Deborah L. Rhode was the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and the Director of the Center on the Legal Profession. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Yale College and received her JD from Yale Law School. She clerked for United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1979.
She was the founding chair of the Section on Leadership of the Association of American Law Schools and was the founding president of the International Association of Legal Ethics, a former president of the Association of American Law Schools, a former chair of the American Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Profession, a former founding director of Stanford’s Center on Ethics, a former director of Stanford’s Institute of Research on Women and Gender, a former director of Stanford’s Program on Social Entrepreneurship, and a former trustee of Yale University. She worked as counsel to the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee during the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.
She was the nation’s most frequently cited scholar on legal ethics, the author of 30 books in the fields of professional responsibility, leadership, and gender, law and public policy. She 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 Foundation’s Distinguished Scholar award, 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.
Stanford law Professor Deborah Rhode, leading voice on legal ethics and women’s rights, dies at 68, San Francisco Chronicle (Jan. 19, 2021)
Deborah Rhode, Who Transformed the Field of Legal Ethics, Dies at 68, The New York Times (Jan. 18, 2021). Photo credit: T. Archibald/Stanford Magazine
Leading legal academic Deborah L. Rhode dies at 68, Stanford News (Jan. 12, 2021).
Photo credit: Stanford University
Remembering Deborah Rhode: Co-Author, Friend, and Feminist Co-Conspirator, Justia (Jan. 12, 2021). Photo credit: T. Archibald/Stanford Magazine
Deborah Rhode, Stanford law professor and authority on legal ethics, dies at 68, The Washington Post (Jan. 12, 2021).
Stanford law prof remembered as leading legal ethics scholar and advocate for access to justice, ABA Journal (Jan. 12, 2021)
Remembering Deborah L. Rhode: Legal Ethics Pioneer, Stanford Scholar, Mentor to Many, Stanford Lawyer (Jan. 11, 2021).
The Academy Mourns Death of Legal Ethics Giant and Stanford Law Fixture Deborah Rhode, The Recorder (Jan. 11, 2021).
‘Lion in her field,’ legal ethics pioneer and professor Deborah Rhode dies at 68, The Stanford Daily (Jan. 11, 2021). Photo credit: T. Archibald/Stanford Magazine
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