HLS News 2012

  • Sciences Po degree ceremony

    Professor Duncan Kennedy receives honorary degree from Sciences Po (video)

    Harvard Law School Professor Duncan Kennedy, whose scholarship has focused on juridical thought, economic analysis of the law, the links between law and literary theory, and legal globalization, has become the first law professor to receive an honorary doctorate from Sciences Po in Paris.

  • Supreme Court Building

    Clinic files amicus curiae brief with U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of legal historians and scholars

    In December, Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic submitted an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of petitioners in a major Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. The brief in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. argues that corporations can be held liable for violations of the law of nations under the ATS.

  • Richard Lazarus

    Harvard Thinks Green (video)

    The United States is experiencing “an environmental law-making crisis,” said Harvard Law School Professor Richard Lazarus at “Harvard Thinks Green,” an environmental sustainability event held at Harvard in December. The event was co-hosted by Harvard Thinks Big, the Office for Sustainability and the Center for the Environment at Harvard University.

  • Robert Anderson

    Anderson Named to National Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform

    Robert Anderson, Harvard Law Oneida Indian Nation Visiting Professor of Law, was named to serve on a national commission that will evaluate the management and administration of nearly $4 billion in Native American trust funds and associated assets by the U.S. Department of the Interior. Anderson is a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe.    

  • International Junior Faculty Forum

    HLS and Stanford Law host fourth annual International Junior Faculty Forum

    Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School co-hosted the fourth annual Harvard-Stanford International Junior Faculty Forum (IJFF) in November, bringing 11 of the world’s most innovative junior legal scholars from around the world to present their work. This year’s forum was held at HLS.

  • Professor Adrian Vermeule '93

    Vermeule’s systems analysis of constitutional order is focus of event at University College in London

    HLS Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93, one of the leading scholars of public law and constitutional theory, will participate in a program focused on his new book “The System of the Constitution” (Oxford University Press, 2011) at University College in London on Friday, Jan. 13.

  • Charles M. Haar

    Charles M. Haar [1920-2012]

    Professor Emeritus Charles M. Haar ‘48, a pioneer in land-use law whose scholarship focused on laws and institutions of city planning, urban development and environmental issues, died on January 10, 2012. He was 91.

  • HLS

    Bebchuk, Shavell, Kaplow, Fried, and Cohen Make SSRN’s Top Ten List

    Harvard Law School’s faculty and fellows earned the top ranking for the total number of citations of their work on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), according to cumulative statistics released for 2011. HLS faculty members captured five out of the top 10 slots – including the number one slot – among law school faculty in all legal fields.

  • Professor Charles Fried

    Fried is lead counsel in amicus brief defending Affordable Care Act

    HLS Professor Charles Fried was counsel of record in an amicus brief filed on Jan. 13 with the Supreme Court on behalf of 104 health law professors supporting the constitutionality of the insurance mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which will be challenged before the Supreme Court in Department of Health and Human Services v. State of Florida in March.

  • HLS MLK Day Celebration

    Harvard Law celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day

    The celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day at Harvard Law School on Monday, Jan. 23 included a panel moderated by Harvard Law School Clinical Professor Ronald Sullivan ’94, and featuring Harvard Medical School Professor Allen Counter and Preston Williams, a theology professor at Harvard Divinity School. Students from across the University, including students from the Medical School, the Divinity School, the Kennedy School, the Business School, and Harvard College attended the celebration.

  • Professor Laurence Tribe '66

    In Daedalus: Tribe discusses 'America’s Constitutional Narrative'

    Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe is among the leading scholars and writers featured in the latest volume of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ journal Daedalus, entitled "On the American Narrative."

  • Panel

    Law school deans from around the world discuss globalizing law education (video)

    Deans representing law schools in China, Brazil, Canada, and France gathered at Harvard Law School on Friday to discuss the pressures facing law schools to reform curricula in response to globalization.

  • Conor Tochilin

    Tochilin elected 126th president of the Harvard Law Review

    The Harvard Law Review has elected Conor Tochilin ’13 as its 126th president. Tochilin succeeds Mitchell Reich ’12.

  • Pierce and Schwartz

    'We’re all in it together': Paul Pierce discusses the business of basketball

    Exactly how far does an agent need to go to keep a professional athlete happy? Just ask Jeff Schwartz, who represents Boston Celtics all-star player Paul Pierce. “[Paul] sometimes calls me at 4 in the morning, just to see if I’ll answer my phone, which I don’t do anymore,” Schwartz recently told Harvard Law School students. “First thing in the morning, I call him back and he says, ‘too late, I’m dead.’ ” Harvard Law School students enjoyed this and other behind-the-scenes tidbits from the world of professional athlete representation in a recent two-hour Q&A hosted by HLS Lecturer Peter Carfagna ’79 for his class, “Sports and the Law: Representing the Professional Athlete.”

  • Bruno Salama

    The end of corporate limited liability in Brazil

    Whether owners of limited liability companies should be subject to personal liability has been the subject of much controversy lately, in the U.S. and around the world. On Jan. 25, Bruno Salama, spoke to an HLS audience on the topic in the context of his research project and book “The End of Limited Liability in Brazil” tracing the status of corporate limited liability and veil piercing in Brazil. A professor of law at the Fundação Getulio Vargas in Sao Paulo, Salama was joined by HLS Professors Reinier Kraakman and Mark Roe ’75 at an event organized by the Harvard Law School Brazilian Studies Association.

  • panel

    At Women’s Law conference, Attorney General of California tells students, ‘Part of breaking barriers is about innovation’

    On February 3, the Harvard Women’s Law Association held its 6th annual conference. This year’s conference, entitled “Mind the Gap: Achieving Actual Parity,” was an open forum about achieving equality in the courtroom, workplace, and community. Kamala Harris, Attorney General of California, delivered the keynote address. 

  • Nancy Gertner

    Gertner submits brief to Supreme Court on application of Fair Sentencing Act

    Nancy Gertner, HLS professor of practice and former judge of the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts, was counsel of record in an amicus brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in Dorsey v. U.S. and Corey Hill v. U.S.  The Court’s decision will determine whether the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, which redressed some of the inequities in the sentencing of defendants in crack-cocaine cases, applies to defendants who were sentenced after the law was enacted, but whose crimes were committed beforehand.

  • I. Glenn Cohen

    Law professors see challenges, but not crisis (video)

    On Feb. 2, in a panel discussion at Harvard Law School titled “Are Law Schools in Crisis? The New York Times Editorial and its Discontents,” three law professors addressed questions brought up by two pieces that appeared recently in the Times claiming that law schools are in a state of “crisis.”

  • Nader and Fein

    Ralph Nader at HLS: The constitutional crimes of Bush and Obama (video)

    Ralph Nader ’58 and Bruce Fein ’72 visited Harvard Law School for a talk sponsored by the HLS Forum and the Harvard Law Record. At the event, “America's Lawless Empire: The Constitutional Crimes of Bush and Obama,” both men discussed what they called lawless, violent practices by the White House and its agencies that have become institutionalized by both political parties.

  • I. Glenn Cohen

    Professors debate "Embryo Ethics" (video)

    On Feb. 1, the Harvard Law School Federalist Society sponsored a debate on the philosophical and legal issues surrounding the field of embryonic research. The event, “Embryo Ethics and the Law,” featured Christopher Tollefsen, a philosophy professor at the University of South Carolina, and HLS Assistant Professor Glenn Cohen, co-director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School.

  • Lucian Bebchuk

    Bebchuk testifies before Senate Banking committee (video)

    On Feb. 15, Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection at a hearing entitled “Pay for Performance: Incentive Compensation at Large Financial Institutions.”

  • schoenfeld

    From assisting Larry Summers to assisting abused children, an HLS student organizes support

    Since Matthew Schoenfeld ’12 became president of the Harvard Association of Law and Business last year, it has attracted an impressive array of alumni mentors for students interested in business-related careers. This year, he launched an initiative to raise funds to mentor another group—abused children. This January, Schoenfeld arranged for a partnership between the HALB and the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts, to raise money for children in need of mentorship due to abusive situations and child welfare intervention.

  • Professor William P. Alford

    Alford on 'The Takeaway:' The future of U.S.-China relations (audio)

    Harvard Law School Professor William Alford ’77 recently appeared on the radio program ‘The Takeaway’ to discuss the future of U.S.-China relations, specifically with regard to trade and Chinese intellectual property law, which Alford describes as “a work in progress.”

  • Raw Milk Debate

    Harvard Food Law Society sponsors debate on raw milk (video)

    The dispute over raw milk has become one of the most heated debates in the food law community over the last several years—proponents and opponents alike have even staged protests at the White House. Raw milk is currently illegal in 22 states. On Feb. 16, the Harvard Food and Law Society staged a debate on the issue at Harvard Law School.

  • Clinical group

    Piloting Justice in Chile

    This past January, three students from Harvard Law School’s Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program traveled to Chile to investigate the Ministry of Justice’s neighborhood multi-door courthouse pilot program.

  • Bebchuk and Stulz

    On World Bank blog, Bebchuk debates executive compensation

    In an online forum, Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk engaged in a debate with Ohio State University Professor Rene Stulz regarding the role executive compensations played in the financial crisis.

  • Professor Janet Halley

    Halley receives lifetime achievement award for work in law and humanities

    The Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities has announced that Harvard Law Professor Janet Halley has been named the recipient of the James Boyd White Award, given annually to professors who have demonstrated a distinguished body of work from a “humanistic” perspective.

  • Daniel Gilbert

    Dan Gilbert at HLS: How To Do Precisely the Right Thing At All Possible Times

    In a talk entitled “How To Do Precisely the Right Thing At All Possible Times,” Daniel Gilbert, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, author of “Stumbling on Happiness,” and host of the PBS television series “This Emotional Life,” discussed research in psychology, neuroscience and behavioral economics that explains why it is indeed possible, yet incredibly difficult, to do the right thing at all possible times.

  • Professor Matthew Stephenson '03

    Stephenson delivers keynote at anti-corruption conference in Thailand

    Harvard Law School Professor Matthew Stephenson ‘03 delivered the keynote speech at the 2nd annual Evidence-Based Anti-Corruption Policies Conference held on Jan. 11 and 12 in Bangkok, Thailand.  

  • Professor Mark Roe '75

    Roe in Project Syndicate: Tobin Trouble

    In a Feb. 20 opinion piece for the online journal Project Syndicate, Harvard Law School Professor Mark Roe ’75 addresses European leaders’ support for imposing a “Tobin tax” on financial transactions.

  • Lady Gaga

    Lady Gaga, Winfrey target bullying (video)

    Pop sensation Lady Gaga launched her anti-bullying, youth-empowering Born This Way Foundation (BTWF) at Sanders Theatre on Wednesday during an Askwith Forum sponsored by the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). The foundation was established in partnership with HGSE, Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the California Endowment. Special guests included Oprah Winfrey, author and speaker Deepak Chopra, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen G. Sebelius, and Harvard Law School professor Charles J. Ogletree.

  • Epstein and Freeman

    HLS Tea Party sponsors debate on the future of unions

    In a talk sponsored by the HLS Tea Party, Harvard Professor Richard Freeman, faculty co-director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, and Professor Richard Epstein of New York University School of Law, discussed the challenges facing unions today. The talk, “The Future of Unions in America,” was held at Harvard Law School on Feb. 13.

  • Kennedy and Thernstrom

    Redistricting and voters rights (video)

    On Tuesday, Feb. 14, the Harvard Federalist Society and the Harvard Black Law Students Association co-sponsored a discussion about race and redistricting with Dr. Abigail Thernstrom of the Manhattan Institute and Professor Randall Kennedy, the Michael R. Klein Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

  • Mary Nichols

    At HLS, head of California air pollution regulatory board discusses states' climate change action (video)

    At an event at Harvard Law School's Austin Hall on Feb. 27, Mary Nichols, head of California’s air pollution regulatory board, said that with climate change action stalled in Washington, D.C., the states are taking the lead in creating ways to reduce carbon emissions.

  • HLS

    Zittrain, Wones to step into leadership roles for Harvard Law School Library

    Dean Martha Minow has announced that HLS Professor Jonathan Zittrain ’95 and HLS Library’s Assistant Director of Research, Curriculum and Publication Services, Suzanne Wones, will take over leadership of the Harvard Law School Library this summer, following the departure of Professor John G. Palfrey ’01 in July.

  • David Barron

    Barron appointed by Gov. Patrick to Mass. Board of Higher Education

    David J. Barron ’94, Harvard Law School’s Hon. S. William Green Professor of Public Law, has been appointed by Governor Deval Patrick ’82 to the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, the governor’s office announced Monday.

  • Professor Jack Landman Goldsmith

    Goldsmith on 'On Point:' The case for targeted killing (audio)

    Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith appeared on the Mar. 12 edition of NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook alongside ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero. The two addressed the controversy over Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent remarks at Northwestern University Law School in which he defended the legality of the Obama administration’s use of targeted killings of Americans suspected of terrorism-related activity.

  • Tomiko Brown-Nagin

    Tomiko Brown-Nagin receives the 2012 Bancroft Prize

    Columbia University announced on Mar. 14 that a recent book by Tomiko Brown-Nagin will be awarded the 2012 Bancroft Prize. Her award-winning book “Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement” (Oxford University Press, 2011) offers a startling new perspective on the Civil Rights movement.

  • Professor Adrian Vermeule '93

    Vermeule in The New Republic: Same old, same old

    In a recent book review for The New Republic, Harvard Law School Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 examines Richard A. Epstein’s “Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration, and the Rule of Law” (Harvard University Press, 2011).

  • Eric Holder

    Eric Holder named Harvard Law School’s 2012 Class Day speaker

    U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. selected this year’s speaker for Class Day ceremonies at Harvard Law School. Class Day will take place on Wednesday May 23, 2012.

  • Professor Charles Ogletree '78

    Ogletree participates in hearing on children exposed to violence (video)

    As part of the Defending Childhood Task Force, Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree participated in a hearing on March 21 at the University of Miami School of Law, addressing the problem of children’s exposure to community violence.

  • William Robinson

    ABA President calculates the real cost of state court underfunding (video)

    On February 27, the Harvard Law School Program on the Legal Profession sponsored a lecture by ABA President William Robinson III about a critical issue facing the legal system – state court underfunding. Robinson outlined facts and figures that speak to the enormity of the crisis, and underscored what those numbers mean to those seeking justice and to the American concept of democracy.

  • Tim Kaine and Anne Holton

    Work-life balance: a conversation with Former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, First Lady Anne Holton (video)

    On March 6, the husband and wife team of former Virginia Governor Tim Kaine ’83 and First Lady Anne Holton ‘83 gave a talk at Harvard Law School on how to construct a long-term public service career that is able to change and evolve and is meaningful, fun and that allows room for family, friendship, and community involvement.

  • Lesley Rosenthal

    Good counsel from Lincoln Center’s General Counsel

    In early March at Harvard Law School,  Lesley Rosenthal ’89, author of the new book "Good Counsel: Meeting the Legal Needs of Nonprofits," discussed the career path that has led her to be vice president, general counsel and secretary of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.

  • HLS

    Harvard’s PIFS hosts 2012 Europe Symposium, in New York

    Harvard Law School Professor Hal Scott’s Program on International Financial Systems (PIFS) hosted the 10th annual Symposium on Building the Financial System of the Twenty-first Century: An Agenda for Europe and the United States on March 22-24 at the Weill Center in Armonk, N.Y.  Co-hosted by the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), the event gathered 100 senior executives and government officials from the financial industry, policymaking arenas, law, and academia.

  • John Payton

    John Payton ’77, lawyer and civil rights leader (1946-2012)

    John Payton ’77, a leading civil rights lawyer who defended the University of Michigan's affirmative action policy before the Supreme Court and led the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, died March 22, 2012. He was 65.

  • Supreme Court Building

    Healthcare Roundup: HLS reflects on Supreme Court oral arguments

    The Supreme Court opened its review of the national health-care overhaul on Mar. 26, the first of three days of oral arguments on the 2010 law. In light of the historic arguments, law schools professors at HLS and elsewhere in the Boston area have incorporated the debate into their classrooms, and, In the media, HLS Professors I. Glenn Cohen. Einer Elhauge, Noah Feldman, Charles Fried and Laurence Tribe weighed in on the case.

  • Moot court team

    HLS WTO Moot Court Team Wins North American Regional

    On March 3, the Harvard Law School WTO moot court team won the North America regional at the ELSA Moot Court Competition (EMC²) on WTO Law.  This year’s competition was held at American University Washington College of Law in Washington D.C. This was the first year a team from HLS has competed.

  • Michael Young

    Michael Young discusses his role as facilitator in anti-apartheid negotiations (video)

    “I took the view that what we ought to be talking about and thinking about was universal suffrage,” stated Michael Young in a lecture at Harvard Law School titled, “The Secret Talks That Led to the Fall of Apartheid.”  As a British businessman in the 1980s, Young initiated and led unprecedented talks between the African National Congress and the South African government that led to the end of apartheid in South Africa.

  • Israeli and Palestinian teenagers

    Negotiation clinical students sow seeds of peace in the Middle East

    As part of the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP), Krystyna Wamboldt ’12 and Rachel Krol ’12 traveled to Jerusalem in January with HLS Clinical Professor Robert Bordone ’97 to teach negotiation and mediation skills to a group of Israeli and Palestinian teenagers.

  • Howard Gardner

    Howard Gardner: The ethical letter of the law (video)

    If the countless headlines in recent years are an indication, we live in an age dominated by a corporate playbook that considers success at the expense of others a standard part of doing business. But increasingly, observers fear that same philosophy is too often becoming the norm in other professions. Journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin explored the trend’s impact on the legal profession in his recent New York Times column “Conflicted, and Often Getting a Pass,” said Harvard’s Professor Howard Gardner during a Mar. 21 discussion at Harvard Law School.

  • Professor Hal Scott

    Scott in WSJ: The Alternative to Shareholder Class Actions

    "The Alternative to Shareholder Class Actions," an op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Hal Scott and Leslie N. Silverman, appeared in the Apr. 1 edition of The Wall Street Journal.

  • Brig. Gen. Mark Martins

    Brig. Gen. Mark Martins: Legitimacy and limits of military commissions (video)

    On April 3, Brigadier General Mark Martins ’90, chief prosecutor at the Office of U.S. Military Commissions in the Department of Defense, delivered a lecture at Harvard Law School on Legitimacy and the Limits of Command in Reformed Military Commissions. The lecture was sponsored by the National Security Journal and the National Security & Law Association.

  • Professor Adrian Vermeule '93

    Vermeule in TNR: Local wisdom

    In a recent edition of The New Republic’s online review ‘The Book,’ Harvard Law School Professor Adrian Vermeule reviews David M. Dorsen’s “Henry Friendly, Greatest Judge of His Era” (Belknap Press 2012)—a “clarifying biography” in which the author thoroughly examines Friendly’s judgments, arguments, and extrajudicial writings “with an eye to pinning down Friendly’s legacy.”

  • James A. Baker III

    Great Negotiator 2012: James A. Baker III

    Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III was at Harvard on March 29 to receive the Great Negotiator Award, the annual honor created by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School to recognize individuals whose “lifetime achievements in the field of negotiation and dispute resolution have had a significant and lasting impact.”

  • Paul Volcker

    Paul Volcker on preventing bank failures (video)

    Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve under Presidents Carter and Reagan, and former chairman of President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, was on campus in early April as a guest of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics series on institutional corruption. The Center’s director, Professor Lawrence Lessig, introduced him to an at-capacity crowd in Ames Courtroom before yielding the floor to Harvard Business School Professor Emeritus Malcolm Salter, who moderated a conversation with Volcker on the historical context of today’s financial crisis and current efforts to thwart future crises.

  • Sports Law Symposium main image

    Sports Law Symposium examines aftermath of collective bargaining

    Two years after considering the possibility of work stoppages in major league sports, the annual Harvard Law School Sports Law Symposium this year examined unresolved issues in the aftermath of collective bargaining agreements, as well as the ongoing problems of concussions and performance-enhancing drugs.

  • Steven Goldberg

    Goldberg on the NSA’s warrantless wireless wiretap

    Steven Goldberg ’72 is part of the legal team challenging the National Security Agency’s warrantless wireless wiretap of an Islamic charity in southern Oregon. He visited Harvard Law School on March 31 to discuss the case in the context of how law students and lawyers working apart from large organizations can get involved in similar cases.

  • Charles Donahue

    Donahue named fellow of Medieval Academy of America

    Harvard Law School Professor Charles Donahue, Jr., Paul A. Freund Professor of Law, was recently recognized by the Medieval Academy of America (MAA) for his notable contributions to medieval scholarship. He was elected a fellow by MAA members and inducted on March 24 at the MAA’s annual meeting in St. Louis.

  • Rafael M. Hernandez Rodriguez

    Prominent Cuban intellectual participates in 'Negotiating with Cuba' reading group

    Three times last month, Harvard Law School Professor Robert Mnookin brought in prominent Cuban intellectual Rafael M. Hernández Rodríguez via videoconference to speak to his reading group on the topic of negotiating with Cuba. According to Mnookin, it’s the first time a Cuban scholar has participated in an American seminar from Cuba itself, an event for which took Mnookin weeks of back and forth with Cuba’s Ministry of Culture to obtain permission, giving a glimpse into the continued hold of the Communist bureaucracy in Havana.

  • Professor Kenneth Mack '91

    Mack in The Root: The Burden of Clarence Thomas

    "The Roots of Clarence Thomas' Black Burden," an op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Kenneth Mack ’91, appeared in The Root on April 6. In it, Mack examines Thomas' role as an African American justice who, according to Mack, has "embraced the role of representative of his race"—50 years after William H. Hastie bore a similar "burden" as the first African American federal judge.

  • CIA general counsel Stephen W. Preston

    CIA general counsel Stephen W. Preston ’83 says CIA is committed to the rule of law

    Despite its “essential” cloak of secrecy, the Central Intelligence Agency is committed to the rule of law, CIA general counsel Stephen W. Preston ’83 said in a speech at Harvard Law School on Tuesday, April 12, hosted by the HLS American Constitution Society.

  • HLS

    HLS Shareholder Rights Clinic contributes to governance reforms in S&P 500 companies

    A new HLS clinic, in its first year of operation, has already contributed to significant governance reforms in numerous S&P 500 companies. The Harvard Law School Shareholder Rights Project (SRP) is a clinical program at Harvard Law School through which faculty and students assist public pension funds and charitable organizations to improve corporate governance at publicly traded companies in which they are shareowners.

  • Gabriella Blum

    In chair lecture, Blum cuts through the "fog of victory" (video)

    Gabriella Blum LL.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’03 delivered the lecture “The Fog of Victory” on April 10 to mark her appointment as the Rita E. Hauser Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Harvard Law School.

  • Students in Wasserstein Hall

    New HLS complex pulls offshoots together, promotes interaction

    Last fall the Harvard Law School opened its newest building, 250,000 square feet aimed at bringing faculty and students closer. Its design, developed in close collaboration with HLS community residents and neighbors and realized by the architectural firm Robert A.M. Stern Architects, grew out of a strategic plan crafted in 2000, with the primary goal of improving the overall student experience. 

  • Vermeule and Wilkins

    Wilkins and Vermeule elected into Academy of Arts and Sciences

    Harvard Law Professors David Wilkins ‘80 and Adrian Vermeule ’93 have been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Wilkins, the Lester Kissel Professor of Law, is director of the Program on the Legal Profession and vice dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession. Vermeule is a leading scholar of administrative law and constitutional law and theory.

  • Professor Lucian A. Bebchuk

    Bebchuk in The New York Times' DealBook: Giving shareholders a voice

    In the April 19 edition of The New York Times’ DealBook, Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk defends the of work of his Shareholder Rights Project (SRP) at HLS in light of a recent memo criticizing the project. The SRP is a clinical program that assists public pension funds and charitable organizations in improving corporate governance at publicly traded companies.

  • Einer Elhauge

    Elhauge discusses the argument against individual healthcare mandate

    In an April 16 article entitled “It’s Not About Broccoli: The False Case Against Health Care” published in The Atlantic, Professor Einer Elhauge ’86 tackles the primary case made against President Obama’s [’91] individual health care mandate.

  • Randy Barnett

    Randy Barnett at HLS, on challenging the individual mandate (video)

    A decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on whether Congress has the power to mandate individuals to have private insurance coverage isn’t expected until the end of June. But Georgetown University Law Center professor and libertarian legal theorist Randy Barnett ’77 is already claiming victory of sorts for his argument that the mandate is unconstitutional.

  • Citrus worker

    Student produces documentary on citrus workers (video)

    Last fall, the Harvard Law Documentary Studio offered Lauren Estévez ’13 and four other students the training, funding and equipment they needed to make a short documentary film. It was a challenge, fitting filmmaking into law school. But after months of research, shooting, and editing, Estévez’s 12-minute film about the lives of citrus workers in Florida screened this month at the Harvard Film Archive, part of the Studio’s first annual DOC Festival.

  • HLS staff singing at Fenway Park

    HLS alum and staff take part in Fenway Park’s Centennial Celebration

    On April 14, 2012, lifelong Red Sox fan and Harvard Law School grad Bill Hogan, Jr. ’36 celebrated his 100th birthday by throwing out the ceremonial first pitch for the Red Sox-Rays game at Fenway Park. Hogan, born just six days before the Red Sox played their first game in Fenway, was part of the centennial celebration leading up to Fenway Park’s 100th anniversary on April 20.

  • WCC dedication ribboncutting

    Law School dedicates new building

    Harvard Law School’s (HLS) alumni reunion this past weekend reconnected friends from near and far in the School’s newest addition, the 250,000-square-foot Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center, Clinical Wing Building on the campus’ northwest corner.

  • Russ Feingold

    Russ Feingold '79: 'A Progressive Vision of National Security' (video)

    On April 19, Harvard Law School's American Constitution Society sponsored “A Progressive Vision of National Security,” a lecture delivered by Former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold ’79. The only member of the Senate to vote against the PATRIOT Act in 2001 and one of 23 to vote against the Iraq war in 2002, Feingold recently authored "While America Sleeps," a book that details his criticisms of American foreign policy since 9/11 and proposes a plan to correct the nation's course.

  • WLA logo

    Women in the Arab Awakening

    Women played an important role in the Arab Spring revolutions, and their involvement is crucial to the ongoing political change in the region. To that end, the Harvard Law School Women’s Law Association sponsored an event presenting the perspectives of several HLS and Harvard Kennedy School women students from Egypt, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. The Women in the Arab Awakening panelists discussed their experiences as both activists in and observers of these events, and the subsequent impact the revolutions have had on women.

  • Vis Moot Vienna team

    HLS students take honors at Vis Moot Court in Vienna and Hong Kong

    Nine Harvard Law School students recently participated in the 2012 Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot Competitions in Vienna and Hong Kong. Nearly 400 law school teams from around the world participated in the Vis Competition, which aims to train future leaders in methods of alternative dispute resolution.

  • Andrew Tuch

    Student article named one of 2011's ten best corporate and securities articles

    An article by Harvard Law School S.J.D. candidate Andrew Tuch has been voted by the nation’s corporate and securities law professors as one of the top ten corporate and securities law papers of 2011. The article, “Multiple Gatekeepers,” was originally published in the Virginia Law Review.

  • ABA Criminal Justice Competition finalists

    HLS Students are finalists at ABA Criminal Justice Competition

    Students from Harvard Law School took second place in the 22nd Annual National Criminal Justice Trial Advocacy Competition, held March 29-31, in Chicago.

  • Williston Negotiation Competition winners

    59th Annual Williston Negotiation & Contracts Competition winners announced

    The winners of Harvard Law School’s 59th annual Williston Competition, Harvard’s annual contract negotiation and drafting competition for first-year law students, were announced on April 19.

  • Bill Beardall '78 and Sam Levine '12

    Two receive the Gary Bellow Public Service Award

    At an April 9 ceremony at Harvard Law School, HLS student Sam Levine ‘12 and alumnus Bill Beardall ’78 received the Gary Bellow Public Service Award, given annually by the HLS student body, for their commitment to public interest and social justice work.

  • Rajan Sonik, Krishnendu Gupta, Kathleen Burke

    Rajan Sonik ’12 receives student ethics award

    Harvard Law School student Rajan Sonik ‘12 recently received the 2012 Law Student Ethics Award from the Association of Corporate Counsel, Northeast Chapter. One of eleven students honored from participating local law schools, Sonik was recognized for demonstrating an early commitment to ethics through his work in a clinical program.

  • Richard Meserve '75

    Richard Meserve ’75 elected president of Harvard Board of Overseers

    Harvard Law School alumnus Richard A. Meserve ‘75, president of the Carnegie Institution for Science and former head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was elected president of Harvard’s Board of Overseers for the 2012-2013 academic year.  Lucy Fisher, president of the independent film production company Red Wagon Entertainment will serve as vice-chair of the committee.

  • Kate Konschnik

    Kate Konschnik appointed Policy Director of HLS’s Environmental Law and Policy Program

    Kate Konschnik, Chief Environmental Counsel to U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), will join Harvard Law School on Aug. 1 as Policy Director for the Environmental Law and Policy Program.

  • William Bratton

    “Collaborate or Perish!” Bratton addresses police union leaders at HLS on April 27

    William Bratton, former Los Angeles police chief and police commissioner of New York, discussed his new book, “Collaborate or Perish! Reaching across Boundaries in a Networked World” (New York: Crown Business, 2012), at the 13th annual Police Union Leadership Seminar hosted by the Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. 

  • Susan Farbstein

    Susan Farbstein appointed assistant clinical professor of law

    Susan Farbstein, a leading practitioner in the field of human rights, has been appointed assistant clinical professor of law and co-director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School.

  • Drew Faust welcomes luncheon guests

    Crystal Redd '13 and Angela Chuang '13 named 2012 Presidential Fellows

    On April 27, Harvard University honored a group of 10 students chosen as 2012 Presidential Fellows for their commitment to public service initiatives, only the second group to be awarded grants from the Presidential Public Service Fellowship Program at Harvard. Current Harvard Law School students Crystal Redd '13 and Angela Chuang '13 were among those selected as fellows.

  • Claire Houston

    S.J.D. Student Receives Julius B. Richmond Fellowship

    Harvard Law School S.J.D. candidate Claire Houston has been named a recipient of the Julius B. Richmond Fellowship from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. She will receive a dissertation grant totaling $10,000 from the Center to fund independent research during the 2012-13 academic year. Houston is the first student from HLS to be awarded this honor.

  • Seung Wha Chang

    WTO appoints alum to Appellate Body

    The World Trade Organization has appointed Harvard Law School alumnus and former HLS Visiting Professor of Law Seung Wha Chang LL.M. ’92 S.J.D. ’94 to serve on its seven-member Appellate Body. Chang will settle international trade disputes alongside distinguished trade experts from the U.S., the E.U., China, India, Mexico and South Africa.

  • Professor Glenn Cohen ‘03

    Glenn Cohen selected as 2012–2013 Radcliffe Institute fellow

    The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has selected Harvard Law School Assistant Professor I. Glenn Cohen '03 to be a Radcliffe Institute fellow for the 2012–2013 academic year. Cohen is among the 51 women and men who will pursue independent projects in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences within the rich, multidisciplinary community.

  • Zittrain and Sitkoff

    More than $80,000 raised for Summer Public Interest Funding at annual auction

    Where can you pick up a lunch with Larry Summers, a fashion-forward shopping spree with a Harvard Law School professor or a Justice David Souter bobblehead? The HLS annual Public Interest Auction, of course.

  • Harvard Green Shield

    HLS wins Cambridge GoGreen Award for sustainability efforts

    On May 22, the City of Cambridge awarded Harvard Law School a 2012 GoGreen Award for Recycling and Waste Reduction for a Large Institution. Starting in 1998, the annual GoGreen Awards have recognized the environmental sustainability initiatives of Cambridge businesses and organizations in the areas of transportation, waste reduction/recycling, energy, storm water management, climate protection, and initiatives by community organizations.

  • Meg DeMarco at podium

    Meg DeMarco receives staff appreciation award

    Meg DeMarco, director of Student Affairs in the Harvard Law School Dean of Students Office, received the Suzanne L. Richardson Staff Appreciation Award during Class Day exercises on May 23. She was selected by the Class of 2012 for her work overseeing and supporting student organizations, journals, housing and the 1L Program.

  • Rajan Sonik

    Rajan Sonik ’12 wins pro bono service award

    Rajan Sonik ’12 is the winner of this year’s Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award, recognized for performing the highest number of pro bono service hours in the Class of 2012. During his time at Harvard Law School, Sonik provided over 2,500 hours of free legal services.

  • Eric Holder

    'Put your skills to use to define our future,' Attorney General tells class (video)

    The 82nd Attorney General of the United States, Eric H. Holder Jr., addressed the 2012 graduating class at Harvard Law School, urging the newly-minted lawyers to continue the tradition of service encouraged at Harvard Law School and to use their skills to define the country’s future.

  • William Rubenstein

    Rubenstein wins Sacks-Freund Award for Teaching Excellence (video)

    Professor William Rubenstein ’86, the Sidley Austin Professor of Law, is this year's winner of the prestigious Albert M. Sacks-Paul A. Freund Award for Teaching Excellence, an honor bestowed each spring by the Harvard Law School graduating class. The award recognizes teaching ability, attentiveness to student concerns and general contributions to student life at the law school.

  • Barney Frank

    Barney Frank ’77 addresses Harvard College graduates during Class Day (video)

    This year, Harvard’s time-honored tradition of Class Day included an interesting twist: For the first time in years, two speakers—actor, writer, and comedian Andy Samberg, and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank ’61, J.D. ’77—took turns at the outdoor dais to offer the seniors parting words of wit and wisdom.

  • Student honorees

    Students honored at Class Day ceremony

    A number of Harvard Law students received special awards this year during the 2012 Class Day exercises on May 23. The honored students were recognized for their outstanding leadership, citizenship, compassion and dedication to their studies and the profession.

  • Margaret Marshall

    Margaret Marshall named Radcliffe Medalist (video)

    Margaret H. Marshall, senior research fellow and lecturer on law at Harvard Law School, was recently awarded the Radcliffe Institute Medal. Marshall, who is former chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court and senior counsel at Choate Hall & Stewart, LLP, gave the keynote address during the Radcliffe Day luncheon on May 25.

  • Clara Long

    Daring to be a doer: Clara Long '12

    While in college, Clara Long '12 spent a spring semester in Belém, Brazil. “That totally changed the trajectory of my life,” she said, and turned a passion for tending the environment into “something that was much more about people.” Now graduating from Harvard Law School, Long is interested in human rights, and views her education at Harvard as a way of acquiring “tools for dealing with injustice.”

  • Dean Martha Minow

    Dean Minow congratulates the Class of 2012 (video)

    During Commencement on May 24, Dean Martha Minow congratulated the Harvard Law School Class of 2012 on all that they accomplished while at HLS. Minow urged graduates in their future careers not only to take problems apart and work to persuade others, but also to celebrate and extend their role as designers.

  • Professor Mary Ann Glendon

    Professor Mary Ann Glendon appointed to commission on religious freedom

    In May, Harvard Law School Professor Mary Ann Glendon, who served as the former U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, was appointed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan federal body that is principally responsible for reviewing the facts and circumstances of violations of religious freedom internationally and making policy recommendations to the president, secretary of state, and Congress.

  • Lawrence Lessig

    Lessig gives commencement address at John Marshall Law School

    Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig, director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard, gave the commencement address at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School on May 19, 2012.

  • Sumner Redstone

    On its 100th Anniversary, Paramount Pictures honors Sumner Redstone '47

    On the 100th anniversary of Paramount Pictures, studio employees and a handful of dignitaries gathered on Friday, June 1, 2012 to salute Sumner Redstone '47, the 89-year-old executive chairman of Viacom Inc., parent company of Paramount. The occasion included the naming of a major building on the Paramount lot after Redstone.

  • Professor Elizabeth Bartholet '65

    Child Advocacy Program hosts workshop on child welfare

    On May 10-11, the Harvard Law School Child Advocacy Program held a Prevention & Protection Brainstorming Workshop, which brought together researchers, advocates, and practitioners in the field from around the country to discuss strategies to prevent maltreatment and protect vulnerable children. The event followed last year’s CAP conference that examined race and child welfare. The founder and faculty director of the program, Professor Elizabeth Bartholet ’65, spoke about the workshop and her longtime efforts to improve the child welfare system.

  • Professor Lucian A. Bebchuk

    Rulemaking petition on political spending attracts massive support from over 250,000 comments filed with the SEC

    Last July, Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84 and Columbia Law School Professor Robert Jackson, Jr. co-chaired a committee of ten corporate and securities law experts that submitted a rulemaking petition to the Securities and Exchange Commission urging the Commission to develop rules to require public companies to disclose their political spending. As of the end of May 2012, the petition has attracted massive support from a record number of comments filed with the SEC.

  • HLS

    Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation joins with Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation in diabetes initiative

    The Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation at Harvard Law School will receive $981,862 over four years from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation as part of the foundation’s new Together on Diabetes initiative, officials announced June 8.

  • Interop book cover

    Palfrey and Gasser book launch: ‘Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems’ (video)

    Harvard Law School Professor John Palfrey ’01 and Urs Gasser LL.M. '03, lecturer on law and executive director of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, launched their latest book, Interop: The Promise and Perils of Highly Interconnected Systems, at a May 30 event hosted by the Berkman Center, the Harvard Law School Library and the Harvard Book Store.

  • Grant Strother

    Grant Strother ’12 Awarded Fisher Sander Prize

    Grant Strother ’12 was the recipient of this year’s Roger Fisher and Frank E.A. Sander Prize for his paper “Resolving Cultural Property Disputes in the Shadow of the Law.” The prize is awarded annually to the best student paper on a topic related to negotiation, dispute systems design, mediation, dispute resolution, or ADR.

  • HLS

    Harvard Law School launches new Student Information System (SIS)

    Recently, Harvard Law School launched a new Student Information System (SIS) to solve problems that have plagued the process of online student registration and curriculum-related activities.

  • HLS Professor Robert Sitkoff

    Sitkoff Elected to Council of the American Law Institute

    The American Law Institute has elected Robert H. Sitkoff, John L. Gray Professor of Law, to join its Council. The Council serves as the governing body of the ALI, the leading independent organization in the U.S. producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize, and otherwise improve the law.

  • IGLP logo

    Institute for Global Law and Policy announces collaboration with Qatar Foundation

    The Institute for Global Law and Policy (IGLP) at Harvard Law School announced today that the Qatar Foundation has become a leading sponsor of the IGLP and will support a broad ranging research and faculty development program at the Institute.

  • HLS

    Joel Alicea ’13 published in Policy Review

    Stanford University’s Hoover Institution recently published an article by Joel Alicea ’13 in the journal Policy Review. The article, entitled “Forty Years of Originalism: The development and future of a judicial philosophy,” was published on June 1, 2012.

  • Lawrence Lessig

    Lessig in Harvard Magazine: 'A radical fix for the republic'

    For a decade, Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig, a mild-seeming legal scholar, pursued the intricacies of updating American copyright law to reflect the rise of the digital era, the Internet, and new means of producing and disseminating texts, music, images, and software. He felt he was making progress: “The public was getting it. Businesses were getting it. Universities. Everybody had come to the recognition that ‘There is something wrong with the existing system,’ and that it needed to be updated—but we were making no progress in the context of policymakers.” At first, he was puzzled. But gradually he realized the problem lay in the sclerotic, gridlocked policymaking system itself—particularly in Congress.

  • Supreme Court

    In major Alien Tort Statute case, clinic files amicus curiae brief with U.S. Supreme Court

    Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic has submitted a supplemental amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of petitioners in a major Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. Nine eminent legal historians joined the brief as amici: William R. Casto, Charles Donahue, Robert W. Gordon, Nasser Hussain, Stanley N. Katz, Michael Lobban, Jenny S. Martinez, and Anne-Marie Slaughter.

  • HLS

    Harvard Law School faculty contribute significantly to the list of most-cited law review articles

    Fourteen Harvard Law School faculty appear among the list of contributors of the most-cited law review articles (in all legal fields) just published in a study on the subject in the Michigan Law Review by Fred R. Shapiro ’80, a librarian at Yale Law School, and Michelle Pearse, a librarian at HLS.

  • Martha Minow

    Dean Minow joins MacArthur board

    Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow has been elected to serve on the MacArthur Foundation Board of Directors. Minow, an expert on human rights and advocacy for disadvantaged populations, will join in September.

  • Carol Steiker and Nancy Gertner

    Gertner, Steiker join legal scholars in call for Senate investigation of USDOJ’s Office of the Pardon Attorney

    Harvard Law School professors Carol Steiker ’86 and Nancy Gertner joined 13 other leading constitutional and sentencing law academics and law professors to issue a letter on June 26, asking U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee leaders to “convene a hearing at your earliest convenience to examine the Office of the Pardon Attorney’s conduct with regard to applicants for sentence commutations.”

  • supreme court

    Health care preview: Faculty weigh in before Supreme Court health care ruling

    The U.S. Supreme Court announces its ruling on the 2010 national health care overhaul on Thursday, June 28, 2012; a number of Harvard Law School faculty members have offered their opinions to the media in advance of the Court’s ruling.

  • John G. Roberts, Jr.

    HLS faculty members react to Supreme Court health care ruling

    The U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling on the 2010 national health care overhaul on Thursday, June 28, 2012, largely allowing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) to stand. Several Harvard Law School faculty members weighed in on the decision.

  • Supreme Court

    Media roundup: HLS Faculty analyze Supreme Court health care ruling

    The U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling on the 2010 national health care overhaul on Thursday, June 28, 2012, largely allowing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) to stand. A number of HLS faculty members offered media analysis of the Court’s ruling in the days following the ruling.

  • zittrain

    Zittrain appointed chair of FCC’s Open Internet Advisory Committee

    In late May, Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain '95 was appointed chair of the Open Internet Advisory Committee. The committee was called for by the Federal Communications Commission to track and evaluate the effects of the FCC’s Open Internet rules and to provide recommendations to the FCC regarding policies and practices related to preserving the open Internet.

  • HLS students win start-up competition at Rethink Music conference

    Students win start-up competition at Rethink Music conference

    Two HLS students, Adam Gottesfeld '12 and Joey Seiler '12, recently won Rethink Music’s Genesis Project, a startup competition that aims to encourage and support creativity in the music industry. The duo will receive $10,000 in legal services from the firm Duane Morris, additional in-kind consulting and at least three meetings with venture capitalists.

  • HLS Thinks Big logo

    Five ideas in 50 minutes: HLS Thinks Big (video)

    “HLS Thinks Big,” inspired by the global TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) talks and modeled after the college’s “Harvard Thinks Big” event, was held at Harvard Law School on May 23 in Austin North. During the event, five professors presented some of their favorite topics.

  • Freeman, Jody

    Freeman in NYT: ‘The Wise Way to Regulate Gas Drilling’

    The op-ed "The Wise Way to Regulate Gas Drilling," by Professor Jody Freeman LL.M. ’91 S.J.D. ’95, appeared in the July 6, 2012, edition of the New York Times.

  • Professor James Greiner

    Greiner promoted to professor of law at Harvard

    Following a vote of the Harvard Law School faculty, D. James Greiner, a specialist in the application of modern quantitative thinking to legal questions, has been promoted from assistant professor to professor of law—a tenured faculty position.

  • Professor Benjamin Sachs

    Sachs gains tenure as professor of law at Harvard

    The Harvard Law School faculty has voted to promote Benjamin Sachs, a specialist in labor and workplace law, from assistant professor to professor of law – a tenured faculty position.

  • HLS

    Joel Alicea ’13 in Public Discourse: Chief Justice Roberts and the changing conservative legal movement

    In a July 10 article featured in the Witherspoon Institute’s online publication Public Discourse: Ethics, Law and the Common Good, Harvard Law School student Joel Alicea ’13 assesses “Chief Justice Roberts and the Changing Conservative Legal Movement” in light of the Supreme Court’s late June decision on the Affordable Care Act.

  • mstein.jpg

    Bostonians changing the world: Michael Stein

    Michael Stein ‘88, Harvard Law School visiting professor and executive director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, was one of a dozen people featured in the July 15, 2012, Boston Globe Magazine article, “12 Bostonians Changing the World.”

  • Professor Lucian A. Bebchuk

    Bebchuk named among most influential people in finance

    Professor Lucian Bebchuk has been named as one of the 100 most influential people in finance by Treasury & Risk magazine. The list prepared by the magazine puts together individuals who had significant impact on the world of finance this year.

  • Nancy Gertner

    Gertner honored by National Association of Women Lawyers

    The National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) has awarded its highest honor, the Arabella Babb Mansfield Award, to Harvard Law School Professor of Practice Nancy Gertner.

  • Lawrence Lessig

    Lessig testifies against Citizens United and the rise of Super PACs (video)

    On Tuesday, July 24, Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights at an open-session hearing titled “Taking Back Our Democracy: Responding to Citizens United and the Rise of Super PACs.”

  • Supreme Court

    Seven Harvard Law School grads are U.S. Supreme Court clerks for 2012-2013

    Of the 39 law school graduates serving as clerks to the U.S. Supreme Court justices and retired justices in the 2012-2013 term, seven hail from Harvard Law School.

  • Protest and Assembly Rights Project report

    Protest and Assembly Rights Project releases report on human rights violations during Occupy Wall Street

    Under the leadership of Harvard Law School Clinical Instructor Deborah Popowski, HLS’s International Human Rights Clinic is participating in the Protest and Assembly Rights Project, formed in January 2012. On July 25, the first report in the Protest and Assembly Rights Project series was released, calling on New York City authorities to stop the pattern of abusive policing of Occupy Wall Street protests.

  • HLS

    Harvard Law School Media Roundup: From Gun Control to the Roberts's Court to the Arab Spring

    Over the past week, a number of HLS faculty members shared their viewpoints on events in the news. Here are some excerpts.

  • HLS

    Namibian women living with HIV report violations of sexual and reproductive rights

    Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic has co-released a report documenting the Namibian health care system’s maltreatment of women living with HIV. A joint product of the clinic, the Namibian Women’s Health Network and Northeastern Law School, the 49-page report, entitled “At the Hospital There Are No Human Rights,” was released on July 26 during the International AIDS Conference, in Washington, D.C.

  • Gersen and Vermeule

    Gersen and Vermeule on 'Delegating to Enemies' in Columbia Law Review

    In their recently published paper, “Delegating to Enemies” (Columbia Law Review, forthcoming), Harvard Law School professors Jacob E. Gersen and Adrian Vermeule ’93 examine the longstanding practice of leaders who choose to delegate to ideological “enemies” whose viewpoints differ greatly from their own.

  • HLS

    Case studies developed at HLS available through new website

    Harvard Law School has launched a new program to develop and distribute case studies, role plays, hypothetical problems and other experiential tools for the classroom. The centerpiece of the program is a website designed as a one-stop-shop for all participant-centered teaching tools developed and sponsored by HLS.

  • Professor Cass Sunstein '78

    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.

  • Professor Alvin Warren

    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.

  • Professor Charles Fried

    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.

  • report cover

    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.

  • Man in silhouette

    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.

  • Professor Adrian Vermeule '93

    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.

  • HLS

    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.

  • Professor Hal Scott

    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.

  • HLS

    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.

  • Professor Lucian A. Bebchuk

    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. 

  • Professor Annette Gordon-Reed '84

    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.

  • Professor John C.P. Goldberg

    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.

  • Sunshine Yin '13

    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.

  • HLS Professor of Practice Nancy Gertner

    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.

  • Roger Fisher '48

    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.

  • HLS Professor Robert Sitkoff

    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.

  • 2012 WTO moot court international finals team

    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.

  • HLS

    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.

  • Stephen Gageler

    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.

  • Assistant Professor I. Glenn Cohen

    Cohen receives faculty scholar award from Greenwall Foundation

    The Greenwall Foundation has chosen Harvard Law School Assistant Professor I. Glenn Cohen '03, a leading expert on the intersection of bioethics and the law, to receive one of three Faculty Scholar Awards in Bioethics. The award allows recipients to conduct extensive independent research to help set public policy and standards of clinical practice.  

  • Joseph Story

    HLS Library unveils new Joseph Story Exhibit and Digital Suite

    The Harvard Law School Library has curated a collection of original documents and images from the life, legacy and world of Joseph Story, a lawyer, beloved teacher, prolific author and Supreme Court justice. The new exhibit, “A Storied Legacy: Correspondence and Early Writings of Joseph Story,” is on view in the Caspersen Room, Harvard Law School Library, through December 7, 2012. Complementing and expanding upon the exhibit is a new Joseph Story Digital Suite.

  • Justice Young-Joon Mok

    Justice of the Constitutional Court of Korea speaks at HLS

    Young-Joon Mok LL.M. ’89, a Justice of the Constitutional Court of Korea, spoke at Harvard Law School on “Constitutional Adjudication in the Republic of Korea,” on Tuesday, Sept. 11 at an event sponsored by East Asian Legal Studies, International Legal Studies and the Korea Institute.

  • David Kennedy ’80

    David Kennedy among co-founders of new Asian Peace and Reconciliation Council

    David Kennedy ’80, Harvard Law School’s Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law and director of the Institute for Global Law and Policy, recently joined a team of former political leaders and diplomats from across Asia in founding the new Asian Peace and Reconciliation Council (APRC), which will work to promote peace and reconciliation in the Asian region through quiet diplomacy.

  • HLS

    HLS appoints four 2012-2013 Innovation Lab Experts-in-Residence

    Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow has appointed Michael Fertik ’05, Neil Flanzraich ’68, Anthony Scaramucci ’89 and John Williams ’79 as HLS’s Experts-in-Residence (EIRs) for the 2012-2013 academic year, in partnership with the University-wide Harvard Innovation Lab (i-Lab). Williams served as HLS’s inaugural EIR in 2011-2012 and has been reappointed to a second term.

  • Einer Elhauge

    Elhauge releases e-book on Obamacare

    Professor Einer Elhauge ‘86 has released an e-book—titled “Obamacare on Trial” —on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act case decided by the Supreme Court. Elhauge raises points that were not aired in the courtroom, including the fact that the constitutional framers themselves had approved mandates to buy health insurance.

  • HLS

    Harvard Law School to receive Ford Foundation Grant for public interest fellowships

    Harvard Law School today announced that the Ford Foundation has committed to fund a new initiative administered by the Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising, enabling 25 HLS students to work in the field of public interest law in summer 2013.

  • Bryonn Bain

    Bryonn Bain ’01 brings his dynamic style to new Harvard class

    Undergraduates gathered at Farkas Hall last week to audition for a workshop that taps into the power and poetry of language. Harvard’s new dramatic arts offering “Hip Hop and Spoken Word: Theater Performance Laboratory” is being taught by visiting lecturer Bryonn Bain '01, an activist, rapper, poet, and musician.

  • Noah Feldman

    Feldman in Bloomberg View: The view from Tunis—fire, tear gas and normalcy

    "The view from Tunis: Fire, tear gas, and normalcy," a piece by Harvard Law School Professor Noah Feldman, appeared in Bloomberg View on Sept. 14. Feldman, who is the Bemis Professor of International Law at HLS, is a regular contributor to Bloomberg View and the author of many books, including “Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Justices” (Twelve Books 2010), and “The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State” (Princeton University Press, 2008).  

  • Stephen Shay

    Shay testifies on Offshore Profit Shifting and the U.S. Tax Code (video)

    On Sept. 20, Harvard Law School Professor Stephen Shay testified before the Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The topic of the hearing was “Offshore Profit Shifting and the U.S. Tax Code."

  • HLS

    HLS competing in 2012 election races

    As two Harvard Law School grads compete for the U.S. presidency, the list of HLS affiliates running in congressional races across the country includes 19 alumni and one HLS faculty member. In the U.S. House of Representatives, nine are incumbents and eight are challengers running for the first time.

  • Viet Dinh

    Viet Dinh ’93 on government, academia and boutique law practice (video)

    Viet D. Dinh '93, founding partner of Bancroft and a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, spoke at Harvard Law School on Sept. 18 at an event sponsored by Harvard Law School's Program on the Legal Profession. Dinh, who served as U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy from 2001 to 2003 and played a key role in developing legal policy initiatives to combat terrorism, focused his remarks on “Peripatetic Reflections: Government, Academia and Boutique Law Practice."

  • Professor Michael Klarman

    Klarman seeks to debunk myths on the Constitution’s founding (video)

    At a Sept. 19 event commemorating the signing of the U.S. Constitution, Harvard Law School Professor Michael Klarman, an expert on constitutional law and constitutional history, gave a lecture entitled "Why the Tea Party Has It Wrong: The Story of a Multifaceted Founding."

  • Dean Martha Minow and John Osborn

    ‘The Paper Chase’ at 40 (video)

    Many readers and viewers wonder if John Osborn Jr. had someone special in mind when he created the imperious professor in his 1971 hit novel “The Paper Chase,” based on his Harvard Law School years. With a careful reply, the author told HLS Dean Martha Minow and a crowd gathered at Austin Hall Thursday for a discussion about his book that the character was actually a composite of several people. But, he added, “It wasn’t like it was hard to find role models.”

  • HLS

    Annual PIFS symposium convenes senior financial and government leaders

    Harvard Law School's Program on International Financial Systems (PIFS) hosted its 9th annual China-U.S. symposium in Beijing the weekend of Sept. 14-16. Co-organized by PIFS and the China Development Research Foundation (CDRF), this annual gathering convenes senior financial and government leaders from the United States and China to address key issues relating to capital markets, financial regulation and the China-U.S. economic and financial relationship.

  • HLS Professor Robert Sitkoff

    Sitkoff appointed to two new ULC committees

    Robert H. Sitkoff, the John L. Gray Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, has been appointed to two new Uniform Law Commission committees—the study committee on trust protectors, and the drafting committee on Series of Unincorporated Business Entities.

  • Sattar and Zaman

    A diverged family converges at Harvard Law

    At a Harvard Law School Graduate Program reception in August, students Erum Khalid Sattar and Rebecca Zaman shook hands and said hello. “If we hadn’t been wearing nametags, what happened next might never have happened,” said Zaman.

  • Professor Lani Guinier

    Guinier participates in discussion on race and college admissions (video)

    On Oct. 4, Harvard Law School Professor Lani Guinier participated in a panel discussion on race and college admissions. The discussion, broadcast on C-SPAN, was hosted by The Century Foundation, a nonprofit, non-partisan research foundation that focuses on issues of equity and opportunity in the United States.

  • HLS

    Harvard Law School announces expansion of J.D. admissions interview process

    Harvard Law School announced today that it will move to videoconferencing technology to conduct interviews of candidates for admission to its J.D. program.

  • Professor Alex Whiting

    Whiting offers views on the International Criminal Court’s impact

    Is the International Criminal Court succeeding? According to Assistant Clinical Professor Alex Whiting, the answer is a tentative yes. Nevertheless, Whiting—who serves as the prosecution coordinator in the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICC—provided a candid portrait of the court’s strengths and weaknesses at a talk on Wednesday, Oct. 10, sponsored by the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program.

  • Barshefsky

    Former U.S. trade representative shares tools for successful multi-party negotiations

    On Oct. 3, former United States Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky came to Harvard Law School to share her experiences with students in the Advanced Negotiation Workshop taught by Clinical Professor Robert Bordone ’97 and Lecturer Rory Van Loo ’07.

  • Arthur Brooks and Noah Feldman

    Brooks, Feldman probe “The Morality of the Free Market” (video)

    The Morality of the Free Market was the topic of a Sept. 27 address at Harvard Law School by Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research organization in Washington, D.C. The event was sponsored by the Harvard Law Federalist Society.

  • Jon Leibowitz

    The Federal Trade Commission: 'Fighting for truth and justice' (video)

    The Federal Trade Commission is not just an agency, said its Chairman Jon Leibowitz at a talk on Thursday, Oct.11 at Harvard Law School, but it is an agency of superheroes, working to protect American consumers. “Like Superman, we fight for truth and justice and the American way—but of course we don’t wear capes,” Leibowitz said.

  • Glenn Cohen

    Cohen in the Harvard Gazette: The rise of medical tourism (audio)

    The intersection of medical tourism and ethical and legal questions are at the heart of I. Glenn Cohen's new book, “Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Law, and Ethics,” the focus of his year as a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

  • Mark Roe

    A roundtable at HLS on corporate time horizons

    A group of senior corporate managers, finance practitioners, and academics from Europe and the U.S. gathered at HLS on Sept. 14-15 for a conference on the role of corporate governance in encouraging long-term value in public corporations.

  • HLS

    HLS and Matsushita Gobel Foundation launch initiative on the study of Asian legal reform

    Harvard Law School and the Matsushita Gobel Foundation will jointly launch the Matsushita Gobel Foundation Initiative on the Study of Asian Legal Reform on October 22, 2012, in Cambridge, Mass.

  • HLS Professor David Wilkins receives honorary degree from University of Stockholm

    Wilkins honored by the University of Stockholm

    Stockholm University conferred an honorary doctoral degree on Harvard Law School Professor David B. Wilkins ’80, director of the Program on the Legal Profession and vice dean for global initiatives on the legal profession.

  • Jill Lepore (from left), and panelists Alex Keyssar, Annette Gordon-Reed, Elizabeth Hinton, Kenneth Mack, and Jed Shugerman (standing)

    HLS scholars in the Harvard Gazette: America at a crossroads

    At stake in the next election is nothing less than a redefinition of America’s priorities, according to Harvard scholars taking part in a panel discussion at Harvard's Barker Center. The panel which explored law, history, and the 2012 election, included moderator Jill Lepore and panelists Alex Keyssar, Elizabeth Hinton, and HLS Professors Annette Gordon-Reed, Kenneth Mack, and Jed Shugerman

  • Sally falk Moore HLS Symposium

    HLS Symposium Celebrates the Writing and Teaching of Sally Falk Moore (video)

    On September 21, more than 80 lawyers, anthropologists, students and friends gathered at a symposium at Harvard Law School to honor Sally Falk Moore, the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Anthropology, Emerita, for her distinguished and multi-faceted career, for her more recent work as an Affiliated Professor in International Legal Studies at HLS, and for her extraordinary service as a teacher and mentor to students in the HLS Graduate Program. 

  • Dean Martha Minow

    Pro Bono Task Force report: 'If we don’t do it, who will?' (video)

    Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow and John Levi ’72, LL.M. ‘73, the chairman of the Legal Services Corporation, presented the report of the Corporation’s Pro Bono Task Force in in HLS’s Wasserstein Hall on Oct. 3, at an event hosted by HLS Professor David Wilkins ‘80, director of the Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession. Established in 1974 by President Nixon, the LSC, a private, nonprofit corporation, is the nation’s largest funder of legal aid providers for low-income Americans.

  • Ben Emmerson, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights

    At Harvard Law School, UN investigator announces probe of drone attacks by U.S. (video)

    At a packed Harvard Law School event co-sponsored by the Human Rights Program and the Harvard National Security and Law Association, Ben Emmerson, United Nations Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, announced plans to launch an investigation into the use of drone attacks which have caused civilian deaths—including those carried out by the U.S.

  • Shield
  • Professor Lani Guinier

    Guinier and Brown-Nagin in the Harvard Gazette: An issue that’s bigger in Texas

    The controversial question of what role race should play in college admissions, if any, stands again before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas. Lani Guinier, the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, teamed up with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, a professor of law at HLS and a professor of history at the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), to explore the legal background and possible outcomes of the Fisher case, which was argued recently.
  • Soghoian_30

    Expert Warns of the Growing Trade in Software Security Exploits

    The growing trade in exploits of software security has become a “market in digital weapons,” leaving people in the U.S. and abroad vulnerable to cyberattack, said Christopher Soghoian, Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst at the ACLU, in an October 24th talk at Harvard Law School. “The entire industry, while it’s been in existence hasn’t received much sunlight,” said Soghoian, arguing that many regulators and policymakers do not even understand that the market exists. (Soghoian said that his talk, which was co-sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the Journal of Law and Technology, only reflected his views and not those of the ACLU.)

  • Gergen Fall Reunions 2012

    Gergen speaks at HLS on the 2012 presidential race (video)

    Rarely has a presidential race been so hard to call, said David Gergen ’67, during a talk on Oct. 26 at Harvard Law School Fall Reunions. A former adviser to four presidents, a regular contributor to CNN and a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, Gergen put the race between fellow HLS graduates Mitt Romney ’75 and President Barack Obama ’91 in historical perspective, analyzed its development, talked about its import—and made some predictions.

  • Elizabeth Warren

    Massachusetts sends Warren to U.S. Senate

    Harvard Law School Professor and Democratic nominee Elizabeth Warren—bankruptcy expert, Wall Street reformer and consumer watch dog—has won a hard-fought race for the U.S. Senate against her Republican opponent, incumbent Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown.

  • Donald B. Verrilli, Jr.

    At HLS, Solicitor General Verrilli describes 'the greatest legal job one could ever have' (video)

    According to U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., the defining feature of his job—the most challenging, rewarding aspect—is grappling with what the position of the United States should be on an issue. At a talk on Wednesday, Oct. 31 at Harvard Law School, Verrilli explained that this task is harder than it might seem, involving a balancing of interests and making considered decisions on whether the U.S. should modify a previously held position.

  • Amanda Mealer '15

    From 'Hurt Locker' to 'Paper Chase': A look at the newest military service members at HLS

    This year’s 1L class at Harvard Law School includes 16 military veterans. There are also nine 2Ls, six 3Ls, and three LL.Ms at HLS with records of military service. Thirteen are attending through the Yellow Ribbon program, through which the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs matches what a law school offers to pay for a veteran’s tuition and expenses. HLS is one of very few schools making the maximum commitment—50 percent—which means, with the V.A.’s match, these veterans attend for free. Others are funding their HLS educations through the G.I. Bill and student loans. The three Navy JAG lawyers in the LL.M. program each receive a scholarship from HLS equivalent to the amount covered by the School under the Yellow Ribbon Program; their remaining costs are covered by the U.S. Navy.

  • HLS

    Alumni fare well in elections

    Harvard Law School graduates across the country won political victories in the 2012 elections. In addition to a victory by President Barack Obama '91in a close race with Republican candidate Mitt Romney J.D./M.B.A ‘75.  A Harvard Law School Professor and two HLS alumni won seats in the Senate, and 15 alumni are going to the House.

  • HLS Ballot Box

    PHOTOS: Election 2012 at Harvard

    Harvard Law School’s new lounge and pub in the Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center, Clinical Wing Building, was the gathering place for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who stood side by side to follow the results on TV during a party organized by the School’s Dean of Students Office.

  • Jesse Reising '13

    Warrior Scholar Project

    Jesse Reising ’15 was eager to start his career as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps upon his graduation from Yale—until his dream was derailed when he made a tackle during the 2010 Harvard-Yale football game, resulting in partial paralysis of his right arm. Medically disqualified from the Marines (he’d attended Officer Candidates School during college), Reising decided to serve those who serve in the military. Last summer, at Yale, he and two friends launched Operation Opportunity, with an initiative called the Warrior-Scholar Project, a two-week “academic boot camp” to help veterans transition from the military to college

  • John Sarbanes

    At Harvard Law, Rep. John Sarbanes '88 makes the case against big money in politics

    At a Nov. 8 talk at Harvard Law School, Representative John Sarbanes ’88 (D-MD) advocated for “grassroots democracy” funded by the people rather than by Political Action Committees and other large donors. Sarbanes is a co-sponsor of the Grassroots Democracy Act, intended to empower small donors and to free lawmakers from their dependency on big money. The event was sponsored by the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University.

  • János Fiala-Butora

    Disability rights victories in European Court of Human Rights won by HLS advocate

    In October, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg issued two rulings bolstering the rights of persons with psycho-social disabilities. Both cases were brought by Hungarian-Slovakian disability rights activist János Fiala-Butora LL.M. ’10, an S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School and an associate of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, known as HPOD.

  • Professor Hal Scott

    Building the financial system of the 21st Century: A Q&A with Professor Hal Scott

    The Harvard Law School Program on International Financial Systems fosters the exchange of ideas on capital markets, financial regulation, and international financial systems through its portfolio of Symposia on Building the Financial System of the 21st Century. The symposia, started in 1998, bring together senior financial leaders, high-ranking government officials, and distinguished academics from the U.S. and their counterparts from China, Europe, Japan, and Brazil each year for intensive dialogue on issues affecting international capital markets. The 15th annual Japan-U.S. symposium was held this year in Karuizawa, Japan from Oct. 24 to 26. In a Q&A, HLS Professor Hal Scott, PIFS director, talks about the symposium’s history and impact.

  • Panelists

    A conversation on the legal legacy of Judge Henry Friendly (video)

    On Wednesday, Nov. 14, a panel of distinguished judges and professors gathered with author David Dorsen '59 to discuss and celebrate his recent biography, entitled “Henry Friendly: Greatest Judge of His Era.”

  • HLS

    The Chayes International Public Service Fellowship: snapshots from this summer

    During the summer of 2012, hundreds of Harvard Law School J.D. and graduate students benefitted from the largest pool of guaranteed funding offered by a law school for the broadest range of public interest summer work. A select group of 26 students worked in 19 countries under the aegis of the Chayes International Public Service Fellowships, dedicated to the memory of Professor Abram Chayes, who taught at Harvard Law School for more than 40 years.

  • ames moot court 1959 reunion

    Ames Moot Court Competition 1959: Remembering a signature accomplishment

    On a sunny day in June, seven members of the Sacks club, the team that won the Ames moot court competition in 1959, met on the steps of Langdell library to reminisce over what they called their “unlikely” victory, and to talk about where their lives had taken them in the fifty years since.

  • HLS

    IHRC report outlines concerns about ‘killer robots’

    Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic and the independent human rights organization Human Rights Watch have authored a report titled “Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots.” The report, released Nov. 19, argues that governments should pre-emptively ban fully autonomous weapons because of the danger they pose to civilians in armed conflict. 

  • Minow College Historical Society poster

    Minow recognized for outstanding contribution to public discourse

    HLS Dean Martha Minow received the Gold Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Public Discourse from the College Historical Society of Trinity College, Dublin at a ceremony on Nov. 13, 2012. The College Historical Society, popularly referred to as “The Hist,” is one of the world’s oldest undergraduate debating societies, established in 1770.

  • Dr. Amr Hamzawy

    HLS co-hosts conference on the Arab uprising

    Over the course of four days between Nov. 8 and 11, at the sixth annual Harvard Arab Weekend, Arab leaders from government, business, academia, and the professions gathered at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School to assess the impact of these changes and what may lay ahead. The event, “The Arab Up-rising: Sustaining the Spring—Avoiding the Fall,” was sponsored by the Harvard Arab Alumni Association and various Arab student organizations on campus.

  • LIDS panel

    Student conference focuses on strategies for tackling corruption

    On Nov. 9 the Harvard Law & International Development Society, an HLS student group, held its annual symposium, this year highlighting the increasingly global nature of anti-corruption efforts. The day-long event, “Development amidst Corruption | Developments against Corruption,” began with vivid personal narratives from the trenches: speakers included undercover agent Robert Mazur, Ombudsman of the Philippines Conchita Carpio-Morales, and El Cid Butyayan, senior litigator for the World Bank.

  • Berkman Center logo

    Berkman Center releases report on teens, parents and online privacy

    A new report produced by Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and its Youth and Media Project in conjunction with Pew Research Center’s Internet and America Life Project explores issues surrounding parents, teens, and online privacy in an increasingly digital world.

  • HLS Visiting Professor Carole Goldberg

    Conference spotlights challenges at intersection of federal and tribal systems

    “Tribal Courts and the Federal System,” a two-day conference held Nov. 8 at Harvard Law School, was the first of its kind, bringing together tribal judges and attorneys, tribal, state, and federal government policymakers, and scholars to explore issues Indian tribal courts currently face in criminal and civil enforcement, jurisdiction, and lawmaking. The conference was sponsored by the HLS Native American Law Students Association.

  • Mitch Daniels

    At Harvard Law, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels promotes a model for secondary education reform (video)

    At a Nov. 29 talk co-sponsored by the Harvard Federalist Society, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels shared his experience in leading the charge for a new law that enacted a series of secondary education reforms in Indiana last year—reforms which many observers have called the most far-reaching changes yet adopted by any state.

  • David Barron

    In Sandy’s aftermath, Barron urges urban planning at a national level

    At a Dec. 3 talk sponsored by the HLS Environmental Law Society, Harvard Law School’s David Barron ’94, the Honorable S. William Green Professor of Public Law, addressed questions raised in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

  • Professor Robert Mnookin LL.B. '68

    Mnookin honored by International Academy of Mediators with Lifetime Achievement Award

    Professor Robert Mnookin ’68, chairman of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, was honored by the International Academy of Mediators with a lifetime achievement award. The IAM Award is presented to a person who has made exceptional contributions throughout his or her career by personally advancing alternative dispute resolution and inspiring others to do so.

  • Jose Ramos-Horta

    Nobel Peace Prize Laureate joins IGLP Honorary Council at HLS

    The Institute for Global Law and Policy (IGLP) at Harvard Law School recently welcomed Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste José Manuel Ramos-Horta to the IGLP Honorary Council.

  • zittrain

    Zittrain named one of Foreign Policy's Top 100 Global Thinkers

    Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain has been named among the 100 Foreign Policy Global Thinkers for 2012.

  • Professor Adrian Vermeule '93

    Vermeule in Jotwell: Bureaucratic Nirvana

    In a recent review essay for the online journal Jotwell, Harvard Law School Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 takes a look at Norton E. Long’s article “Bureaucracy and Constitutionalism,” published in 1952 in the American Political Science Review.

  • Jeannie Suk

    NAPABA names Suk among 'Best Lawyers Under 40'

    The National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA) has named Professor Jeannie Suk ’02 among the 2012 recipients of the association’s “Best Lawyers Under 40” awards.

  • Daniel Shapiro

    Daniel Shapiro: Negotiating the Fiscal Crisis

    Daniel Shapiro, an affiliated faculty member with the Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation, recently wrote an opinion piece on "Negotiating the Fiscal Crisis." Shapiro is an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital, founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program, and co-author of "Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate."

  • Professor William P. Alford

    Alford on Legal Reform and the Future of China (video)

    Harvard Law School Professor William Alford ’77 was a participant and panelist at major events on the political and legal future of China, held recently at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Fairbank Center at Harvard.

  • Professor Hal Scott

    Study shows some improvement in U.S. capital market competitiveness

    The Committee on Capital Markets Regulation (CCMR), an independent and nonpartisan research organization directed by Harvard Law School Professor Hal S. Scott, released data indicating that U.S. capital markets showed slightly improved competitiveness this past quarter, though most measures of competitiveness still fall short of historical averages.

  • Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

    Holmes’ suite home: Law library launches massive database on famed American jurist

    In a first for the Harvard Law School Library, the Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Digital Suite, which went live on the web Dec. 11, aggregates multiple archival holdings into a single, hyperaccessible digital suite that anyone with a computer can search, browse, and tag.

  • David Wilkins

    Conference explores the future of corporate business in India

    On Dec. 11, Harvard Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession (PLP) and the Indian School of Business (ISB) co-hosted a major international conference on the future of corporate business in India and the role of the legal profession. The event was held at the ISB campus in Hyderabad, India.

  • Professor Charles Fried

    Fried and HLS alumni win legal writing award

    An article written by Harvard Law School Professor Charles Fried was named an exemplar of good legal writing by The Green Bag, a quarterly journal devoted to readable, concise, and entertaining legal scholarship. A number of Harvard Law School alumni were also included on Green Bag’s 2012 list of “Exemplary Legal Writing.” Their work will appear in the “2013 Almanac & Reader.”

  • HLS

    Two from HLS on Forbes '30 Under 30' list

    Harvard Law School's Joel Alicea ’13 and J.B. Tarter ’09 were recently named to Forbes 2012 “30 Under 30” list. The list acknowledges the high achievement of 30 individuals under age 30 in 15 categories. Both Alicea and Tarter, along with Dan Shoag, assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, were featured in the Law and Policy category.

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