2023 Speakers

CLE & Events Annual Meeting 2023 Speakers & Content 2023 Speakers

2023 Annual Meeting Keynote Speaker

Keynote Address: Dangerous Leaders

Prof. Anthony C. Thompson proposes a fundamental rethinking of legal education, based upon intersectional leadership, to prepare lawyers to assume the types of roles that our increasingly fast-paced world requires. Intersectional leadership challenges lawyer leaders to see the world through a different lens and expects a form of inclusion and respect for other perspectives and experiences that will prove critical to maneuvering in a complex environment.

Anthony C. Thompson is Professor of Clinical Law Emeritus, and founding faculty director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law, at New York University School of Law. Prof. Thompson retired from the NYU Law faculty, of which he was a member for 25 years and taught courses in criminal justice, civil litigation and leadership.

Prior to his appointment to the NYU faculty, Prof. Thompson was in private practice in Richmond, California where he handled criminal, civil, and entertainment matters. Before opening his own practice, Professor Thompson served for nine years as a Deputy Public Defender in Contra Costa County California. While there, he represented adults charged with criminal offenses and juveniles charged as delinquents. He also brought a major impact action that forced the county to provide confidential interview rooms for detained juveniles.

Thompson is part of the Duke Corporate Education Global Educator Network and has provided executive education to a number of global companies focusing on leadership and strategy execution. He received numerous prizes for his teaching, including the NYU Distinguished Teaching Award; the Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award, which recognizes teaching excellence, leadership, social justice activism, and community building; and the Law School’s Podell Distinguished Teaching Award. Thompson was recognized by El Diario in 2011 with “The EL” award, as one of the “outstanding Latinos in the Tri-State area,” for his community service. He earned his JD at Harvard Law School and his BS Ed from Northwestern University.