MEDIA CONTACT: Pat Vaughan Tremmel at (847) 491-4892 or p-tremmel@northwestern.edu

February 3, 2004

Wilkins to Speak at Pope & John Lecture

CHICAGO --- David B. Wilkins, the Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law and director of the Program on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School, will talk about black Chicago lawyers and the social structure of the black corporate bar at this year’s Pope & John Lecture on Professionalism at Northwestern University School of Law.

Free and open to the public, the lecture will take place at noon Thursday, Feb. 5, at the School of Law, 357 E. Chicago Ave.

Wilkins also is a visiting senior research fellow of the American Bar Foundation and a faculty associate of the Harvard University Center for Ethics and the Professions.

He has written extensively on the legal profession, with an emphasis on the experiences of black lawyers in corporate law firms. He is co-author (along with Harvard Law School colleague Andrew Kaufman) of “Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession,” Carolina Academic Press (4th ed. 2002), as well as numerous articles on legal ethics, law firms and the legal profession.

His upcoming scholarship on black lawyers includes: “The Black Bar: The Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education and the Future of Race and the American Legal Profession” (Oxford University Press); “From ‘Separate is Inherently Unequal’ to ‘Diversity is Good for Business’: Consumerism, Competition and Conscience in the Careers of Black Corporate Lawyers” (Harvard Law Review); and “Doing Well by Doing Good? The Role of Public Service in the Careers of Black Corporate Lawyers” (University of Houston Law Review).

Wilkins also is working on a project titled “After the JD, a Nationwide Longitudinal Study of Lawyers’ Careers” and an investigation into how corporations purchase legal services.

Prior to joining Harvard’s faculty, Wilkins was an associate at the law firm of Nussbaum Owen & Webster in Washington, D.C.; and before that, he served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court and Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the United States Court of Appeals. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

In 1991 the Chicago firm of Pope & John Ltd. established the Pope & John Lecture Series on Professionalism at Northwestern University School of Law. Each year the lecture focuses on the many dimensions of a lawyer's professional responsibility, including legal ethics, public service, professional civility, pro bono representation and standards of conduct. Directed by Professor Steven Lubet, the series is part of the Law School's Program on Advocacy.