James Kiernan, is chairman of the Board of Directors at the Center for Public Integrity, is a former partner with and is currently of counsel to Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, the New York-based international law firm. He has spent most of his legal career in Europe, first in Paris and then in London, where he played a leading role in building the firm’s European practice.
Jim has a longstanding interest in public affairs and international relations, beginning in 1961 when he spent the summer in Germany as an AFS exchange student, and then in 1966 when he was a Fulbright Scholar at the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Jim was one of the initial members of the editorial staff on the award-winning PBS public affairs series, The Advocates, from 1969 to 1971 while still in graduate school. He has also served as the lead independent director of the Fondation des Etats-Unis in France for more than 25 years. Jim is an honors graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School and was a Littauer Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
