Bryon Fong is the executive and research director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. At the Center, he manages the Center’s institutional research activities, including its flagship Globalization, Lawyers, and Emerging Economies project, research into innovation in the legal profession, and ongoing work examining lawyer career paths. He is also the managing editor of the Center’s digital magazine, The Practice. Since 2016, he has served as a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School teaching The Legal Profession Seminar with Professor David B. Wilkins.
His publications on the legal profession include: Re-gearing the Corporate Legal Ecosystem in a Re-geared World: Evidence from the Project on Globalization, Lawyers, and Emerging Economies, with David B. Wilkins and David M. Trubek (Forthcoming); Report on Operationalizing Innovation: The Emerging Role of Innovation Professionals in Companies and Law Firms, with David B. Wilkins (Forthcoming); Intersectionality and the Careers of Black Women Lawyers, with David B. Wilkins, in Race, Work, and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience (Harvard Business School Press, 2018); The Women and Men of Harvard Law School: Preliminary Results from the HLS Career Study, with David B. Wilkins and Ronit Dinovitzer; Mapping India’s Corporate Law Firms, with David B. Wilkins and Ashish Nanda in The Indian Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization (Cambridge University Press, 2017); and The Harvard Law School Report on the State of Black Alumni II: 2000-2016 (with David B. Wilkins).
Bryon earned his B.A. from Georgetown University and his MSc and PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Katri Nousiainen is a resident fellow at the Center on the Legal Profession, and a PhD Candidate in Commercial Law at the Hanken School of Economics. At CLP, she is conducting empirical research on the impact of legal design and ethics in commercial contracts using the lens of law and economics. She is interested to how individuals employ technology within law, economics, and legal design. Her prospective work intends to scientifically measure the total impact of legal design, and to find, for example, metrics to assess efficiency and quality in legal products, services and processes.
Nousiainen gives expert legal lectures on various practice areas of Commercial Law, Legal Design and Law & Technology. She is an invited keynote speaker at conferences and seminars across Europe and LATAM. In addition to her work at CLP, she is also conducting research at the University of Cambridge Law (UK). She holds a European European Master in Law and Economics (EMLE) LL.M, a Master Universitario di primo livello, a Master d’Analyse Economique du Droit et des Institutions, and a BA in Law.
Dana Walters is Associate Editor of The Practice, the Center on the Legal Profession’s digital magazine. She also assists in Center-wide communications efforts.
Prior to joining CLP, Dana worked for the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School, where she led communications strategy. She has also worked at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society and the Atlantic Media Company. She holds an M.A. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in English and American Literatures from Middlebury College.
Professor David B. Wilkins is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law, Vice Dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession, and Faculty Director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. He is also a Senior Research Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a Fellow of the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics. Professor Wilkins has written over 80 articles on the legal profession in leading scholarly journals and the popular press, and is the co-author or editor of five books, including one of the leading casebooks in the field.
His current scholarly projects include Globalization, Lawyers, and Emerging Economies, The State of Black Alumni at Harvard Law School, Disruptive Innovation in the Market for Legal Services, After the J.D., and the Reemergence of the Big Four Accountancy Networks in the Market for Legal Services. Professor Wilkins teaches several courses on lawyers, including The Legal Profession, and Challenges of a General Counsel. In 2007, he co-founded Harvard Law School’s Executive Education Program, where he teaches in several courses including Leadership in Law Firms and Leadership in Corporate Counsel.
Professor Wilkins has given over 50 endowed lectures at universities around the world and is a frequent speaker at professional conferences and law firm and corporate retreats. He holds honorary degrees from Roger Williams University (2017) and Stockholm University in Sweden (2012), and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Harvard Law School Alumni Award (2016); the Aptissimi Award for Academic Excellence from ESADE UNIVERSITY in Spain (2014); the Distinguished Visiting Mentor Award from Australia National University (2012), the American Bar Foundation Scholar of the Year Award (2010), the J. Clay Smith Award from Howard University School of Law (2009), and the Order of the Coif Distinguished Scholar Award (2008). In 2012, Professor Wilkins was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2014 he was selected as a Corresponding Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Doctors.
Education
AB, Harvard College, 1977
JD, Harvard Law School, 1980
Research and Scholarship
Rethinking the Public-Private Distinction in Legal Ethics: The Case of “Substitute” Attorneys General, 2010 Mich. St. L. Rev. 423 (2010), available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1789124.
PROBLEMS IN PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR A CHANGING PROFESSION, Carolina Academic Press (with Andrew Kaufman).
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).
Team of Rivals? Toward a New Model of the Corporate Attorney/Client Relationship, in CURRENT LEGAL PROBLEMS 2009, Oxford University Press 2009, available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1517342.
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).
Presentations
20th Anniversary Celebration of the Conseil National des Barreaux of France
December 1, 2012
Paris, France
Watch video of this speech (scroll 2/3 down the page to view Professor Wilkins’ speech)
Hiring Teams, Firms and Lawyers: Evidence of the Evolving Relationship in the Corporate Legal Market
Keynote Address
University of Wisconsin Law School Symposium
November 18-19, 2011
Madison, Wisconsin
Watch video of this speech
Courses
Seminar: Globalization, Lawyers and Emerging Economies
Legal Profession
Problem Solving Workshop
Seminar: Challenges of a General Counsel
See DBW Archives here.
