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Executive Director Tim Wheat, Esq.
Tim M. Wheat is the Executive Director of Phi Delta Phi and oversees operation of Phi Delta Phi's Headquarters in Washington, DC. A member of Wood Inn since 1988, Director Wheat has also been named a barrister of John McClellan Marshall Inn.
Tim can be reached at twheat@phideltaphi.org.
Director's Message
Whence We Came – A Question of Honor
We often receive inquiries regarding the question of whether Phi Delta Phi is an "honors" fraternity. While a large percentage of our chapters have strict grade point and/or class rank requirements for membership, Phi Delta Phi today is not – across the board – an "honors" fraternity. Such, however, was not always the case.Phi Delta Phi was founded long before the other law fraternities. Indeed, Phi Delta Phi was the first professional fraternity founded in the United States. At its inception, and through most of its history, Phi Delta Phi has sought and received the best and the brightest students from North American law schools. In perusing some of the Fraternity’s historical archives recently, I came across the following transcript of an address given by the President of the Council to the delegates of the Tenth General Convention that convened in Columbus, Ohio on May 14, 1907.
It seems to me that it is possible for the Fraternity to become, if it is not already, the honor society of the law schools. Founded upon high ideals by distinguished men it has grown not only in influence, but in numbers...The responsibility for the future rests constantly upon the members in the active chapters. [New members] should be chosen not simply for good fellowship...but they should also be chosen with a distinct reference to their character and scholarship. So far as possible, it should be made to be what I am sure it really is, a distinct honor to be chosen to membership. Other legal fraternities there are and will be, and I would say nothing by way of disparagement of them, but Phi Delta Phi is the oldest and largest of purely legal fraternities; it was the pioneer in the field; it has the greatest reputation and prestige, and it may properly be looked to to establish and maintain...the highest standards of...personal character and scholarship.
The Brief, v. VII, no. 2; 2d Quarter, 1907 at pp. 145-146 (emphasis in the original).
These eloquent words remind me of what membership in Phi Delta Phi has meant since 1869: a mark of distinction, an earned privilege, and a badge of honor. For those of you who are Phi Delta Phi’s, I simply ask you to wear our colors with pride. If you are a law student but not yet a member of a legal fraternity, I invite you to examine Phi Delta Phi’s remarkable history and tradition of excellence before making your choice.
Fraternally yours,
Tim