Carol A. Buckler

Director of the Center for Professional Values and Practice
NYLS Director of Pro Bono Initiatives

Professor of Law

Carol Buckler is the Director of the Center for Professional Values and Practice, and leads the law school's Pro Bono Initiative.  She has served as Interim Dean, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Dean for Professional Development.

She teaches legal ethics and the wide-ranging yet often subtle professional skills needed by practicing lawyers.

Professor Buckler's teaching stresses the importance of values in the practice of law. The daughter of a certified public accountant, Dean Buckler gained an early respect for the professional ethic, a code that she turned into a career specialty while still a junior litigator. After graduating from Yale University and Harvard Law School, she began her legal career at Berle Kass & Case, a small Manhattan firm that emphasized public interest work. Assigned to research a question about a possible conflict of interest, she soon became the house expert on ethics.

“I always thought that ethics was an underrated subject among students. Practicing lawyers invariably look back and wish they had paid more attention in their ethics classes,” she says. She finds, however, that preaching about ethics is not the most effective technique. “You have to put students in a situation where they can see the competing interests and values that affect lawyer decision-making.”

She came to New York Law School in 1991, teaching in the clinical program. Professor Buckler is coauthor of the workplace reference book, Everything a Working Mother Needs to Know About Pregnancy Rights, Maternity Leave, and Making Her Career Work for Her (Doubleday, 1994).