leadership
building a better legal profession was founded in january 2007 by stanford law school students and quickly spread across the country. the principal co-founders, craig segall '07 and andrew canter '08, were concerned with the de-personalization at america's top law firms and formed a working group to address this growing problem.
in winter 2007, the membership of b.b.l.p. drafted its first white paper, principles for a renewed legal profession, which laid out the negative effects of increasing billable hour requirements at private law firms. on april 2, 2007, the organization then sent copies of the document to the hiring partners and recruiting coordinators of the amlaw 100 law firms. the effort was reported in various media outlets, including the wall street journal.
in summer 2007, b.b.l.p. began its next big project. using publicly available data reported by firms and collected by the national association of law placement (n.a.l.p.), the organization examined the largest law firms in six geographic markets by several important quality-of-life criteria. b.b.l.p. produced a set of rankings for each market -- new york, washington, boston, chicago, los angeles, and san francisco / silicon valley -- for billable hour requirements, demographic diversity, and pro bono participation.
the organization released these reports on october 10, 2007 at a press conference at the national press club in washington, dc. the goal was to provide law students a new set of rankings to help them decide where to work after graduation. as more law students began to select firms based on quality-of-life criteria, rather than simply prestige or compensation, the top law firms would face increasing market pressure to reform their workplace culture in order to attract the best recruits. this project also received significant media attention, including from the los angeles times, wall street journal, new york times, cbs news, new york law journal, american lawyer, and above the law.
national board
| andrew bruck & andrew canter | co-presidents |
| michele dauber | board member professor of law stanford law school |
| jennifer broxmeyer | board member chair, yale law women yale law school |
| katherine reilly | board member vp, women's law association harvard law school |
executive board
feel free to contact our executive board with specific questions related to their work
| jamillah bowman | data & research information | jamillah bowman is a candidate for the joint j.d./ph.d. degree between stanford law school and the department of sociology. broadly speaking, her research examines race and gender inequality in work organizations and the labor market. more specifically, jamillah is interested in the impact of organizational diversity policies and race/gender composition on power and status dynamics in employment settings. jamillah received her bachelor's of science in business administration with concentrations in management and social psychology in 2003 from the georgetown university mcdonough school of business. |  |
| davida brook | outreach to law students; outreach to fortune 500 companies and other firm clients | davida brook is a first year stanford law student from los angeles, california. she graduated from columbia university in 2006 with a b.a. in urban studies. before coming to law school, she worked for the american israel public affairs committee in washington d.c., where she was responsible for organizing a grassroots campaign that engaged african-american, hispanic, and christian college students in pro-israel political activism. davida's interests lie primarily in the intersection of law and policy. |  |
| ben jackson | data & research information | ben jackson is a first year stanford law student from dayton, ohio. he graduated from harvard college in 2003 with an a.b. in linguistics. before attending law school, he taught english in south korea and worked as an admissions and financial aid officer at harvard. ben is also the founder of rhythm, rhyme, results, an educational media company that produces hip-hop music for middle-school students. |  |
| bitta jansma | outreach to law firms; information for facebook group | Bitta Jansma is a first year stanford law student from orange county, california. she graduated from claremont mckenna college in 2004 with a b.a. in international relations and french. before coming to law school, she taught english in paris for one year and then taught french in orange county. her interests lie primarily in education law and human rights. |  |
| matthew schwieger | online media coordinator | matthew is a senior at stanford university. he is a regular contributor to the huffington post. |