update to and extension of its 2000 Report on the State of Black Alumni: 1869-2000 with the publication of Harvard Law School: Report on the State of Black Alumni II 2000-2016. The report contains both a comprehensive history section on the state of the black legal profession and, in particular, black HLS graduates between 2000 and 2016 (including a comprehensive timeline of developments across those years) as well as a robust data section on the career-paths of black HLS graduates. The Center launched this important work in June 2017 at its 3rd Annual Awards Dinner, held at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
LEARN MORE HERE
The Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession (CLP) is seeking 1 or more Research Fellows to join its Fellowship Program in the Summer/Fall 2018 (exact start date negotiable) to conduct independent empirical research on the structure, norms, and dynamics of the global legal profession and to contribute to the research priorities of the Center. We encourage applicants to learn more about the Center’s research on its website (CLP.law.harvard.edu) and via its digital magazine The Practice (thepractice.law.harvard.edu).
Research fellowships are full-time, in-residence at the Center’s offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and typically 2-years in length. At the Center, the Research Fellow would join a lively group of researchers from diverse disciplines as well as Harvard’s wider academic community.
Previous research fellows have come from a number of academic backgrounds (including law, sociology, international relations/political science, economics, psychology, and organizational behavior) and have gone onto faculty positions at major universities in the United States, India, Korea, and Canada.
To learn more, email Bryon Fong at bfong@law.harvard.edu.
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
Cambridge, MA — The Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession was extremely saddened to learn of the passing of the Honorable Ralph D. Gants, Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Throughout his more than 40-year career, Chief Justice Gants embodied the highest ideals of the legal profession, never wavering from his […]
READ MORE
Monday, July 13, 2020
Cambridge, MA — The Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession was extremely saddened to learn of the passing of Lewis “Lew” B. Kaden earlier this month. For nearly 15 years, Mr. Kaden served as a founding member of the Center’s Advisory Board. In 2019, with much of his family in attendance, the Center […]
READ MORE
Monday, June 22, 2020
“Research shows us that even in normal times, constant exposure to negative news can have a heavy impact on our mental health. In the midst of an unprecedented health and humanitarian crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, people are not only faced with new challenges in their work and personal lives but also subjected to a constant barrage […]
READ MORE
This white paper series lays out a research-based, practical approach for law firms to turn their collaboration strategy into a living, breathing part of daily life. Given most firms’ culture of high autonomy and decentralization, leaders need to drive it both from the top-down and bottom-up. Implementing Smart Collaboration requires a clear-eyed view of the current state of collaboration, and then targeted approaches to strategy implementation.
VIEW THE SERIES HERE
Check out some of the recent books by CLP faculty, fellows, and affiliates, including the first book in our Globalization, Lawyers, and Emerging Economies (GLEE) series, The Indian Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization: The Rise of the Corporate Legal Sector and its Impact on Lawyers and Society, published by Cambridge University Press.
VIEW RECENT BOOKS HERE
The project on Globalization Lawyers and Emerging Economies—or GLEE—is designed to conduct original, empirical research and to examine how globalization is reshaping the market for legal services in important emerging economies around the world. At its core, the GLEE project begins with the decision by critical emerging economies like India, Brazil, and China to gradually open their economies during the 1990s, resulting for the first time in significant foreign investment, privatization of important state-owned assets, and an increased role for competitive market forces. This new economic activity in turn created a demand for new laws and legal institutions—for instance, investment and securities laws, trade and competition authorities—which then created a demand for “new” lawyers with both the skill and orientation to operate in these legal domains and to connect these domestic legal fields to the global ones within which these emerging powers operate and increasingly seek to control.
LEARN MORE
Harvard Law School’s Executive Education strives to develop lawyers from a range of institutions into influential and effective leaders and make a positive difference in the global legal profession. HLS Executive Education offers a number of open-enrollment and custom programs available for legal professionals at various points in their careers, both within firms and in-house.
LEARN MORE ABOUT HLS EXECUTIVE EDUCATION
For the second year in a row, the Center was proud to be the Academic Sponsor of the Financial Time’s Innovative Lawyers Summit, held on June 19-20, 2017 in London. Professor David B. Wilkins delivered a keynote at the event, attended by over 150 leading lawyers and business leaders, on “The Future of Work.”
Bridging academic research and practical advice, The Practice offers thoughtful analysis and perspectives on the legal profession for a global audience.