Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession

Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession The leading research center on the evolving global legal profession

The Center on the Legal Profession (CLP) seeks to make a substantial contribution to the modern practice of law by increasing understanding of the structures, norms and dynamics of the global legal profession. To this end, we conduct, sponsor and publish world-class empirical research on the profession; innovate and implement new methods and content for teaching law students, practicing lawyers an

d related professionals about the profession; and foster broader and deeper connections bridging between the global universe of legal practitioners and the academy.

"Ask yourself whether licensing’s promise to protect the public is fulfilled by a system that doesn’t remove the most pr...
05/28/2026

"Ask yourself whether licensing’s promise to protect the public is fulfilled by a system that doesn’t remove the most problematic providers, but rather shuffles them to the bottom of the barrel of professional practice."

In the latest issue of The Practice on attorney discipline, we excerpt a chapter of Rebecca Haw Allensworth's book, The Licensing Racket, on who gets locked out of the professions, who gets locked in, and why.

The following is an excerpt from The Licensing Racket: How We Decide Who is Allowed to Work and Why It Goes Wrong. When [Dr. Michael] LaPaglia got the first round of discipline on his Tennessee medical license—his 2014 order placing his license on probation based on his state charges for dealing p...

The Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession is proud to present Michael Sandel, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Pro...
05/26/2026

The Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession is proud to present Michael Sandel, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, with its 2026 Award for Global Leadership. The award recognizes Professor Sandel’s contributions as a brilliant scholar, teacher, and public intellectual whose work has shaped how we think about justice, markets, and ethics today.

On April 9, 2024 in Cambridge, MA, the Center on the Legal Profession presented Michael Sandel, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, with its 2026 Award for Global Leadership. The award recognizes Professor Sandel’s contributions as a brilliant scholar, teacher...

Read the latest issue of The Practice on International arbitration before the new issue comes out 👀
05/22/2026

Read the latest issue of The Practice on International arbitration before the new issue comes out 👀

Harvard Law School

WATCH: Missed our Association of American Law Schools event on "The Profession, the Market, and the State: Professional ...
05/21/2026

WATCH: Missed our Association of American Law Schools event on "The Profession, the Market, and the State: Professional Independence in a VUCA World"? Check it out now on our site 👇

Part of the AALS Teach-In Webinar Series on Professional Independence and the Legal Profession, on April 29, 2026 the Center hosted a webinar on The Profession, the Market, and the State: Reimagining Professional Independence for a VUCA World. View the session below. Traditional ideals of profession...

Subscribe to our digital magazine, The Practice, to learn more about the changing nature of the global legal profession ...
05/20/2026

Subscribe to our digital magazine, The Practice, to learn more about the changing nature of the global legal profession 👇 for free

Harvard Law School

In the latest issue of The Practice, Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession postdoctoral fellow Tobias Traxle...
04/23/2026

In the latest issue of The Practice, Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession postdoctoral fellow Tobias Traxler examines the under explored influence of counsel on investment treaty arbitration:

This is an excerpt from a book, Counsel and Outcomes in Investment Arbitration, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. This article explores the role of key actors in investment treaty arbitrations who are often overlooked: while many point to arbitrators as key decision-makers, I want to hig...

The latest issue of explores the hugely important field of international arbitration — from the perspective of law stu...
03/31/2026

The latest issue of explores the hugely important field of international arbitration — from the perspective of law students, arbitrators, and lawyers working in the field:

Harvard Law School

As the HLS team competes in the Willem C. Vis Moot competition on commercial arbitration, read about their journey to Vi...
03/30/2026

As the HLS team competes in the Willem C. Vis Moot competition on commercial arbitration, read about their journey to Vienna:

After winning two pre-moot competitions over two intense days in New York City in the lead-up to the Willem C. Vis Moot competition, a group of bleary-eyed Harvard Law School students tried to make their way home to Cambridge, Massachusetts, before encountering the first blizzard New York had experi...

"Today’s health care landscape is unfortunately 'a battle for scarce resources,' says Jorge Lopez, Jr. In his job as exe...
02/11/2026

"Today’s health care landscape is unfortunately 'a battle for scarce resources,' says Jorge Lopez, Jr. In his job as executive vice president and general counsel at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Lopez is figuring out how to enable the best care for cancer patients while dealing with an uncertain regulatory and financial atmosphere. Read more about the role of leading legal in health care:

Leading in-house legal functions in a hospital means contending with not just the usual in-house tasks—reporting to the board, labor and employment, regulation and compliance—its all of that while also being in the service and business of care. Financial decisions can quite literally mean life-o...

“My approach to being an in-house lawyer is that the lawyers must be involved in the business,” says Laura Peabody. “And...
01/30/2026

“My approach to being an in-house lawyer is that the lawyers must be involved in the business,” says Laura Peabody. “And if your business is patient care, you have to understand the laws that apply and the culture of the care providers.”

We speak to Laura Peabody, chief legal officer at Mass General Brigham, and Jorge Lopez, Jr., general counsel at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, about running an in-house legal department in a medical system.

Leading in-house legal functions in a hospital means contending with not just the usual in-house tasks—reporting to the board, labor and employment, regulation and compliance—its all of that while also being in the service and business of care. Financial decisions can quite literally mean life-o...

“I can’t imagine doing this work without the lawyers,” says Dr. Andrew Beck, a primary care and hospitalist pediatrician...
01/29/2026

“I can’t imagine doing this work without the lawyers,” says Dr. Andrew Beck, a primary care and hospitalist pediatrician at Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center who helps lead the Cincinnati Child Health-Law Partnership (Child HeLP), a medical-legal partnership between the Cincinnati Children’s Primary Care centers and the Legal Aid Society of Greater Cincinnati. The formal arrangement means that doctors screening for social determinants of health—access to housing, food, benefits, and more—can put a referral to legal aid lawyers directly in their electronic medical record. Today, there are more than 500 medical-legal partnerships across the country. Learn more about how such arrangements on moving the needle on health equity in The Practice:

In 1986 the Whitman-Walker Clinic, a medical practice focused on the needs of LGBTQ individuals in Washington, D.C., hired its first in-house lawyer to help “write wills, secure disability benefits, and fight discrimination” for a vulnerable patient population amid the HIV and AIDS crisis. In 19...

Address

1563 Massachusetts Avenue, Pound 204
Cambridge, MA
02138

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession:

Shortcuts

Share