Derek Davis is the executive director of the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession (CLP). Prior to joining HLS, Derek worked as a business attorney for more than twenty-three years in a legal practice focused on corporate and public policy related matters involving privately held companies, public corporations, and non-profit organizations and institutions of higher education. As executive director of CLP, Derek works collaboratively with a talented team of professionals, research fellows and faculty to examine the structures, norms and dynamics of the global legal profession.
Prior to joining HLS, Derek was a shareholder in the Business/Public Finance Department at Greenberg Traurig LLP in Boston. Derek also practiced at the Boston law firms of Foley Hoag LLP, Goldstein & Manello LLP, Peabody & Arnold LLP, and Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP. His legal experience covers a broad spectrum of corporate transactional matters including venture capital financings, private placements of securities, mergers and acquisitions, and public project finance. Derek also has extensive experience representing non-profit and tax-exempt institutions on matters relating to education law, public law and corporate governance.
Derek served as been a member of the Board of Overseers of Boston University from 2004 until 2014, where he served on various committees, including the athletics committee. Derek has served as the chair of the Board of Trustees of Cambridge College, a private, non-profit institution dedicated to providing academically excellent, time-efficient, and cost-effective higher education for a diverse population of working adults.
As an active member of the Greater Boston community Derek has also served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the USS Constitution Museum, the Corporation of the Perkins School for the Blind, the Corporation of Milton Hospital, and the Board of Directors of Greater Boston Legal Services.
Education
JD, Boston University School of Law, 1989
BA in History (magna cum laude), Boston University, 1986
Bryon Fong is the 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).
Sonali Howe is a Team Assistant at the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. Prior to joining CLP, Sonali worked at WilmerHale supporting the firm’s eDiscovery functions. Sonali also works as a Lay Advocate at the Center for Law and Education, defending Boston Public School students facing potential suspensions.
Sonali is currently a third year student at Northeastern University pursuing a B.S. Economics. She plans to attend law school after completing her undergraduate degree.
Ralph Madlalate is a research fellow at the Center on the Legal Profession (CLP) at Harvard Law School. Prior to joining CLP, Ralph worked at the Legal Resources Centre, a public interest law clinic in Johannesburg South Africa. In legal practice he focused on strategic litigation around socio-economic rights, constitutional and international human rights law for vulnerable and marginalized communities in South Africa and the southern African region. Previously Ralph served as a Research and Teaching Associate in the school of law at University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg where he supported the school’s academic programs and pursued his own research.
Ralph graduated with an LL.M. with a specialization in public interest law and policy from University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) prior to that he earned his LL.B. from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and thereafter earned an LL.M. in human rights advocacy and litigation (cum laude) from the same university.
Tim Shea is a research associate at the Center on the Legal Profession, where he writes for the Center’s bi-monthly digital publication, The Practice, and contributes to other academic initiatives. Prior to joining CLP, Tim worked at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs supporting academic programs for students and scholars to and from the Middle East and North Africa region.
Tim graduated with BAs in Political Science and Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Commonwealth Honors College. During his time in Amherst, Tim worked for the UMass Donahue Institute’s Civic Initiative and was Team Leader for its Pakistani Young Leaders Exchange Program.
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.