August 2012

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  Cass Sunstein to rejoin Harvard Law School faculty

  Cass Sunstein ’78, administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), will return to the Harvard Law School faculty as Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law following his planned departure in August from the Obama Administration, Dean Martha Minow announced today.

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  Professor Alvin Warren gives Senate testimony on tax treatment of business entities

  On Wednesday, Aug. 1, Alvin C. Warren, Ropes & Gray Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance at a hearing entitled, “Tax Reform: Examining the Taxation of Business Entities,” which examined the impact of tax reform on American businesses and corporations.

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  Fried on SCOTUSblog: The June surprises—Balls, strikes, and the fog of war

  Harvard Law School Professor Charles Fried has written a major article analyzing the Supreme Court’s late-June decision on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The article, which is scheduled to appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, and also in a volume to be published by Oxford, has been given a rare advance publication by SCOTUSblog, which posted it on August 2.

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  IHRC report finds Qaddafi’s weapons pose threat to civilians

  Abandoned weapons that were once part of Muammar Qaddafi’s vast arsenal threaten civilian lives in Libya, according to a report released Aug 2 by Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), in partnership with CIVIC and the Center for American Progress.

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  Harvard law clinic defends rights of those who might have none in homelands

  One afternoon in late July, a 39-year-old African man we will call Jean-Paul took the elevator to the third floor of Harvard Law School’s (HLS) Wasserstein Hall. He walked into the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and was greeted like a hero.

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  Vermeule in TNR: Constitutional conventions

  In light of the late-June Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Harvard Law School Professor Adrian Vermeule '93 recently reviewed Michael J. Gerhardt's "The Power of Precedent" (Oxford University Press) for The New Republic’s online review ‘The Book.’  According to Vermeule, Gerhardt's book is a “learned overview” of the role of past decisions in today's legal system.

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  HLS Environmental Law Clinic wins victory for renewable energy

  For more than two years, Harvard Law School’s Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic has represented a group of general contractors who specialize in renewable energy projects but were being blocked from installing solar power by a state licensing board. Led by Clinic Director and Clinical Professor Wendy Jacobs, Harvard Law School students have prevailed in a two-year battle to lift restrictions on the installation of solar power in Massachusetts.

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  Scott in NYT: The Global (Not Euro-Zone) Crisis

  In an Aug. 15 op-ed published in The New York Times Global Edition, Harvard Law School Professor Hal Scott weighs in on the European economic crisis and the need for international action in resolving it.

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  Giannini and Neuman appointed co-directors of HLS’s Human Rights Program

  Tyler Giannini, Clinical Professor of Law, and Gerald L. Neuman ’80, J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign and Comparative Law, have been appointed co-directors of the Human Rights Program (HRP) at Harvard Law School.

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  Bebchuk on shareholder disclosures

  Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. '80 S.J.D. '84 published an op-ed in the New York Times' DealBook on Aug. 15 entitled, “Don’t Discourage Outside Shareholders.”  The op-ed is in response to a proposed rule being considered by the Securities and Exchange Commission that narrows the timeframe in which shareholders must disclose when they hold five percent or more of a company’s holdings. 

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  Annette Gordon-Reed appointed to Charles Warren Professorship at HLS

  Harvard Law School Professor Annette Gordon Reed ’84 has been appointed to the Charles Warren Professorship of American Legal History. Gordon-Reed, a recipient of the National Book Award for Non-Fiction, the Pulitzer Prize in History, a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Dorothy And Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers Fellowship, and a National Humanities Medal, is also a Professor of History in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Gordon-Reed was elected a member of the American Academy of Art and Sciences in 2011.

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  John Goldberg appointed to the Goldston chair at HLS

  Harvard Law School Professor John C.P. Goldberg has been appointed to the Eli Goldston Professorship of Law. Goldberg, an expert in tort law, tort theory and political philosophy, joined HLS as a tenured faculty member in 2008. Previously, he was Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research at Vanderbilt University.

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  Sunshine Yin ’13 receives AAUW fellowship

  The American Association of University Women recently awarded Sunshine Yin ’13 the Selected Professions Fellowship to support her work in the area of intellectual property law. The fellowship, which includes an $18,000 award, is given annually in areas where women’s participation has traditionally been low, such as law, medicine, architecture, engineering and mathematics.

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  Gertner in NYT: ‘The right to appeal is an issue of fairness’

  On August 20, the New York Times’ “Room for Debate” segment explored the question “Do Prosecutors Have Too Much Power?” HLS Professor of Practice Nancy Gertner, a former judge of the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts, was one of five debaters who weighed in on the topic.

  “You can’t bargain away your right to counsel in a guilty plea deal; you shouldn’t be allowed to bargain away your right to appeal,” writes Gertner.

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  Roger Fisher (1922-2012)

  Roger Fisher ‘48, a pioneer in the field of international law and negotiation and the co-founder of the Harvard Negotiation Project, died on August 25, 2012. A professor at Harvard Law School for more than four decades, Fisher established negotiation and conflict resolution as a single field deserving academic study and devoted his career to challenging students and colleagues alike to explore alternative methods of dispute resolution.

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  Sitkoff contributes to the Uniform Premarital and Marital Agreements Act

  In late July, the Uniform Law Commission approved the Uniform Premarital and Marital Agreements Act (UPMAA) at its annual meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. Harvard Law School Professor Robert H. Sitkoff, whose primary research focus is economic and empirical analysis of the law of trusts and estates, served on the drafting committee for the Act.

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  HLS competes in WTO moot court international finals

  Harvard Law School tied for third place at the international finals of the World Trade Organization (WTO) moot court competition. This was HLS’s first year participating in the competition.

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  Eight HLS faculty ranked in "High-Impact List" for corporate governance field

  Eight Harvard Law School faculty members were recently ranked among the top 100 corporate governance scholars in the world, in all corporate areas, including management, law, economics, and finance. Included on the American Academy of Management’s list of 100 “high-impact scholars” were HLS Professors Lucian Bebchuk, John Coates, Reiner Kraakman, Mark Roe '75, Steven Shavell and Cass Sunstein '78. Former HLS Dean and current Visiting Professor Elena Kagan '86 and HLS Lecturer on Law Leo Strine also were featured on the list.

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  Stephen Gageler LL.M. ’87 appointed to Australia’s High Court

  Stephen Gageler LL.M. ’87 was appointed to a judgeship on Australia’s High Court on Aug. 21. He joins six other judges on Australia’s most powerful court.