Scott Westfahl
Scott Westfahl joined Goodwin Procter in 2004 as the firm’ s Director of Professional Development. In this role, he is responsible for all aspects of the professional development of Goodwin Procter attorneys, focusing primarily on issues involving feedback, mentoring, career progression, diversity, professional skills development, attorney integration and alumni. In 2008, he was chosen as one of Law Firm, Inc. magazine’ s five “ Innovators of the Year” for his work in developing a cutting edge attorney assignment system and database called iStaff, which effectively ties attorney work assignments to their professional development needs.
Mr. Westfahl currently serves as Chair of the Professional Development Consortium, a 400-member professional association for law firm professional development and training leaders across North America and the U.K. He is a frequent guest lecturer and is the author of the book You Get What You Measure: Lawyer Development Frameworks and Effective Performance Evaluations (NALP, 2008). In 2011, the Dean of Harvard Law School appointed Mr. Westfahl a Lecturer on Law to co-teach a section of the school’ s innovative Problem Solving Workshop, a mandatory and highly interactive new course for first year law students that focuses on having students work in teams to solve real-world legal problems.
Prior to coming to Goodwin Procter, Mr. Westfahl spent six years leading professional development for the Washington, D.C. office of McKinsey & Company, one of the world’ s top management consulting companies. He is also an experienced business and federal regulatory attorney, having practiced law with Foley & Lardner’ s Washington, D.C. office from 1988 to 1998. Mr. Westfahl earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1988, and graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1985 with a B.A. in Government.
