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David B. Wilkins

David B. Wilkins (born January 22, 1956) is an American legal scholar who is the Lester Kissel Professor of Law and faculty director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School. He is a senior research fellow of the American Bar Foundation, the Harvard Law School's vice dean for global initiatives on the legal profession, and a faculty associate of the Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics.[1]

David B. Wilkins

(1956-01-22) January 22, 1956

Lawyer, professor

Early life and education[edit]

Wilkins is a Chicago native, and a graduate of the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. His father, Julian Wilkins, headed the law firm of Wilkins, Wilkins & Wilkins, and became the first black partner at a major Chicago law firm in 1971.[2]


Wilkins graduated with honors from Harvard College in 1977 with a Bachelor of Arts in government. He earned a Juris Doctor degree in 1980 from Harvard Law School. While at Harvard Law, he served as the Supreme Court editor of the Harvard Law Review and was also a member of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review and the Harvard Black Law Student Association.[3]

Career[edit]

After graduating law school, he clerked for Justice Wilfred Feinberg, a United States Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall at the United States Supreme Court between 1981 and 1982.[4]


After clerking, in 1982, Wilkins became an associate with a specialization in civil litigation at the law firm of Nussbaum Owen & Webster in Washington, D.C.[5] Wilkins is a member of the Bar in the District of Columbia and the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.


In 1986, Wilkins joined the faculty at Harvard Law School, earning tenure six years later, and he has recently been mentioned as a potential candidate to become dean of Harvard Law.[6] His research focuses primarily on the legal profession, and he is the co-author (along with his Harvard Law School colleague Andrew Kaufman) of one of the leading casebooks in the field.[5]


In 2005, graduating seniors voted him the top teacher in Harvard Law's Center for Ethics.[7]

2020 Albert M. Sacks-Paul A. Freund Award for Teaching Excellence

[16]

2016 Award

Harvard Law School Association

2012 Honorary Doctorate in Law from in Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm University

2012 Distinguished Visiting Mentor from in Canberra, Australia

Australia National University

Distinguished Fellow at

O.P. Jindal Global University

2012 Genest Fellowship from in Toronto, Ontario

Osgoode Hall Law School

2012 Member of the .

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

2010 Scholar of the Year

American Bar Foundation

2009 Award from Howard University School of Law

J. Clay Smith

2008 Distinguished Scholar Fellowship

Order of the Coif

2009 Commencement Speaker at the .

University of Iowa College of Law

1998 -Paul Freund Award for Teaching Excellence.[17]

Albert Sacks

List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 10)

Homepage for Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession