Clinical Professor of Law
Diane Dimond is a Clinical Professor of Law and the Director of Legal Writing at the Duke University School of Law. She teaches the first-year course in Legal Analysis, Research, & Writing and two upper-level seminars, Negotiation and Contract Drafting.
Professor Dimond received her B.A. in political science and French from the University of Iowa in 1973, and her J.D. from the Harvard Law School in 1977. She began her practice of law in New York City at a major Wall Street firm in the litigation department, and after six years moved to North Carolina, where she continued her practice in litigation, first as an associate and later as a partner, in a large North Carolina firm. Her major practice area was in commercial litigation, including employment-related litigation and advice, defense of securities fraud actions, trade secrets/intellectual property suits, nuclear power plant construction litigation, personal injury insurance defense, and representation of both corporate clients and foreign governmental bodies in transnational disputes. She has had extensive experience in pre-trial discovery and motion practice, lay and expert witness preparation, appellate brief writing, computerized document management, and settlement negotiations. While most of the matters she handled were filed in state and federal courts, she has also represented clients in a number of arbitration proceedings. After almost 17 years of practice, she joined the Duke Law faculty to teach full time in 1994, and was appointed as Clinical Professor of Law in January 2001. In 2004, she won the Duke Bar Association's Distinguished Teaching Award.
She is a member of the bars of the states of New York and North Carolina, as well as a number of federal district and appellate courts.