Cheryl L. Wade is the "Dean Harold F. McNiece" Professor of Law
at St. John's University School of Law. She teaches Issues of Race,
Gender and Law, Business Organizations, Corporate Governance and
Accountability, and Race and Business. Professor Wade is a
member of the American Law Institute, a national organization of
prominent judges, lawyers and academics who work to clarify,
modernize and reform the law.
Professor Wade has written book chapters and law review articles
on securities, education law and the intersection of race and
business. She has been invited to present at and write for
many symposia including articles published by Boston University Law
Review, Tulane Law Review, The Maryland Law Review, The Washington
& Lee Law Review, and The Iowa Journal of Gender, Race &
Justice. Her articles have been cited in several leading law
reviews. One of her articles on education law, When Judges
Are Gatekeepers: Democracy, Morality, Status and Empathy in
Duty Decisions (Help From Ordinary Citizens) was listed in The
National Law Journal's Worth Reading Column. Another article,
Corporate Governance as Corporate Social Responsibility: Empathy
and Race Discrimination, was excerpted in a text entitled
“Corporate Governance: Law, Theory and Policy. Her article,
Transforming Discriminatory Corporate Cultures: This is Not
Just Women’s Work was listed on the Social Science Research
Network’s Top Ten Download List for Diversity Studies.
Professor Wade has been invited to present at many university
conferences and workshops on issues of corporate and civil rights
law including the UCLA School of Law Critical Race Theory Workshop,
the Theory and Practice of Business Decision Making At Boston
College School of Law, Boston University’s conference on “The Role
of Fiduciary Law and Trust in the Twenty-First Century” and the
Western New England School of Law Clason Speaker Series.
Professor Wade was chosen among several applicants to participate
in the "Corporate Citizens in Corporate Cultures: Restructuring and
Reform" workshop sponsored by the Feminism and Legal Theory Project
at Cornell Law School. She delivered the keynote address at the
University of British Columbia Faculty of Law Symposium on
Shareholder Activism.
Professor Wade is a frequent speaker and panelist at conferences
organized by the Society of American Law Teachers, The American
Association of Law Schools, The National Bar Association, The
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, The Law
and Society Association, and The Association of University
Women. She was invited to appear on the opening plenary
session for the 2009 American Association of Law Schools Midyear
Conference on Business Associations. In 2008, her paper was
selected to be presented at the American Association of Law
Schools’ Section on Securities Regulation. The paper was
presented at the AALS Annual Meeting and published with the other
panelists’ papers in the Brooklyn Journal of Corporate and
Financial Regulation. Professor Wade has appeared on radio and
cable television programs discussing issues relating to corporate
and civil rights.
Professor Wade organized a symposium, “People of Color, Women
and the Public Corporation: Conference on Racial and Gender Equity
in the Business Setting”, sponsored by St. John’s University School
of Law. This symposium brought together leading scholars in
the areas of corporate governance, critical race theory, employment
discrimination and feminist legal theory. The papers from
this symposium were published in the St. John’s Law
Review. Professor Wade is a regular contributor to a
blog on issues about social justice and corporate governance at http://corporatejusticeblog.blogspot.com/
Professor Wade was a Visiting Professor of Law at Washington and
Lee School of Law in the fall, 2003. In 2001, she taught Law
and Race in Sydney, Australia at the University of New South
Wales.
Professor Wade has received two teaching awards from St. John’s
University School of Law’s Deans. Prior to joining the
faculty at St. John's Law School, Professor Wade served on the
faculty at Hofstra Law School. While at Hofstra, Professor Wade was
chosen to serve as an associate for The Merrill Lynch Center for
the Study of International Financial Services and Markets.
Professor Wade received the Outstanding Faculty Member and
Outstanding Alumna Award from The Hofstra Black Law Students
Association in 1996, and received faculty recognition awards from
the group in 1993, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. Before joining
the Hofstra faculty, Professor Wade was an associate in the
corporate department of the New York City law firm, Paul, Weiss,
Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. For several years, Professor Wade
served on the Board of Directors of the Women's Action Alliance, a
not-for-profit corporation devoted to the study and analysis of
issues related to the sociological development and empowerment of
women and girls. She served as the chair of the Task Force on
Diversity in Law Faculty Hiring, which was part of the Committee on
Law Student Perspectives of The Association of the Bar of the City
of New York. Professor Wade served on the 2009 Scholarly
Papers Review Committee of the American Association of Law
Schools.
Before attending law school, Professor Wade was a teacher of
Spanish and bilingual education for the Board of Education of the
City of New York. She received a Masters' degree in Spanish from
St. John's University where she was installed in Sigma Delta Pi, an
honor society for the study of foreign languages.
Professor Wade was awarded a Juris Doctorate with distinction
from the Hofstra University School of Law where she was a member of
the Law Review. She graduated in the top 2% of her law school
class. While a student at Hofstra Law School, Professor Wade
received the Law School's Citation of Excellence for Corporation
Law Courses and the New York State Trial Lawyers Association's
Thurgood Marshall Award.