Deborah Rhode with her class of law clerks. Taken circa 1978.

Deborah L. Rhode joined Stanford Law School’s faculty in 1979. Rhode was the third woman to join Stanford Law School's faculty. Her first year she taught The Legal Profession, Professional Responsibility, and Contracts. She originally did not plan to go into teaching but developed an interest after she received pushback while creating DYI divorce kits when she worked at the Legal Aid Clinic. When she arrived at Stanford Law School for her interview in February, she met the faculty and experienced a warm Palo Alto winter. She immediately "fell in love with the place”. Prof. Deborah L. Rhode became the second woman professor to be granted tenured at Stanford Law School.

In the words of former Dean Kathleen Sullivan "Deborah Rhode has played an extraordinary role in the life of Stanford Law School, ... In her prolific scholarship on the legal profession and women and the law, she combines meticulous research with graceful and lively writing that gives her work a broad audience. She brings to her work the generosity and fair-mindedness that also characterize her interactions with her colleagues and students. Deborah has a wonderful and rare scholarly optimism — a belief that careful study and fair analysis can produce better outcomes for our profession and our society. She models all that is best about our profession.”