Kathleen Clark
Professor of Law
Kathleen Clark works in the areas of legal ethics, government ethics, the law of whistleblowing, and national security law. Her academic writing has been cited in hundreds of articles and books and has been excerpted in legal ethics textbooks. She has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, National Law Journal, Government Executive and The Hill, and her analysis has appeared in leading newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Financial Times, Time, Newsweek, National Review and Mother Jones.
She is licensed to practice law in Washington, DC, where she serves on the Rules of Professional Conduct Review Committee of the D.C. Bar. When she served as an ethics lawyer for the District of Columbia government, she wrote an Ethics Manual for the District’s 32,000 employees. Clark served as counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and clerked for Federal District Judge Harold H. Greene. She is a board member of the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers and is an Associate Reporter for the American Law Institute’s Principles of Government Ethics.
Clark was named the John S. Lehman Research Professor and Israel Treiman Faculty Fellow at Washington University, and has taught at the University of Michigan, Cornell University, Utrecht University and the University of Economics and Law in Vietnam. She has led anti-corruption and ethics workshops in Australia, Bosnia-Herzegovenia, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, Kosovo, Nigeria, Poland, Russia & Venezuela, and has conducted in-person and web-based ethics training for federal, state and local government agencies. She graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Physics & Philosophy from Yale College, studied Russian in the Soviet Union and Spanish in Guatemala and earned a J.D. from Yale Law School.
- Education
- B.A., Yale University, 1984
- J.D., Yale University, 1990
- Courses
- National Security Law
- The Ethics of Lawyering in Government
- Secrecy and Whistleblowing
- Legal Ethics Writing Seminar
- Publications
- Illusory Ethics: Trump’s Ethics Executive Order, 2017 U. Ill. L. Rev. Online: Trump 100 Days (April 29, 2017)
- Congressional and Presidential War Powers As a Dialogue: Analysis of the Syrian and ISIS Conflicts, 49 Cornell Intl. L. J. 683 (2016) (with Charles Tiefer)
- “Restrictions on Giving Gifts to Executive Branch Employees,” (with Cheryl Embree), in The Lobbying Manual (5th ed. 2016)
- “Financial Rewards for Whistleblowing Lawyers,” (with Nancy Moore), 56 Boston College Law Review 1697 (2015)
- “Faux Transparency: Ethics, Privacy and the Demise of the STOCK Act’s Massive Online Disclosure of Employees Finances”, (with Cheryl Embree) in Research Handbook on Transparency (Padideh Ala’I & Robert Vaughn, eds.) 312-34 (2014)
- “Lawyer Confidentiality, Open Government Laws & Whistleblowing,” 21 Pub. Law. 14 (Summer 2013)
- “Conflicts, Confidentiality and the Client of the Government Lawyer,” 21 Pub. Law. 11 (Winter 2013)
- “Direct and Indirect Access to Intelligence Information: Lessons in Legislative Oversight from the United States and Canada,” (with Nino Lomjaria) in Secrecy, National Security and the Vindication of Constitutional Law (David Cole, Federico Fabbrini & Arianna Vedaschi, eds.) 75–94 (2013)
- “Limited Oversight: Legislative Access to Intelligence Information in the United States and Canada,” (with Nino Lomjaria) 6 J. Parliamentary & Political Law, 523 (2012)
- “Ethics, Employees & Contractors: Financial Conflicts In & Out of Government”, 62 Alabama Law Review 961 (2011)
- “Reporter’s Memorandum No. 3,” American Law Institutes Principles of Government Ethics (2011)
- “Congress’s Right to Counsel in Intelligence Oversight,” 2011 University of Illinois Law Review 915
- “Fiduciary Standards for Bailout Contractors: What Treasury Got Right and Wrong in TARP,” 95 Minnesota Law Review 1614 (2011)
- “Ethics for an Outsourced Government“(Administrative Conference of the United States 2011)
- “A New Era of Openness?: Disclosing Intelligence to Congress under Obama,” 26 Constitutional Commentary 313 (2010)
- “The Architecture of Accountability: A Case Study of the Warrantless Surveillance Program,” 2010 Brigham Young University Law Review 357
- “Restrictions on Gifts and Outside Compensation for Executive Branch Employees,” (with Beth Nolan) in The Lobbying Manual (William V. Luneburg & Thomas M. Susman, eds.) 513-23 (4th ed. 2009)
- “Confidentiality Norms and Government Lawyers,” 85 Washington University Law Review 1033 (2007)
- “Ethical Issues Raised by the OLC Torture Memorandum,” 1 Journal of National Security Law p. 455 (2005)
- “Regulating the Conflict of Interest of Government Officials,” in Conflict of Interest in the Professions (Michael Davis & Andrew Stark, eds.) 49-60 (2001)
- “The Legacy of Watergate for Legal Ethics Instruction,” 51 Hastings Law Journal 673 (2000)
- “The Lawful & the Just: Moral Implications of Unequal Access to Legal Services,” 2 Journal of the Institute for the Study of Legal Ethics (1999)
- “The Ethics of Representing Elected Representatives,” 61 Law and Contemporary Problems 31 (Spring 1998)
- “Paying the Price for Heightened Ethics Scrutiny: Legal Defense Funds and Other Ways that Government Officials Pay Their Lawyers,” 50 Stanford Law Review 65 (1997)
- “Toward More Ethical Government: An Inspector General for the White House,” 49 Mercer Law Review 553 (1997)
- “Do We Have Enough Ethics in Government Yet? An Answer from Fiduciary Theory,” 1996 University of Illinois Law Review57
- “Is Discipline Different? An Essay on Choice of Law and Lawyer Conduct,” 36 South Texas Law Review 1069 (1995)
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