Building Ethical Resilience: Legal Counsel’s Role in Fostering Leadership and Dialogue

Timothy L. Fort | Kelley School of Business, Indiana University

Timothy L. Fort holds the Eveleigh Professorship in Business Ethics and is Professor of Business Law & Ethics at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He is also an Affiliated Faculty at the Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Fort received the 2022 Distinguished Career Faculty Award from the Academy of Legal Studies in Business. In 2023, he was nominated for the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize.

He has written one hundred articles/book reviews/book chapters along with twelve books; he has edited an additional twenty-five books. Two of his books have won the Best Book Award from the Academy of Management for Social Issues. He has won twelve research awards from three different academic associations, the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, the Society for Business Ethics, and the Academy of Management and has served on the editorial boards of the flagship journals of each of these associations. He has won five teaching awards and has served as academic director for a unique program for players from the National Football League; he also co-taught a course with then Federal Reserve Chair, Ben Bernanke. He has served as director of an institute, as department chair, and as an interim associate dean. He has been a coach/consultant for Alexandra, Countess of Fredriksborg (Denmark) in her role as a member of the Board of Directors of Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Complementary to his work on business and peace, Tim’s research interest concerns how ethical business conduct can create positive organizational cultures, which in turn foster sustainable peace.

He co-chaired a task force on the topic with the U.S. Institute of Peace and helped to develop a program with the U.S. State Department where MBA students served as pro bono consultants to entrepreneurs in conflict sensitive zones. He has also partnered with NGOs, such as International Peace Through Tourism and Peace Through Commerce. He has extended that work to music, sports, and film to create a research stream of “Cultural Foundations of Peace” where cultural artifacts serve as a nudge to make ethical decisions and to provide common ground for individuals who might otherwise disagree on social issues. In that regard, he has organized multiple conferences with faculty from the Jacobs School of Music, co-edited a book, written two articles, and organized a film series with the IU Cinema. He is currently writing a book with Kristin Hahn, Executive Producer of Apple TV’s The Morning Show, author of two HarperCollins books, and who co-owns Echo Films with Jennifer Aniston.

His pre-tenure work on how businesses can be “mediating institutions” is drawn from natural law and from bioanthropology. That work integrates leading theories of business ethics and emphasizes optimal corporate culture. Fort received his BA and MA from the University of Notre Dame and his PhD and JD from Northwestern University. He taught at the University of Michigan from 1994-2005 and at George Washington University from 2005-2013.

I. Preamble to the model rules and Rule 3.4 | 1:00pm – 1:15pm

II. What the business literature shows of how collaborative cultures and civil engagement both are linked to better economic success | 1:15pm – 1:30pm

III. How a “sincerity edge” further enhances business success, meaning that the sincerity of going beyond compliance for its own independent good enhances economic success even more than reaching beyond compliance to achieve economic success | 1:30pm – 2:00pm

Break | 2:00pm – 2:10pm

IV. How to help a client identify the sources of “good trust” that are essential to any commitment to going beyond legal compliance in an organization | 2:10pm – 2:30pm

V. How to help identify what team of professionals, if any, are crucial to an effort to develop a culture that reaches above compliance | 2:30pm – 2:40pm

VI. How to use “shared cultural experiences” to nudge people in the organization toward openness to each other | 2:40pm – 2:55pm

VII. How those same “shared cultural experiences” often provide bridges for people in the organization to find common ground with each other even amidst differences, social, political or otherwise | 2:55pm – 3:10pm