Biography

Director, Stanford Center on the Legal Profession

Deborah L. Rhode is one of the country’s leading scholars in the fields of legal ethics and gender, law, and public policy. An author of over 20 books, including The Beauty Bias, Women and Leadership and Moral Leadership, she is the nation’s most frequently cited scholar in legal ethics. She is the director of the Stanford Center on the Legal Profession and Founding President of the International Association of Legal Ethics.

Professor 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 founder and former director of Stanford’s Center on Ethics, and the former director of the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford. She also served as senior counsel to the minority members of the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary on presidential impeachment issues during the Clinton administration. 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, the American Bar Association’s Pro Bono Publico Award for her work on expanding public service opportunities in law schools, and the White House’s Champion of Change award for a lifetime’s work in increasing access to justice. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and vice chair of the board of Legal Momentum (formerly the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund). She is currently a columnist for The National Law Journal and has also published editorials in the The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Slate.

Before joining the Stanford Law faculty, Professor Rhode was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Key Works

• Deborah L. Rhode, Amanda K. Packel, Leadership: Law, Policy, and Management, New York: Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, 2011.
• Deborah L. Rhode, The Beauty Bias: the Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Katharine T. Bartlett, Deborah L. Rhode, Gender and Law: Theory, Doctrine, Commentary, 5th ed. New York: Aspen, 2009.
• Deborah L. Rhode and David Luban, Legal Ethics, New York: Foundation Press, 5th ed., January 2009.
• Barbara Kellerman and Deborah L. Rhode, eds., Women and Leadership: The State of Play and Strategies for Change, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, September 2007.
• Deborah L. Rhode, Moral Leadership: The Theory and Practice of Power, Judgment, and Policy, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2006.
• Deborah L. Rhode and Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., Professional Responsibility and Regulation, New York: Foundation Press, 2d. ed., 2006
• Deborah L. Rhode, Pro Bono in Principle and Practice, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005.
• Deborah L. Rhode, Access to Justice, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Deborah L. Rhode, Speaking of Sex: the Denial of Gender Inequality, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997.

In the News

• Judge Suggests U.S. Misled Court On Immigration Policy
  The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2012
• Why Cain's Accusers, Under Scrutiny, May Seek Strength In Numbers
  The Christian Science Monitor, November 10, 2011
• Chief Judges’ Message: Shut Up
  San Francisco Chronicle Blog, October 17, 2011
• Why These Shoes Matter More Than An M.B.A.
  Maclean's, September 24, 2011

Courses & Programs

Courses

• Leadership
• Legal Ethics

Programs

• Stanford Center on the Legal Profession, Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law

Publications & Cases

Recent Publications View All

• Deborah L. Rhode, Senior Lawyers Serving Public Interests: Pro Bono and Second-Stage Careers, 21 The Professional Lawyer 1 (2011).
• Deborah L. Rhode, Professional Regulation and Public Service: An Unfinished Agenda, in The Paradox of Professionalism: Lawyers and the Possibility of Justice, Scott L. Cummings, editor, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
• Deborah L. Rhode, King & Spalding Was Right to Withdraw, National Law Journal, May 3, 2011.
• Deborah L. Rhode, Lawyers as Leaders, 2010 Michigan State Law Review 413 (2010)
• Deborah L. Rhode, Amanda K. Packel, Leadership: Law, Policy, and Management, New York: Wolters Kluwer Law & Business, 2011.
• Deborah L. Rhode, Ethical Oversight for the Justices--Congress Should Pass Bill Requiring Justices to Provide Reasons for Recusal Decisions, with Review by Outside Panel., National Law Journal, March 14, 2011.
• Deborah L. Rhode, Lawyers and Leadership, 20, 3 The Professional Lawyer 1 (2010).
• Deborah L. Rhode, Invitation to Join the Newly Formed International Association of Legal Ethics, 13, 2 Legal Ethics ix (2010)
• Deborah L. Rhode, El Embarazo Adolescente y La Politica Pública, in Justicia, Género y Reproducción, Paola Bergallo, compiladora, Buenos Aires: Libraria, 2010.
• Deborah L. Rhode, Legal Ethics on a Global Scale, National Law Journal, September 20, 2010.

Affiliations & Honors

Professional Affiliations

• Founding Director, Stanford Center on Ethics
• Founding President of International Association of Legal Ethics
• Vice Chair, Board of Directors, Legal Momentum (formerly NOW Legal Defense Fund)
• Columnist, National Law Journal
• President (1998-1999), Association of American Law Schools
• Chair (2000-2002), Commission on Women and the Profession, American Bar Association
• Co-chair, Stanford Faculty Women’s Forum