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Conrad Harper, a partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP (1974-2002) and currently Of Counsel to the Firm, was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Harvard University at last week's 356th commencement exercise. He joined eight other honorary degree recipients, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Robert Silvers, Editor of The New York Review of Books.

Conrad Harper is a 1965 graduate of Harvard Law School and former legal adviser for the U.S. State Department. He also served as a member of the Harvard Corporation. Mr. Harper was a member and chair of the University’s Advisory Committee on Honorary Degrees and a member of both the Corporation Committee on shareholder responsibility and the governing boards’ Joint Committee on Appointments.

Conrad Harper received his undergraduate degree from Howard University before going to Harvard Law School. He worked at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in New York and he served as a legal adviser for the U.S. Department of State. He was also a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.

Mr. Harper has served as an officer on the board of numerous professional and nonprofit organizations, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the William Nelson Cromwell Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, the Greenwall Foundation, the New York Public Library, the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and the Academy of Political Science. He is a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers, the Council of the American Law Institute, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.