Eli Wald

Professor

Charles W. Delaney Jr. Professor of Law

Faculty
Sturm College of Law
Corporate & Commercial Law Program

ewald@law.du.edu

303-871-6530 (Office)

Office 330L, Frank H. Ricketson Law Bldg., 2255 East Evans Ave. Denver, CO 80208

Specialization(s)

Legal Ethics and Legal Profession

Professional Biography

Eli Wald is the Charles W. Delaney Jr. Professor of Law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. A legal ethics and legal profession scholar, Wald has written on topics such as access to legal services, increased lawyer mobility, conflict of interests and attorney disqualification, lawyers' fiduciary duties to clients, the nationalization and globalization of law practice, the challenges facing lawyers representing clients in the emerging marijuana industry and, most recently, BigLaw and in-house lawyers. Professor Wald is a co-author of a leading casebook on the law governing lawyers. His work has appeared in leading journals such as the Alabama, Fordham, Stanford, University of Colorado and Wisconsin law reviews, the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, and the UC Law Journal. Wald’s articles have been cited in ABA ethics opinions and excerpted in legal ethics casebooks.

Professor Wald's ongoing research into the causes and manifestations of explicit prejudice and implicit bias at large law firms and in-house legal departments, as well as means of overcoming discrimination, has gained national attention. His scholarship examines the structure and organization of law firms and in-house departments as well as the professional and personal identities of their lawyers to better understand the hiring and promotion patterns of law firms, and the lingering under-representation of minorities in positions of power and influence. Wald's articles have explored the rise and fall of WASP and Jewish law firms, the role of kinship and nepotism in law firms' promotion decisions, the discriminatory consequences of professional ideology, and implicit bias and structural discrimination in BigLaw and in-house legal departments.

Wald serves on the ABA House of Delegates, is a member of the Colorado Supreme Court Standing Committee on the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct, Chair Elect of the Colorado State Bar Association's Ethics Committee, and a member of the Colorado Judicial Ethics Advisory Board. A past member of the executive committee of the Association of American Law Schools' Professional Responsibility Section, and a longtime co-editor of the Legal Profession Section of JOTWELL – The Journal of Things We Like (Lots), Professor Wald is an expert witness in legal ethics and malpractice matters, and a frequent legal ethics CLE instructor. At the law school, his accomplishments include winning the best faculty advisor award, and being named a Chu Family Faculty Fellow and the Hughes-Ruud Research Professor.

Professor Wald is an enthusiastic supporter of the performing arts. A former board member of Wonderbound, a leading Colorado modern dance company, he serves on the board of Friends of Chamber Music Denver.

Prior to joining the Sturm College of Law, Professor Wald was a litigation associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City. He holds S.J.D. and LL.M. degrees from Harvard Law School, where he was a John Olin Fellow in Law and Economics, a Fellow at the Center for Ethics and the Professions, and a Clark Byse Fellow. Wald also earned LL.B. and B.A. degrees from Tel-Aviv University, where he was a law review editor and a Visiting Fellow at the Max Plunk Institutes in Hamburg and Heidelberg, Germany.

The Charles W. Delaney Jr. Professor of Law

The Charles W. Delaney Jr. Professor of Law Chair was established in 1971 with a gift from Mrs. Elda Delaney, honoring her son, Charles Delaney, JD, 35, who was killed during World War II. Thompson G. Marsh held the Delaney Jr. Chair from 1971 until his retirement in 1987 and was succeeded by William M. Beaney. David (Jake) W. Barnes, currently the Distinguished Research Professor of Law at the Seton Hall Law School, held the Chair between 1993 and 2001 and was followed by Julie A. Nice, who was the Delaney Jr. Professor between 2002 and 2009 before joining the University of San Francisco Law School as the Herbst Foundation Professor of Law.

View CV

Degree(s)

SJD, Harvard Law School, 2001
LLM, Harvard Law School, 1998
BA, Economics, Tel-Aviv University, 1997
BA, LLB, Tel-Aviv University School of Law, 1997

SSRN: View Now

Featured Publications

Chilling Climate Change Disclosure: The Enabling Role of Corporate Counsel in Management Misstatements of ESG Matters, co-authored with J. Robert Brown, 72 DePaul L. Rev. 585 (2023).
Class Actions’ Ethical “KISS”: The Class Action Lawyer’s Client Is the Class, 74 Hastings L. J. 1433 (2023).
The Access and Justice Imperatives of the Rules of Professional Conduct, 35 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 375 (2022).
Is the Legal Profession Too Independent?, co-authored with Limor Zer-Gutman, 105 Marquette L. Rev. 341 (2022).
Formation Without Identity: Avoiding a Wrong Turn in the Professionalism Movement, 89 UMKC L. Rev. 685 (2021).
Getting in and out of the House: The Worlds of In-House Counsel, Big Law, and Emerging Career Trajectories of In-House Lawyers, 88 Fordham L. Rev. 1765 (2020).
Jewish Lawyers and the U.S. Legal Profession: The End of the Affair?, 36 Touro L. Rev. 299 (2020).
In-House Pay: Are Salaries, Stock Options and Health Benefits a “Fee” Subject to a Reasonableness Requirement and Why the Answer Constitutes the Opening Shot in a Class War between Lawyer-Employees and Lawyer-Professionals, 20 Nev. L. J. 243 (2019).
The Contextual Problem of Law Schools, 32 Notre Dame J. L. Ethics & Pub. Pol’y 281 (2018).
A Thought Experiment about the Academic “Billable” Hour or Law Professors’ Work Habits, 101 Marquette L. Rev. 991 (2018).
Transcript – Conference on the Ethics of Legal Scholarship, co-authored with Nicola Boothe-Perry, Stanley Fish, Leslie Francis, Neil Hamilton, Carissa Hessick, Paul Horwitz, Chad Oldfather, Ryan Scoville, Amanda Seligman & Robin West, 101 Marquette L. Rev. 1083 (2018).
New Legal Ethics Textbook: Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession -- Sixth Edition, co-authored with David Wilkins, Andy Kaufman, and Keith Swisher, Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession, Carolina Academic Press; 6th ed. (2017).
Success, Merit and Capital in America, 101 Marquette Law Review 1 (2017).
New Legal Ethics Textbook: Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession -- Sixth Edition, co-authored with David Wilkins, Andy Kaufman, and Keith Swisher, Problems in Professional Responsibility for a Changing Profession, Carolina Academic Press; 6th ed. (2017).
Lawyers’ Identity Capital, 22 Int'l. J. Legal Prof. 109 (2016).
Being Good Lawyers: A Relational Approach to Law Practice, co-authored with Russell G. Pearce, 29 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 601 (2016).
Legal Ethics’ Next Frontier: Lawyers and Cybersecurity, 19 Chapman L. Rev. 501 (2016).
Can We Talk? Bias, Diversity, and Inclusiveness in the Colorado Legal Community, Part I, Ronald M. Sandgrund, Esq., 45 The Colorado Lawyer 45 (Jan. 2016).
Can We Talk? Bias, Diversity, and Inclusiveness in the Colorado Legal Community, Part II, Ronald M. Sandgrund, Esq., 45 The Colorado Lawyer 49 (Feb. 2016).
Can We Talk? Bias, Diversity, and Inclusiveness in the Colorado Legal Community, Part III, Ronald M. Sandgrund, Esq., 45 The Colorado Lawyer 67 (Mar. 2016).
Serfdom without Overlords: Lawyers and the Fight against Class Inequality, 54 U. Louisville L. Rev. 269 (2016).
Implicit Bias: BigLaw’s Diversity Problem, Hannah Garcia, Law Week Colorado, March 23, 2015 (discussing Prof. Wald’s work on identity capital and implicit bias).
Difference Blindness vs. Bias Awareness: Why Law Firms with the Best of Intentions Have Failed to Create Diverse Partnerships, co-authored with Russell G. Pearce, Swethaa Ballakrishnen , 83 Fordham Law Review, 2407 (2015).
BigLaw Identity Capital: Pink and Blue, Black and White, 83 Fordham L. Rev. 2509 (2015).
Public Lawyers and Marijuana Regulation, co-authored with Sam Kamin, 23(1) The Public Lawyer 14 (2015).
Representing Clients in the Marijuana Industry: Navigating State and Federal Rules, co-authored with Eric B. Liebman, Amanda R. Bertrand (2015).
In-House Risk, Compliance & Ethics, ABA Antitrust Section Newsletter (Summer 2015).
What’s Love Got to do with Lawyers? Thoughts on Relationality, Love, and Lawyers’ Work, co-authored with Russell G. Pearce, 17 Legal Ethics (2014).
Resizing the Rules of Professional Conduct, 27 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 227 (2014).
The Jewish Law Firm: Past and Present, JEWS IN THE LEGAL PROFESSION, 65-124 (Marc Galanter, et al eds., New Orleans: Quid Pro Press, 2014).
Lawering for Groups: The Case of American Indian Tribal Attorneys, co-authored with Kristen A. Carpenter, 81 Fordham L. Rev. 3085 (2013).
The Relational Infrastructure of Law Firm Culture and and Regulation: The Exaggerated Death of Big Law, co-authored with Russell G. Pearce, 42 Hofstra L. Rev. 109 (2013).
Pitfalls for Pot Lawyers, co-authored with Sam Kamin, The National Law Journal (2013).
Marijuana Lawyers: Outlaws or Crusaders?, co-authored with Sam Kamin, 91 Or. L. Rev. 869 (2013).
Disclosure to Clients of the Use of Temporary Lawyers and Outsourcing, 41(4) Col. Law. 35 (2012).
In-House Myths, 2012 Wis. L. Rev. 407.
Smart Growth: The Large Law Firm in the Twenty-First Century, 80 Fordham L. Rev. 2867 (2012).
Beyond Cardboard Lawyers in Legal Ethics, co-authored with Pearce G. Russell, 15 Legal Ethics 147 (reviewing W. BRADLEY WENDEL, LAWYERS AND FIDELITY TO LAW (2010) (2012).
Looking Beyond Gender: Women’s Experiences at Law School, 48 Tulsa L. Rev. 27 (2012).
Rethinking Lawyer Regulation: How a Relational Approach Would Improve Professional Rules and Roles, co-authored with Russell G. Pearce, 2012 Mich. St. L. Rev. 513.
Federalizing Legal Ethics, Nationalizing Law Practice and the Future of the American Legal Profession in a Global Age, 48 San Diego L. Rev. 489 (2011).
Non-Compete Agreements in Colorado, 40(6) Colorado Lawyer 63 (2011).
A Primer on Diversity, Discrimination and Equality in the Legal Profession or Who is Responsible for Pursuing Diversity and Why, 24 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 1079 (2011).
The Obligation of Lawyers to Heal Civic Culture: Confronting the Ordeal of Incivility in the Practice of Law, co-authored with Pearce, Russell G., 34 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 1 (2011).
The Visibility of Socioeconomic Status and Class-Based Affirmative Action: A Reply to Professor Sander, 88 Denv. U. L. Rev. 861 (2011).
Making Good Lawyers, co-authored with Russell G. Pearce, 9 U. St. Thomas L. J. 403 (2011).
Should Judges Regulate Lawyers?, 42 McGeorge L. Rev. 2010 (2010).
Partner Departures and Lateral Moves (Book Review), 39(8) Colo. Law. 127 (2010).
•The Great Recession and the Legal Profession, 78 Fordham L. Rev. 2051 (2010).
Glass-ceilings and Dead Ends: Professional Ideologies, Gender Stereotypes and the Future of Women Lawyers at Large Law Firms, 78 Fordham L. Rev. 2245 (2010).
Book Review, 59 J. Legal Educ. 311 (2009) (reviewing Richard L. Abel, Lawyers in the Dock , 2008).
The Other Legal Profession and the Orthodox View of the Bar: The Rise of Colorado’s Elite Law Firms, 80 U. Colo. L. Rev. 605 (2009).
Loyalty In Limbo: The Peculiar Case of Attorneys’ Loyalty to Clients, 40 St. Mary's L. J. 909 (2009) (syposium issue).
Notes from Tsinghua: Law and Legal Ethics in Contemporary China, 23 Conn. J. Int'l L. 369 (2008).
Taking Attorney-Client Communications (and Therefore Clients) Seriously, 42 U. S. F. L. Rev. 747 (2008).
The Rise and Fall of the WASP and Jewish Law Firms, 60 Stan. L. Rev. 1803 (2008).
The Rise of the Jewish Law Firm or Is the Jewish Law Firm Generic?, 76 UMKC L. Rev. 885 (2008).
How We Got There?, Am. Lawyer (November 1, 2008) (exploring the relationship between investment banks and elite law firms).
Disqualifying a District Attorney When a Government Witness Was Once the District Attorney's Client: The Law Between the Courts and the State, 85 Denv. U.L. Rev. 369 (2007).
Lawyer Mobility and Legal Ethics: Resolving the Tension between Confidentiality and Contemporary Lawyers' Career Paths, 31 J. Legal Prof. 199 (2007).
U.S. lawyers: Speak out, Nat'l L. J. (April 9, 2007).
Lawyers and Corporate Scandals, 7 Legal Ethics 54 (2004).
An Unlikely Knight in Economic Armor: "Law and Economics" in Defense of Professional Ideals, 31 Seton Hall L. Rev. 1042 (2001).