March 2010

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  Bebchuk: Corporate political speech is bad for shareholders

  “Corporate political speech is bad for shareholders,” an op-ed by HLS Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M ’80 S.J.D. ’84, is the latest installment of his monthly column in Project Syndicate.

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  Vermeule in The New Republic: States of Detention

  Harvard law School Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 wrote the book review “States of Detention,” which appeared in The New Republic on March 1, 2010. 

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  Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein unite to call for eye on government

  Former presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader ’58 and former Deputy Attorney General and FCC General Counsel Bruce Fein ’72 come from somewhat different places ideologically, but both agree that lax oversight has allowed government to run amok.

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  Three HLS Students Recognized for Outstanding Writing

  Harvard Law School has awarded prizes for outstanding written work to Cassandra Barnum ’10, Jonathan Bressler ’10 and Ryan Park ’10.

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  Faculty Scholarship: Cohen on Medical Tourism and the Patient Protective-Argument

  Professor I. Glenn Cohen ’03, co-director of the Petrie-Flom Center, has written a working paper titled “Protecting Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism and the Patient Protective-Argument.” The working paper examines the growth of “medical tourism” – travel of patients who are residents of one country to another country for medical treatment. 

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  Citizen Media Law Project and Cyberlaw Clinic File Amicus Brief in Illinois SLAPP-suit matter

  The Citizen Media Law Project, joined by the Public Participation Project, the Online News Association, and the Chicago Current, submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Illinois Supreme Court this week, urging the Court to reject two lower courts’ narrow interpretations of the state’s Anti-SLAPP statute.

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  Committee on Capital Markets Regulation proposes Fed-regulated clearinghouses to reduce systemic risk

  “Meaningful financial regulatory reform depends on reducing the risks posed by over-the-counter derivatives,” said Harvard Law School Professor Hal Scott, president and director of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation (CCMR). In a 28-page letter dated Mar. 4, the committee advocated for increased oversight of derivatives by the Federal Reserve.

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  Minow will deliver lectures at Notre Dame and Yale Law

  This month, Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow, the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor, will deliver the 16th annual Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh Lecture in Ethics and Public Policy at the University of Notre Dame  and the Robert M. Cover Lecture in Law and Religion at Yale Law School.

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  Dershowitz in NYT: Representing the despised

  In today’s New York Times, Alan M. Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, contributed a post, “Representing the Despised,” in response to the recent release of a video by a conservative advocacy organization, Keep America Safe, which takes aim at lawyers who have represented Guantánamo detainees and are now working in the Justice Department.Dershowitz’s post is one of four commentaries that appeared as part of the Times’ Room for Debate blog post “Attacking Lawyers from the Right and Left.” Dershowitz is the author of many books, including, “Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights.”

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  At HLS, Perrelli details DOJ efforts to stop violence against women

  On March 8, Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli ’91 returned to Harvard Law School to discuss the Department of Justice’s new violence against women initiative. Perrelli’s visit  marked the first stop on a month-long college campus tour sponsored by DOJ.

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  Faculty scholarship: Vermeule on Intermittent Institutions

  Professor Adrian Vermeule ‘93 recently published “Intermittent Institutions” as part of the Harvard Law School Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers series. 

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  Bordone: health care reform negotiation process has been flawed (video)

  Negotiations between the White House and Congressional leaders of both parties have been undermined by mistakes that could have been avoided by using a better negotiation process, says Robert Bordone, Clinical Professor of Law and Director of the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program at Harvard Law School.

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  Harvard Law Faculty Lead SSRN Rankings

  Harvard Law School’s faculty earned the top ranking for the number of academic papers authored and downloaded on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), according to cumulative statistics recently released for 2009.

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  Grainne de Burca, noted scholar in EU law and transnational governance, will join HLS faculty

  Grainne de Burca, a leading expert in European Union law, European human rights law, and European and transnational governance, will join the Harvard Law School faculty as a tenured professor of law on July 1.

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  Fried op-ed: What Liz Cheney doesn’t get about lawyers

  HLS Professor and former Solicitor General ('85-'89) Charles Fried co-wrote an op-ed “What Liz doesn’t get about lawyers,” with Gregory Fried, chairman of the philosophy department at Suffolk University. Their op-ed, which appeared March 15, 2010, on The Daily Beast, criticizes Liz Cheney’s group, Keep America Safe, for unfairly attacking the lawyers who have defended terrorists. 

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  Minow, four other law school deans urge Armed Services Committees to support ending "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy

  Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow and four other law school deans have urged key lawmakers on Capitol Hill to end the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. “The effects of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ are marginalization, exclusion, and denigration,” wrote the law school deans in a March 18 letter to the Armed Services committees in the House and Senate.

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  A small act, multiplied (video)

  As an impoverished youth in Kenya, Chris Mburu LL.M.’93 was threatened with expulsion from his primary school because he couldn’t afford the fees. A woman named Hilde Back decided to help, and wrote a check for $15 dollars to sponsor the Kenyan student for one term. Little did she know just how much Mburu’s life would be changed.

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  Q&A with Chris Mburu LL.M. ’93 on the film “A Small Act”

  Chris Mburu LL.M. 93 is the subject of a new documentary, “A Small Act,” which chronicles his search for a benefactor, Hilde Back, whose sponsorship allowed him to remain in school in Kenya. The film follows Mburu as he embarks on a mission to reciprocate her philanthropy with a scholarship fund of his own.

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  Minow, Levi confirmed to board of Legal Services Corporation

  The U.S. Senate confirmed Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow’s appointment to the board of the Legal Services Corporation, a bi-partisan, government-sponsored organization that provides civil legal assistance to low-income Americans, today. Minow was joined by five other nominees in the confirmation by Executive Session, including John Levi '72 LL.M. '73.

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  Goldsmith in Washington Post on the trials of the 9-11 conspirators

  The op-ed “The best trial option for KSM: Nothing” was co-written by HLS Professor Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general in the Bush Administration, and Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Their op-ed appeared in the March 19, 2010, edition of the Washington Post.

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  Benkler in NYT: Ending the Internet’s trench warfare

  HLS Professor Yochai Benkler ’94 wrote “Ending the Internet’s trench warfare,” an op-ed that appeared in The New York Times on March 21, 2010. Last summer, Benkler, the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard and faculty co-director of the Berkman Center, conducted a major independent review of existing literature and studies about broadband deployment and usage throughout the world, following a request by the Federal Communications Commission.

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  Harvard Law School Program on the Legal Profession partners with Danish law firm Plesner

  Harvard Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession (PLP) and leading European law firm Plesner announced a strategic collaboration today. Plesner will become the first European affiliate and supporter of PLP’s Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry, which conducts and sponsors empirical research on the central questions facing the legal services industry.

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  Dershowitz in WSJ: Obama’s legacy and the Iranian bomb

  The following op-ed by HLS Professor Alan Dershowitz, “Obama’s legacy and the Iranian bomb,” appeared in the March 23, 2010, edition of the Wall Street Journal.

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  Faculty scholarship: Sachs on enabling employee choice

  The Harvard Law Review published “Enabling Employee Choice: A Structural Approach to the Rules of Union Organizing,” by Professor Benjamin Sachs on January 19, 2010.

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  Bebchuk, Cohen, and Spamann in Project Syndicate: Paid to fail

  "Paid to Fail," an op-ed co-written by HLS Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84, Visiting Professor Alma Cohen, and Lecturer on Law Holger Spamann S.J.D. ’09 appeared in Project Syndicate on March 18, 2010. It is the latest installment of Professor Bebchuk's monthly column for the syndicate.

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  Mack in the Boston Globe: A measure of history

  "A measure of history," an op-ed by Professor Kenneth Mack '91, appeared in the Mar. 25 issue of the Boston Globe.

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  CCMR Report: Competitiveness of U.S. public equity markets improved slightly in ’09

  The Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, an independent and nonpartisan research organization dedicated to improving the regulation and enhancing the competitiveness of U.S. capital markets, said today that year-end 2009 data presents evidence of mild improvement in the competitiveness of U.S. public equity markets.

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  HLS's Houston Institute files amicus brief in school-to-prison pipeline case

  The HLS Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice recently filed, along with a host of other organizations, an amicus curiae brief in the North Carolina Supreme Court on a school-to-prison pipeline case. 

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  Goldsmith and Lessig in Post: Anti-counterfeiting agreement raises constitutional concerns

  HLS Professors Jack Goldsmith and Lawrence Lessig  co-wrote “Anti-counterfeiting agreement raises constitutional concerns,” an op-ed that appeared in the March 26 edition of the Washington Post. Goldsmith is co-author of "Who Controls the Internet?" Lessig is the author of "Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy."

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  Minow delivers 2010 Hesburgh lecture at Notre Dame (video)

  The 16^th annual Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., lecture in Ethics and Public Policy was delivered by HLS Dean Martha Minow at Notre Dame University on March 16^th. Her talk focused on education as a tool in preventing violent conflict, as well as the role of the International Criminal Court in jumpstarting and promoting education as a tool in fostering coexistence and peace.  

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  HLS cited for impact on corporate governance

  HLS’s Program on Corporate Governance—and many individuals affiliated with HLS—are among the most influential leaders in the study of corporate governance, according to a recent review by Directorship magazine. Thirty-four HLS-affiliates made the Directorship 100 list – an annual list of the 100 most influential directors, professors, regulators, politicians, and advisers who have made a lasting impact on corporate governance.

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  Annette Gordon-Reed awarded National Humanities Medal (video)

  Annette Gordon-Reed ’84 was awarded the National Humanities Medal in February for her significant and innovative research on Thomas Jefferson’s slaves and the life of Sally Hemings, and for illuminating a chapter in American history that had previously been given little recognition.