Heineman will split time between Harvard Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession and Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.

Post Date: October 31, 2005

Ben W. Heineman, Jr., GE’s Senior Vice President for Law and Public Affairs, will become the first Distinguished Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession, beginning in the spring semester. At the same time, he will become a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

From 1987-2003, Heineman was GE’s Senior Vice President-General Counsel, before assuming his current post at GE, which he will leave at the end of this year.

Heineman’s primary activity at both schools will be to conduct research and write on a wide variety of public and private sector issues, including the global anti-corruption movement, corporate citizenship and social responsibility, the changing role of the corporate general counsel and the inside legal department, the corporate response to terrorism, corporate governance, and corporations and public policy. He will join with members of the faculty to teach in these and related areas and will also counsel students on career choices.

“Ben Heineman has been a towering leader in virtually every aspect of professional practice,” said Professor David Wilkins, director of the Program on the Legal Profession. “As general counsel of General Electric, Ben redefined the role of in-house lawyer and turned G.E. into a training ground for lawyers who would go on to lead legal departments at other Fortune 500 companies. I can think of no one better to help us understand the complex issues facing lawyers today than Ben Heineman.”

“We are extremely fortunate to have Ben Heineman joining us,” said Graham Allison, director of the Belfer Center. “Ben’s extraordinary experience and leadership in addressing public policy issues both in government and at the highest level of a major international corporation will make him a highly valued addition to the Center and the Harvard community. We expect to draw heavily on his unique role in dealing with global issues.”

In addition to his 18 years at GE, Heineman has worked as a partner in two law firms, both in Washington, D.C., focusing on civil, regulatory and constitutional litigation. During the Carter administration, he was an executive assistant to the Secretary and then Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. He began his legal career as a staff attorney for the Center for Law & Social Policy in Washington, D.C. litigating to vindicate the rights of the mentally handicapped.

Heineman holds degrees from Harvard College (1965), Oxford University (1967), and Yale Law School (1971). A former Rhodes Scholar, he served as editor in chief of the Yale Law Journal and law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. He is the author of books on British race relations and the American presidency as well as numerous articles.

Heineman is on the boards of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Transparency International-USA, the Center for National Policy and the National Constitution Center. Starting in 2006, he will also serve as Senior Advisor to CSIS and Senior Counsel to the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP.