The Stanford Center on the Legal Profession, founded in 2008, supports research, teaching, programs and public policy initiatives on crucial issues facing the bar. Building on the legacy of its predecessor, the Keck Center on Legal Ethics and the Legal Profession, the Center focuses on issues of professional responsibility and the structure of legal practice. Central concerns include how to enhance access to justice, sustain ethical values, improve bar regulatory structures, and effectively respond to the changing dynamics of legal workplaces.
In support of that mission, the Center promotes research by Stanford professors, students, and post-graduate fellows, as well as collaborative projects with other institutions. It also encourages new courses and joint teaching, and provides innovative materials and web-based resources for curricular integration of issues related to the legal profession. In collaboration with other institutions at Stanford and leading universities, the Center offers lectures, panels, workshops, conferences, and continuing education programs. Through such efforts, the Center seeks to connect theory with practice and advance policies that will address the challenges of a rapidly changing legal profession.
Stanford Law School's Center on the Legal Profession invites Fellowship applications for the forthcoming academic year (2009-2010).
The Center on the Legal Profession, directed by Professor Deborah L. Rhode, supports research, teaching, programs, and public policy initiatives on crucial issues facing the bar. The Center focuses on issues of professional responsibility and the structure of legal practice. Central concerns include how to enhance access to justice, sustain ethical values, improve bar regulatory structures, and effectively respond to the changing dynamics of legal workplaces. Upcoming Center events include The Roadmap to Justice Project, a national effort to draw leaders in the field to develop an agenda for expanding access to legal services for low- and middle-income individuals, and the International Legal Ethics Conference in 2010.
The Center on the Legal Profession Fellowship is a full-time, one-year residential fellowship beginning in June 2009. It is designed to offer scholars interested in topics of professional responsibility and the structure of legal practice an opportunity to conduct research and participate in law school events. Fellows are encouraged to attend weekly faculty lunch seminars and participate in activities with the growing number of law school fellows, pursue a scholarly project, and assist with a course on the legal profession. Fellows will be provided with office space, a stipend of $50,000, and a generous benefits package. Applicants must have a JD or a PhD in a relevant area. The Center particularly welcomes applications from individuals interested in pursuing careers in legal academia.
Applicants should submit the following via email or regular mail by December 1, 2008:
Candidates will be selected on the basis of their academic merit and the intellectual contribution of their research proposal. Acceptance decisions will be made by January 9, 2009.
All inquires about the program and applications should be submitted to:
Amanda Packel
Associate Director, Center on the Legal Profession
Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, California 94305-8610
apackel@stanford.edu
Tel (650) 736-9770
Fax (650) 721-5537
Deborah L. Rhode is the former president of the Association of American Law Schools, the former chair of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession, the former founding director of Stanford's Center on Ethics, and the former director of Stanford’s Institute for Research on Women and Gender. She also served as senior counsel to the Minority members of the Judiciary Committee, the United States House of Representatives, on presidential impeachment issues during the Clinton administration. She is the most frequently cited scholar on legal ethics. She has received the American Bar Association’s Michael Franck award for contributions to the field of professional responsibility, the American Bar Foundation’s W. M. Keck Foundation Award for distinguished scholarship on legal ethics, and the American Bar Association’s Pro Bono Publico Award for her work on expanding public service opportunities in law schools.
As the Associate Director of the Center on the Legal Profession, Amanda K. Packel coordinates all aspects of the Center's activities, including developing the direction and goals for the Center and overseeing operations, publications, programs, research, and other inter-disciplinary activities. She joined Stanford Law School in 2008 after five years of practicing white collar criminal defense and conducting corporate investigations as an associate at Covington & Burling and at Orrick. Packel has also worked in a research capacity at the Office of the Federal Public Defender in Northern California and in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution. She received her B.A. in Economics, magna cum laude, from Princeton University and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law in 2001, where she was an Articles Editor of the California Law Review. After graduating from law school, Packel served as a law clerk to Judge Marsha S. Berzon of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
As Program Coordinator for the Center on the Legal Profession, Dena Evans will handle logistics and publicity for Center events and ongoing initiatives. Most recently, she served in a similar capacity for the Stanford Center on Ethics, where she coordinated three major conferences: Work, Family, Excellence & the Female Coach (2006); Title IX Today, Title IX Tomorrow (2007); and The American Legal Profession: Current Controversies, Future Challenges (2008). Evans is a 1996 Stanford graduate in American Studies, and holds an MA in Secondary Education from the Stanford Teacher Education Program. Evans spent six years as on the cross country / track & field coaching staff at Stanford, where she earned 2003 NCAA Women's Cross Country Coach of the Year and 2004 USTCA Assistant Track Coach of the Year honors.