Leadership Programming
Please join us for a conversation with Davis Polk partners Roshni Banker Cariello '11, Vanessa L. Jackson '12, and DPLI Leadership Coach (and former Davis Polk partner) Warren Motley '89, who will speak about how to exercise leadership as a junior associate, how they developed their career paths, and what advice they have for students going into practice for the first time. DPLI Innovation Grant recipient Alexis Allen '24 will moderate. Lunch will be served.
Date: Monday, April 8, 12:10–1:10pm
Location: Case Lounge (JG 7th Floor)
The Davis Polk Leadership Initiative is excited to offer a hands-on lunchtime workshop on ethical leadership and decision-making. This is a great opportunity for you to hear from and interact with an experienced practitioner on issues of leadership.
Michael H. Ullmann ’83, retired Executive Vice President, General Counsel at Johnson & Johnson, will facilitate an interactive workshop on ethical decision-making and challenges that lawyer-leaders may face, particularly in times of crisis. Participants will collaborate with each other to work through a case study with Mike and will also have an opportunity to speak with him about his career at Johnson & Johnson. Lunch will be served.
Date: Tuesday, February 27
Time: 12:10–1:10pm
Location: Feldberg Space in Big Warren (big room towards the back of the lobby)
RSVPs are required. Please RSVP here by Thursday (February 22).
Please join us for a lunchtime talk on Wednesday, September 27 (12:10 p.m.), with Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP attorneys Robbie Kaplan '91 and Shawn Crowley '11. Robbie and Shawn will talk about their representation of E. Jean Carroll in her defamation and sexual battery case against Donald Trump, in which they won a $5 million jury verdict. The event will be moderated by Thandiwe Mallowah '24, the Symposium & Special Projects Editor for the Journal of Gender and Law.
Please note that this event will include discussion of sexual violence, which may be distressing for attendees.
This event is open to Columbia Law School students, faculty, and staff, and is hosted by the Davis Polk Leadership Initiative and the Journal of Gender and Law. Lunch will be served.
RSVP required. Please register here by Thursday, September 21 at 5:00 p.m.
This event is co-hosted by the Davis Polk Leadership Initiative and the Journal of Gender and Law.
Please join us on Wednesday, April 19, 12:10 p.m., in JG Annex for a lunchtime panel discussion with Michele Warman, retired General Counsel at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Mike Ullmann ’83, retired General Counsel at Johnson & Johnson, and Michele Coleman Mayes, current General Counsel at the New York Public Library, as they give an inside look on how they have grappled with instilling values into their organizations while taking risks that align with the interests of senior leadership. The conversation will be moderated by Professor Susan Sturm.
Lunch will be provided. RSVP is required. Please register here.
Following the lunchtime panel, Mike Ullmann will facilitate a small-group workshop on Ethical Leadership and Decision-Making from 1:30–3:00 p.m. Please email Eunice Hong ([email protected]) if you are interested in participating in the workshop.
This event is co-sponsored by the Davis Polk Leadership Initiative and the Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership.
Mike Ullmann ’83, retired General Counsel at Johnson & Johnson and current Experienced Practitioner-in-Residence at the Law School, will facilitate a small-group workshop on decision-making and problem-solving challenges that in-house leaders may face in their roles. Participants will collaborate with each other to work through two case studies with Mike, and will also have an opportunity to speak with him about his career at Johnson & Johnson. Refreshments will be served.
Date: Wednesday, April 19th
Time: 1:30pm - 3:00pm
Location: JG Annex
Space is limited and RSVP is required. Please register here.
This event is co-sponsored by the Davis Polk Leadership Initiative and the Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership.
Tuesday, April 12, 2022 @ 12:10–1:10 p.m.
Please join us for a lunchtime talk with Roberta ("Robbie") Kaplan, the founding partner of Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP and Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School. In July 2017, Robbie left Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP after 25 years to found Kaplan Hecker & Fink, seeking to build what she calls a “new fashioned, old fashioned” law firm that combines a cutting-edge civil and criminal litigation practice with a groundbreaking commitment to using the courts to serve the public interest.
In one of their first cases as a firm, Kaplan Hecker sued the neo-Nazis and white supremacists who organized the racial- and religious-based violence that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. The lawsuit took what has been described as an “audacious” legal approach, utilizing among other legal strategies an 1871 law that was intended to stop the mob-based violence of the Ku Klux Klan. Kaplan Hecker obtained a historic trial verdict and $26 million award to the plaintiffs, ensuring that the white nationalists would be held accountable for their actions.
Robbie will talk about her experience leaving Paul, Weiss in a tumultuous political climate to found a new firm, the innovation behind the funding and litigation of the Charlottesville case, and what it took to lead herself, others, and change through this transformative process.
Friday, April 8, 2022 @ 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. in JG 106
The Davis Polk Leadership Initiative Social Impact Challenge is a one-day event aimed at developing leadership skills and promoting innovation by CLS students. The event will open with a keynote speech by Hitendra Wadhwa, Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Business School. The Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL) will also give a training on everyday leadership and tools for project management.
During the course of the day, students will divide into "action incubators" in order to develop a solution to an issue at the Law School within a budget of $1,000. The groups will then present their proposed solutions to a panel of judges, including Dean Gillian Lester, Dean of the Faculty of Law and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law; James S. Liebman, Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Law and Founder of CPRL; and David B. Toscano, Litigation Counsel at Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. The winning group will receive the funds to implement their solution within the Law School in the following week.
February 26, 2021, 8:00am - 5:00pm PT
View program and recordings here.
From Santa Clara: "Santa Clara University School of Law and its Santa Clara Law Review are providing a national forum for the discussion of leadership in the legal profession during these times of great struggle, change and volatility. These unprecedented times require effective and ethical leadership. The Symposium will bring together some leading experts on leadership by lawyers spanning relevant areas such as national health, politics and government, crisis management, law practice, and legal education."
January 28, 2021, 12:00pm ET
J.R. Martinez is an Army veteran, burn survivor, actor, motivational speaker, New York Times best-selling author, and Dancing with the Stars season 13 winner.
Please join the CLS Davis Polk Leadership Initiative and Alec Schwartz '22 for a conversation with J.R. on perseverance, resilience, and building civil-military understanding.
February 13, 2019 @ 4:20 PM - 6:10 PM
Jerome Greene Hall, Room 103
Join Bruce Sewell, former GC of Apple, and Professor Michael Gerrard for this interactive workshop to learn how the best leaders delegate and say "no" for purposes of self-management, self-care, management of others, and budgeting.
Refreshments will be served.
Presented as part of the Davis Polk Leadership Initiative Workshop Series.
April 10, 2019 @ 4:20pm to 6:00pm
Jerome Greene Hall, Room 101
A signature skill of an exceptional leader is the ability to communicate effectively across social, economic, cultural and other boundaries. While in law school you will need to communicate with various audiences. You will interview for jobs; ask faculty to supervise papers, review exams, or write recommendations; navigate administrative tasks; participate in moot courts; work with real employers and clients in clinics, externships, pro bono projects, or summer internships; persuade peers to elect you to leadership positions; mentor and tutor other students, and more. The goal of this workshop is to teach you the importance of knowing your audience in crafting persuasive, impactful communications that will allow you to effectively lead others.
Prof. Eric Talley, the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and Co-Director, Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership, and Anne Williams-Isom '91, CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone, will lead the workshop.
Refreshments will be served.
Presented as part of the Davis Polk Leadership Initiative Workshop Series.
Wednesday, April 24th, 2019 @ 4:20pm to 6:10pm
Jerome Greene Hall, Room 103
Learn what networking really means and how to network for personal advancement and business development. Dean Gillian Lester, Rachel Barnett, General Counsel of Travelzoo, Inc., and Louise Firestone, Senior Vice President for Legal Affairs and General Counsel for LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton Inc., will lead this exciting, interactive workshop.
Refreshments will be served.
Presented as part of the Davis Polk Leadership Initiative Workshop Series.