HLS News December 2003

• Q & A: Fried on Senators, Judges and the Court

  Professor Charles Fried, a former U.S. solicitor general and justice on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court discusses judicial confirmation battles and his recent cases before the Supreme Court. Fried’s book, “Saying What the Law Is: The Constitution in the Supreme Court,” will be published in February.

• HLS Students to Continue Representing Inmates

  Each year more than 80 Harvard Law students assist prisoners in parole and disciplinary hearings as participants in the school's Prison Legal Assistance Project. For the first- and second-year law students that participation was threatened by a proposed new rule that would have barred them from representing Massachusetts inmates in prison hearings. However, the new acting commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Correction has announced that the proposed rule has been rescinded.

• School Wins Record Number of Skadden Fellowships

  HLS students and recent graduates have won an unprecedented eight Skadden Fellowships to pursue public interest work. The awards represent the most given to applicants from any single law school in the 15-year history of the Skadden Fellowship Foundation.

• Student Spotlight: Stephan Sonnenberg

  The hardest part of Stephan Sonnenberg's job last summer was telling his clients about the likelihood of a five-year wait for their day in court. Still, the Chechen refugees were excited as they sat with Sonnenberg '06 in Ingushetia, a neighboring republic to the war-ravaged Chechnya, as he collected testimony about their "disappeared" relatives for cases to go before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

• HLS Professors Collaborate with HBS Colleagues

  Six Harvard Law School professors have joined with nine of their colleagues at Harvard Business School to comment on proposed Securities and Exchange Commission rules regarding shareholder access to corporate proxy elections. The letter represents a continued collaboration between faculty at HLS and HBS. The recently formed study group on corporate governance has been meeting once a month for the past year to analyze current corporate governance issues.

• Assistant Prof. Samuel Bagenstos on Disability Law

  Assistant Professor Samuel Bagenstos is writing the plaintiff’s brief for a case scheduled to be heard before the Supreme Court this term, in which the state of Tennessee is challenging the Americans with Disabilities Act’s requirement that people with disabilities have access to state facilities. Bagenstos, who has worked on two other ADA cases heard by the court, describes how he got involved, how the law is evolving and what’s at stake.