The American Lawyer Magazine has named retired Simpson Thacher partner, Conrad Harper, a recipient of its annual Lifetime Achievement Award. Nationally recognized for his commitment to civil rights, this award highlights Mr. Harper’s long and distinguished career dedicated to public service. The Award is given to distinguished lawyers who have made notably significant contributions to both private practice and public life, and who by their achievements are models for young lawyers.
Mr. Harper joined Simpson Thacher in 1971 and was elected as the Firm’s first African American partner in 1974. One of his proudest moments as a young lawyer at the Firm was winning a ruling from a Federal District Court judge in Greenville, Mississippi stating that county officials had to permit illiterate black voters to receive voting assistance from persons of their choice. Prior to joining the Firm Mr. Harper practiced law at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where one of his landmark cases included arguing successfully before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of residents from Little Rock, Arkansas who sought membership to an all-white club.
In 1993, Mr. Harper was appointed Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State and served three years as the department’s senior legal officer. While there Harper concluded that then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher should authorize American diplomats to back United Nations resolutions stating that “genocide has occurred” in Rwanda. In a significant letter he warned that American diplomats would undermine the country's credibility if they did not attach the 'genocide label' to the slaughter of Tutsis.
Mr. Harper was also the first African American President of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, a position he held from 1990-1992. During Conrad Harper’s presidency the Bar Association first issued its ground-breaking, Statement of Diversity Principles, revised and reissued by the Bar Association in 2001. The Statement has been adopted by over 130 New York City law firms and corporate legal departments.
In 2005, Mr. Harper again exhibited his strong moral conviction by resigning from the governing board of Harvard University. Five years earlier, Mr. Harper had become the first African American member of Harvard University's executive governing board, the Corporation, in its over 350-year history. Mr. Harper became increasingly dissatisfied with University President Lawrence H. Summers’s performance, specifically with respect to public comments he made regarding women and minorities. “I believe that Harvard's best interests require your resignation,” Harper wrote in a letter to President Summers. The Harvard Crimson’s Year In Review named Mr. Harper a "Man of Letters" in June 2006, recognizing him for his authorship of the letters on Rwanda and Harvard “that are destined for the historical archives”.
Among his many extraordinary achievements, Conrad Harper also served as the Chairman of the Executive Committee and Vice Chairman of the Board of the New York Public Library from 1990-1993, and from 1987-1992 he was Chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of New York.
Mr. Harper received his bachelor’s degree from Howard University in 1962 and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1965.
Mr. Harper currently serves several nonprofit organizations including as a Vice President of the American Philosophical Society, Chairman of the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation, a Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and of the Greenwald Foundation, a member of the Council of the American Law Institute, and a board member of the Academy of Political Science. He is also a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Mr. Harper continues to be of counsel to Simpson Thacher, having retired from full-time practice in 2003.
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