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October 09

Bebchuk: Unblocking corporate governance reform

The op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84, entitled “Unblocking corporate governance reform,” appeared in Project Syndicate. This op-ed is the most recent installment of Bebchuk’s commentary, which he offers monthly in a series of columns entitled “The rules of the game.”
Harvard Law financial experts explore lessons of the global economic crisis

  A group of Harvard Law School professors gathered on Sept. 29 for a panel discussion on the year-old global economic crisis and the prospects for recovery.  
Waldron to speak at HLS for Holmes Lectures

Held every three years, the Holmes Lectures at Harvard Law School (HLS) are the institution’s most prestigious talks honoring a most prestigious legal scholar. The lecture series was established in 1954 as a result of the 1861 bequest of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., an HLS graduate and associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1902 to 1932.
Environmental Law and Policy Clinic files Supreme Court amicus brief in mining permit case

The HLS Environmental Law and Policy Clinic, under the direction of Assistant Clinical Professor Wendy Jacobs and Clinical Instructor Shaun Goho ’01, has filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition v. United States Army Corps of Engineers. The brief was filed on behalf of Trout Unlimited, a non-profit membership organization dedicated to conserving, protecting and restoring North America’s coldwater fisheries and watersheds.
Sitaraman in New Republic: Course Correction

Camp Julien is surrounded by reminders of Afghanistan’s past. The coalition military base--which sits in the hills south of Kabul, just high enough to rise above the thick cloud of smog that perpetually blankets the city--is flanked by two European-style palaces built in the 1920s by the modernizing King Amanullah. Home to Soviet troops and mujahedin during the past decades of war, the now-crumbling palaces are littered with bullet holes and decorated with graffiti in multiple languages. Uphill from Julien is the old Russian officers’ club, dating from the Soviet invasion and featuring a recently refilled swimming pool that overlooks the southern half of the city. The pool is said to have been the site of executions in the 1990s; the condemned were apparently shot off the diving board.
Gordon-Reed in NYT: Histories Distorted

The family stories of black Americans and the findings of population geneticists make clear that Michelle Obama’s family history is far from unique. The vast majority of black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved in North America have some degree of mixed ancestry.
Daniel I. Gordon ’86 named head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy

President Barack H. Obama ’91 nominated Dan I. Gordon ’86 to serve as Office of Federal Policy Procurement administrator. Gordon, who is currently acting general counsel for the Government Accountability Office, will be responsible for leading a key branch of the Office of Management and Budget.
Nanda in The American Lawyer: Lawyers should be recruited like doctors

Ashish Nanda, Robert Braucher Professor of Practice at HLS, wrote “Lawyers should be recruited like doctors,” an op-ed that appeared in the October 13, 2009, issue of The American Lawyer. Nanda is the faculty director of executive education, and research director at the Program on the Legal Profession at Harvard Law School.
Bebchuk and Spamann in NYT: Reducing incentives for risk-taking

This op-ed co-written by Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84 and Holger Spamann, “Reducing incentives for risk-taking,” appeared in the October 12, 2009, edition of the New York Times. Bebchuk is a professor of law, economics and finance and director of the Program on Corporate Governance at Harvard Law School, and Spamann is co-executive director and a fellow of the HLS corporate governance program. Their op-ed builds on their joint paper, “Regulating Bankers’ Pay.”
National Director of AIDS Policy Speaks on Health Care, Other Issues

Far more is at risk in the health care reform debates than the well-being of the 47 million Americans who are currently uninsured, according to Jeff Crowley, the White House director of the Office of National AIDS Policy and senior adviser on Disability Policy, who spoke to an engaged crowd of about 60 students and others at HLS Wednesday night.
Bruce Wasserstein ‘70 (1947 – 2009)

Bruce Wasserstein ’70, a transformative figure in the history of investment banking and corporate finance, and one of the most generous supporters in the history of Harvard Law School, died Wednesday. He was 61.
Elizabeth Warren receives award from Women’s Bar Association

On Oct. 14, HLS Professor Elizabeth Warren, an expert on consumer and bankruptcy law, received the 2009 Lelia J. Robinson Award from the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts. The Robinson Award, named after the first woman admitted to the Massachusetts bar, recognizes women who are engaged in groundbreaking work in the legal profession, and who have served as mentors and role models for other female attorneys.
Roe and Klarman inducted into American Academy of Arts and Sciences

On Saturday, October 10, 2009, Professors Mark Roe ’75 and Michael Klarman were inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This year the academy, an honorary society of scholars and an independent policy research center, selected 210 new members for “pre-eminent contributions to their disciplines and to society at large.”
HLS men’s crew dominates law school competition at the 45th Head of the Charles

On Saturday, Oct. 17, the Harvard Law School men’s crew raced in the 45th Head of the Charles, securing its position as the dominant law school on the river. The Head of the Charles is the world’s largest two-day rowing event, involving more than 7,500 athletes and 300,000 spectators from around the world. The HLS crew deftly navigated the three-mile course in 17 minutes and 47 seconds.
Panelists assess the fall-out of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’

Experts on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and veterans who served under it drew a-standing-room-only crowd at Harvard Law School last week, during a panel discussion sponsored by the student organization Lambda and moderated by Dean Martha Minow.
Donahue receives honorary doctorate from the Université de Paris II: Panthéon-Assas

Charles Donahue, the Paul A. Freund Professor of Law, was selected to receive an honorary doctorate from the Université de Paris II: Panthéon-Assas. A member of the Harvard Law School faculty since 1978, Donahue specializes in property law and legal history.
HLS Program on International Financial Systems jointly holds symposium with Japanese leaders to discuss global financial challenges

This weekend, senior financial and government leaders from the United States and Japan will gather in Armonk, N.Y., to examine challenges facing the financial sectors of the two countries. The “Symposium on Building the Financial System of the 21st Century: An Agenda for Japan and the United States” is organized by Harvard Law School’s Program on International Financial Systems (PIFS) and the International House of Japan (I-House).
Harvard Law School announces new public service fellowship program

Harvard Law School is announcing today the creation of the Holmes Public Service Fellowships, which will fund one year of public service work for approximately 12 graduating students during 2010-2011. The fellowships will pay up to $35,000 to support a year of post-graduate legal work at a non-profit or government agency anywhere in the world.
Robert Verchick ’89 appointed to Environmental Protection Agency post

Robert Verchick ’89 has been appointed to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Policy, Economics and Innovation to serve as deputy associate administrator. He currently heads the Center for Environmental Law and Land Use at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
Wilkins Receives Inaugural J. Clay Smith Award

David Wilkins, the Lester Kissel Professor of Law and director of the Program on the Legal Profession at Harvard LawSchool, was selected to receive the first-ever J. Clay Smith Award from Howard University School of Law. A member of the Harvard Law School faculty since 1986, Wilkins specializes in studying the structures, norms, and practices of the legal profession, as well as legal ethics.
Elizabeth Warren Named to GQ’s List of 50 Most Powerful People in D.C.

GQ Magazine recently named HLS Professor Elizabeth Warren to its 2009 list of the “50 Most Powerful People in D.C.” Placing her at number 30, GQ recognized her for her role as the Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).