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.

From our archive: Asian Americans are the largest minority group in major American law firms. They are also the least li...
08/28/2026

From our archive: Asian Americans are the largest minority group in major American law firms. They are also the least likely to become equity partners. What explains the gap?

When Eric Chung, Samuel D**g, Xiaonan April Hu, Christine Kwon, and Justice Goodwin Liu of the Supreme Court of California asked that in The Practice in 2018, Asian American lawyers made up 11.37% of associates and 3.08% of equity partners. NALP's 2025 report puts Asian lawyers at 11.70% of associates and 5.17% of partners — still the largest group of color, still concentrated below the top.

Read more in our issue on Asian Americans in the law:

This piece is an adaption of a report of the same name available for download here. Asian Americans are not new to the legal profession. But as we were reminded in 2015 when the California Supreme Court granted posthumous bar membership to a Chinese applicant denied admission in 1890, Asian American...

When is a client's crisis also the lawyer's crisis—and who has a playbook for it?Over half of the top 50 AmLaw firms now...
08/27/2026

When is a client's crisis also the lawyer's crisis—and who has a playbook for it?

Over half of the top 50 AmLaw firms now advertise a practice area with "crisis" in the title. We trace in The Practice how crisis management went from novel to expected.

Read more in our issue on crisis lawyering:

In the last two decades, crisis management has emerged as a distinct practice area for many major law firms. Today, a quick survey of their public websites reveals that over half of the top 50 AmLaw firms now boast practice areas with “crisis” in the title—some, like Sidley Austin and WilmerHa...

AI can already do much of what lawyers do. How do lawyers make themselves irreplaceable?Drawing on 50 interviews with ch...
08/25/2026

AI can already do much of what lawyers do. How do lawyers make themselves irreplaceable?

Drawing on 50 interviews with chief legal officers, law firm partners, legal operations professionals, and non-lawyer corporate executives, Professor Michele DeStefano of the University of Miami School of Law for three value-adds that humans bring over computers: character, client-centricity, and innovation.

Read more in our issue on adding value in the age of AI:

Drawing on 50 interviews with chief legal officers (CLOs), law firm partners, legal operations professionals, and non-lawyer corporate executives around the world, this article posits that the lawyers who will distinguish themselves are those who figure out how to create value-add in an era of AI. T...

In 2010, 75 percent of Americans rated a college education "very important." By 2025, Gallup put that number at 35 perce...
08/24/2026

In 2010, 75 percent of Americans rated a college education "very important." By 2025, Gallup put that number at 35 percent. What changed — the degree, or what we ask it to do? In , we look at how economic uncertainty, political polarization, and AI are rewriting how people are thinking about the value to a degree.

Read more in our issue on adding value in the age of AI:

In the United States, few decisions put the question of value under a brighter spotlight than higher education: a six-figure investment made at age seventeen whose returns may not arrive for decades. But economic uncertainty, political polarization, and advances in AI are rewriting how we think abou...

What has to be in place before a legal department can actually use AI?For Mark A. Smolik, chief legal officer at DHL Sup...
08/21/2026

What has to be in place before a legal department can actually use AI?

For Mark A. Smolik, chief legal officer at DHL Supply Chain Americas, the answer turned out to be years of unglamorous work building their data foundation. "We had the foresight to say we needed information at our fingertips, readily available," he tells Professor Michele DeStefano of the University of Miami School of Law — but "we had no idea" it would leave the department well positioned for AI.

Read more in our issue on adding value in the age of AI:

Michele D. DeStefano, a professor of law at the University of Miami, spoke with Mark Smolik, the chief legal officer at DHL Supply Chain Americas, about how to add value in the age of AI. Michele D. DeStefano: Mark, you’ve always taken an innovative approach to data and knowledge management. Can ...

A lot of DEI infrastructure has come down in the past year. Worth revisiting what much of it never measured in the first...
08/20/2026

A lot of DEI infrastructure has come down in the past year. Worth revisiting what much of it never measured in the first place: whether frontline workers earn enough to support a family.

Professor Zeynep Ton of the MIT Sloan School of Management, president of the Good Jobs Institute, tells The Practice that "DEI should include economic justice" — and proposes two metrics that outlast any program label: what share of frontline workers earn a living wage, and what share of managers were promoted from within, both by race and gender.

Read more and subscribe to The Practice for free:

Zeynep Ton, professor of the practice in the operations management group at MIT Sloan School of Management, spoke with David B. Wilkins, faculty director of the Center on the Legal Profession, about her proposition to businesses to employ the “good jobs strategy.” David B. Wilkins: Almost a deca...

"There is something very wrong with the core backbone and culture of an institution if it's looking to one individual to...
08/19/2026

"There is something very wrong with the core backbone and culture of an institution if it's looking to one individual to be the living embodiment of the conscience of the institution," says Sonya Branch, General Counsel of the Bank of England, in conversation with Richard Moorhead and Steven Vaughan of the University College London Faculty of Laws in The Practice. For her, "building an ethical infrastructure is much more about leadership, team building, and a shared mission."

Read more in our issue on in-house ethics:

Sonya Branch is the general counsel of the Bank of England and executive director of its Legal Directorate. She joined Richard Moorhead, a professor of law and professional ethics at University College London, and Steven Vaughan, an associate professor at University College London’s faculty of law...

The professions once traded market insulation for public goods. What happens to professionalism when one side of that ba...
08/17/2026

The professions once traded market insulation for public goods. What happens to professionalism when one side of that bargain quietly disappears?

In The Practice archive, Rakesh Khurana, Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development at Harvard Business School and former Danoff Dean of Harvard College, tells David B. Wilkins, Lester Kissel Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School, that "market logic seems to have become the dominant tenet of how institutions are organized." A decade on, the question remains salient.

Read more in our issue on professionalism in the 21st century:

Rakesh Khurana is one of the world’s leading thinkers on professions and their role in society and the author of From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession (Princeton University Press, 2007). For...

Is the way law school is financed quietly choosing students' careers for them?Roughly 90 percent of law students surveye...
08/13/2026

Is the way law school is financed quietly choosing students' careers for them?

Roughly 90 percent of law students surveyed by the American Bar Association and the AccessLex Institute said they had borrowed for their legal education — on average about $120,000 for law school alone. The alternatives we document in The Practice, from employer-sponsored pipelines to income-share agreements, all work the same angle: reduce the financial risk so graduates can take career risk.

Read more in our issue on student debt:

Roughly 90 percent of law students surveyed by the American Bar Association and the AccessLex Institute indicated they had borrowed money to complete their legal education. On average, students borrow about $120,000 for law school alone. Undergraduate loans and interest further compound the situatio...

What should a bar examiner actually be weighing when they judge a candidate's "character and fitness"?Judge Jonathan Lip...
08/11/2026

What should a bar examiner actually be weighing when they judge a candidate's "character and fitness"?

Judge Jonathan Lippman, former chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, tells to look past the single transgression: "We ought to be looking beyond the four corners of any particular offense, transgression, or action that raises our eyebrows and look at the whole human being."

Read more in our issue on character and fitness:

Judge Jonathan Lippman, former Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, and David B. Wilkins, faculty director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School, discuss honesty, justice, and responsibility in the legal profession. David B. Wilkins: You spent many years as the chief j...

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