Workshops and Seminars for Students and Faculty

This workshop will examine key questions in  comparative law, using as focal points the study of Chinese, Islamic and African law, and legal history. Students will read examples of influential scholarship in each field both for their importance and as a vehicle for thinking about methodological issues in comparative work in general.  Students will also have the opportunity to engage several leading  scholars in each field, as well as scholars earlier in their career, who will present works-in-progress.

FALL 2024 –Professors William Alford & Idriss Fofana
TUESDAYS, 3:45-5:45PM, Hauser 102

September 17 – Xia Ying, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law, Hong Kong – Guerrilla Lawyering: Litigating Environmental Public Interest in China

September 24 – Intisar Rabb, Professor of Law, HLS; Director, Program in Islamic Law (HLS); Professor of History, Harvard University – Islamic Common Law

October 1 – Matthew Erie, Associate Professor of Modern Chinese Studies, University of Oxford, United Kingdom – Adversarial Comparativism

October 8 – Ada Ordor, Professor, Department of Commercial Law, University of Cape Town, South Africa – Human Rights and the Social Contract in Africa’s Layered Legal Landscape

 October 22-Taisu Zhang, Professor of Law, Yale Law School; Professor of History, Yale University – Legal Internalism (co-author Shyam Balganesh)

October 29-Yutian An, Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law, HLS – Beyond the Verdict: The Impact of Juries on Judicial Support (co-author Yingjie Fan)

November 12– Havva Guney-Ruebenacker, Lecturer on Law, HLS – The Theory of Slavery and Abolition in Islamic Law: “So that the Burden of the War May Be Lifted”

November 19 – Abadir Ibrahim, Associate Director, Human Rights Program, HLS – Contributions of the African Human Rights System to International Climate Law (co-author Angela Hefti)

November 26 – Maha Shehade Switat, Postdoctoral Fellow, Weatherhead Scholars Program, Harvard University – Negotiating Inequality: Court Dynamics, Expectations and Perceptions of Justice in Labor Dispute Settlements

Our sessions will operate on the assumption that all in attendance will have read the paper(s) that form the basis of any given day’s discussion.  If you would like a copy of any paper (which should be available 10 days prior to the session at which it will be discussed) , please contact Emma Johnson.

This workshop involves reading, discussing, and critiquing scholarly works broadly relating to the theme of Global Justice. Among the topics addressed are distributive justice across national boundaries; state responsibility for the international consequences of domestic policy decisions; and comparisons between legal and moral responsibilities among states and among individuals. The focus will be on the doctrinal and theoretical aspects of these questions rather than hands-on practice.

Fall 2024 – Interim Dean John Goldberg and Professor Gabriella Blum
MONDAYS,1:30-3:30PM, Hauser 104

Sep. 16
Tarun Khaitan, London School of Economics and Political Science, Public Law
Free Media or Healthy Media? Verity as a Constitutional Value

Sep. 23
Katie Young, B.C. Law
Human Rights in the Constitutional Era of Dobbs

Sep. 30
Jay Butler, University of Virginia School of Law
International Tax and Corporate Discretion

Oct. 7
Kristen Eichensehr, University of Virginia School of Law
Frictionless Government and Foreign Relations

Oct 28.
Alexander Guerrero, Rutgers University Dept. of Philosophy
Risk, Harm, Technology, and Global Justice: Detech and Disconnect

Nov. 4
Sandesh Sivakumaran, University of Cambridge (Zoom)
Prosecutor v Akayesu and the characterization of rape as genocide

Nov. 11
Andre Nollkaemper, University of Amsterdam
Climate Reparations and Global Justice: Exploring the Promise and Limits of International Law

Nov. 18
Rachel Lopez, Temple University Beasley School of Law
The Paradox of Punishing for a Democratic Future

Nov. 25
Galit Sarfaty, University of Toronto Law
Global Governance at a Distance: A Socio-Legal Theory of Corporations and International Law-Making

If you would like to attend, please email Deema Qashat for a copy of the paper.

The Health Law, Policy, Bioethics, and Biotechnology Workshop provides a forum for discussion of new scholarship in these fields from the world’s leading experts. You can visit the Petrie-Flom Center for Upcoming Health Law Workshops. For information about the workshops you can contact David LeBreton.

This seminar provides students with an opportunity to engage with ongoing research in the economic analysis of law.

Fall 2024 — Professor Louis Kaplow & Professor Steven Shavell
TUESDAYS, 4:00-5:30 PM, HAUSER 102

Sept. 3 Students only session

Sept. 10 Mark Roe* (HLS) and Charles Wang (HBS), Half the Firms, Double the Profits: Public Firms’ Transformation, 1996-2022

Sept. 17 Ronen Avraham (Texas) and William Hubbard* (Chicago), Stubhub for Courts? Technology, Markets, and New Solutions to Court Congestion

Sept. 24 Students only session

Oct. 1 Michael Gilbert* (Virginia) and Andrew Hayashi (Virginia), Law and Economics for Empaths

Oct. 8 Thomas Coleman (Chicago) and David Weisbach* (Chicago), How Progressive is the US Tax System?

Oct. 15 HLS holiday

Oct. 22 Lital Helman (Ono) and Gideon Parchomovsky* (Penn), Artificial Inventorship

Oct. 29 Louis Kaplow (HLS), Out of Market, Out of Mind
Nov. 5 HLS holiday

Nov. 12 Sureyya Avci (Sabanci), Cindy Schipani (Michigan), Nejat Seyhun (Michigan), and Andrew Verstein* (UCLA), Insider Trading by Other Means

Nov. 19 Emma Harrington (Virginia), William Murdock (Lazard), and Hannah Shaffer* (HLS), Prediction Errors, Incarceration, & Violent Crime: Evidence from Linking Prosecutor Surveys to Court Records

Nov. 26 Fernan Restrepo (UCLA) and Guhan Subramanian* (HLS), Freezeouts

Dec. 3 Max Schanzenbach (Northwestern) and Robert Sitkoff* (HLS), Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing: The Fight over ESG Investing Since 2020

*Presenting

The course website is available at: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/146817. Select “Syllabus” for papers and the course schedule,  or contact Matthew Hunt.

This workshop is devoted to learning about, discussing, and critically evaluating new scholarly work on law and politics. A series of outside speakers, drawn from both law schools and political science departments, will present recent or forthcoming papers on election law and/or American politics.

Fall 2024 — Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos
WEDNESDAYS, 3:45-5:45 PM, WCC 4063

Sept. 11:
Jacob Grumbach (Berkeley Public Policy) presenting Old Money: Campaign Finance and Gerontocracy in the United States

Sept. 25:
Kevin Stack (Vanderbilt Law) presenting

Oct. 9:
Vincent Pons (Harvard Business School) presenting

Oct. 23:
Abby Wood (USC Law) presenting

Nov. 6:
Ashraf Ahmed (Columbia Law) presenting

Nov. 20:
Ariel White (MIT Political Science) presenting

For faculty or non-registered students who want to attend, please contact Kathy McGillicuddy.

This seminar involves the presentation by speakers of papers in the fields of law and economics, law and finance, and contract theory.

Fall 2024 – Professors Louis Kaplow, Lucian Bebchuk, and Kathryn Spier
MONDAYS, 12:45-2:15 PM, HAUSER 105

Sept. 9:            Shai Bernstein (HBS), Do Startups Benefit from Their Investors’ Reputation? Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

Sept. 16:          Raffaella Sadun (HBS), Training Within Firms

Sept. 23:          Daniel Chen (Toulouse School of Economics), Data Science for Justice: Evidence from a Nationwide Randomized Experiment in Kenya

Sept. 30:          Luigi Zingales (Chicago Booth), The Conflict-of-Interest Discount in the Marketplace of Ideas

Oct. 7:             Roberto Tallarita (HLS), Expanding Shareholder Voice: The Impact of SEC Guidance on Environmental and Social Proposals

[Oct. 14:          No classes – Indigenous Peoples’ Day / Columbus Day]

Oct. 21:           Adriana Robertson (University of Chicago), Corporate Political Disclosure and Shareholder Voting

Oct. 28:           Andrei Shleifer (Harvard), Cognitive Economics

Nov. 4:            Oren Bar-Gill (Harvard) and Alma Cohen (Harvard), Uncertainty About Signal Correlation

Nov. 11:          Roman Rivera (Princeton), Performance Pay and Multitasking Police

Nov. 18:          Stephanie Kestelman (Harvard), The Economics of Discretion in Land Use Decisions

Nov. 25:          Josh Teitelbaum (Georgetown), The Law of General Average

Dec. 2:            Kathryn Spier (Harvard), A New Way to Align the Incentives of Lawyers and Clients

The course website is available at: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/146823. Select “Syllabus” for papers and the course schedule, or contact Molly Eskridge, (617) 495-4635.

The Health Law, Policy, Bioethics, and Biotechnology Workshop provides a forum for discussion of new scholarship in these fields from the world’s leading experts. You can visit the Petrie-Flom Center for Upcoming Health Law Workshops. For information about the workshops you can contact David LeBreton.

This seminar provides students with an opportunity to engage with ongoing research in the economic analysis of law.

Spring 2025 — Professor Louis Kaplow & Professor Steven Shavell
TUESDAYS,4:00-5:30 PM, Hauser 102

Jan. 28:              Kenneth Khoo (Singapore) & Roberto Tallarita (HLS)*, Expanding Shareholder Voice:                            The Impact of SEC Guidance on Environmental and Social Proposals

Feb. 4:                Louis Kaplow (HLS), Improving Economic Analysis in Merger Guidelines

Feb. 11:             David Rosenberg (HLS) & Kathryn Spier (HLS)*, A Game Changer for Attorney Fees: Benchmarking Against Settlement Offers  

Feb. 18:             Gabriel Rauterberg (Michigan) & Jeffrey Zhang* (Michigan), Shadow Banking and Securities Law

Feb. 25:             Chris Lewis (HLS), What Is The Crime Rate?

Mar. 4:                             Students-only session

Mar. 11:            William Birdthistle (Chicago) & Howell Jackson (HLS)*, The Rise of Faux Funds: Financial Innovation or Reputational Arbitrage

Mar. 18:                          No Classes – Spring Break

Mar. 25:            Marcella Alsan (HKS) & Crystal Yang (HLS)*, The Hidden Health Care Crisis Behind                      Bars: A Randomized Trial to Accredit U.S. Jails

Apr. 1:                Mariana Pargendler (HLS),* Kevin Davis (NYU), and Maria Eduarda Lessa, Legal Heterodoxy in the Global South: Priority of Workers versus Secured Creditors in Insolvency

Apr. 8:                Jared Ellias (HLS), Operational Restructuring in Chapter 11

Apr. 15:              John Donohue (Stanford), What Has Been Happening With Crime Over the Last Five Years, and Who Can You Believe About That?

Apr. 22:              Nora Engstrom (Stanford), Legal Insurance and Its Limits

*Presenting

The course website is available at: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/152447 . Select “Syllabus” for papers and the course schedule, or contact Matthew Hunt.

This workshop examines new ideas at the intersection of law and philosophy. The workshop focuses on discussion of pre-circulated working papers presented by their authors.

Spring 2025 — Professor Christopher Lewis & Gina Schouten
WEDNESDAYS, 10:15 AM-12:15 PM, Hauser 105

February 5, 2025

• Gideon Yaffe (Yale Law School)

February 12, 2025

• Pat Tomlin (Philosophy, University of Warwick, UK)

February 19, 2025

• Jon Quong (Philosophy and Law, USC)

February 26, 2025

• Sandy Mayson (Penn Law)

March 5, 2025

• Rebecca Stone (UCLA Law)

March 12, 2025

• Wendy Salkin (Philosophy and Law, Stanford)

March 26, 2025

• Jake Nebel (Princeton, Philosophy)

April 2, 2025

• Manon Garcia (Freie Universitat, Berlin, Philosophy)

April 9, 2025

• Nico Cornell (Law and Philosophy, University of Michigan)

April 16, 2025

• Chad Lee-Stronach (Philosophy, Northeastern)

April 23, 2025

• Renee Jorgensen (Philosophy, University of Michigan)

The course website is available at: https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/130343. Select “Syllabus” for papers and the course schedule, or contact Brenda Bee.

This workshop is devoted to reading and discussing new scholarly work on law and political economy. Outside speakers and members of the Harvard faculty will present forthcoming papers or recent work, both theoretical and programmatic, on the role of law in structuring social relations, power, and justice in market society. It is not designed to offer a systematic overview of the field of law and political economy, although there will be two sessions for students only when we will discuss the field as a whole, as it is reflected in the papers presented during this semester.

Spring 2025 — Professor Yochai Benkler
MONDAYS, 3:45-5:45 PM, Hauser 102

February 3. Diana Reddy, U.C. Berkeley School of Law. Transaction Benefits at Work. Professor Reddy will be joining by zoom only.

February 10. No presentation. Students & fellows only discussion.

February 17. Elettra Bietti, Northeastern Law School. Antitrust as Regulatory Law

February 24. Felipe Cole, Boston College, Race, Empire, and the Transformation of the Denial of Justice in International Investment Law.

March 3. Hiba Hafiz, Boston College. On Quantifying Employer Power and Its Harms

March 10. Sandeep Vaheesan, Open Markets Institute. Democracy in Power: A History of Electrification in America.

March 17 Spring Break.

March 24 Zohra Ahmed, Boston University. The Price of Consent.

March 31. Fellows presentations.

Brian Highsmith,  The Company Town

Lea Steininger, Is Inflation Real or Nominal? Studying a Powerful Economic Idea

April 7. Jason Jackson, MIT Dept of Urban Studies and Planning. Industrial policy comparative political economy.

April 14. Lenore Palladino, School of Public Policy, UMass Amherst.

April 21. Matthew Dimick, University of Buffalo School of Law. Capitalism and the Administrative State.

This workshop examines major works in the field of legal history, important historiographical debates and critical methodologies. Students will participate in workshop presentations by leading scholars.

Spring 2025 — Professors Anna Lvovsky and Jill Lepore
MONDAYS, 3:45-5:45 PM, WCC 3007

Feb 10: Tyler Austin Harper, Assistant Professor of Environmental Science, Bates College

Feb. 17: Rory Van Loo, Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law

Feb. 24: Jennifer Tucker, Professor of Technology, Law & Visual Culture, Wesleyan University

Mar. 3: Christopher Beauchamp, Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School

Mar. 24: Kara Swanson, Professor of Law and Affiliate Professor of History, Northeastern University School of Law

Mar. 31: Jessica Gillooly, Assistant Professor of Sociology & Criminal Justice, Suffolk University; David Thacher, Associate Professor of Public Policy & Urban Planning, University of Michigan

Apr. 7: Evelynn Hammonds, Professor of the History of Science, African & African American Studies, and Social & Behavioral Sciences, Harvard University

Papers will be distributed roughly one week before each session. For additional information, please contact Kayla Butler, 617-384-0187.

This workshop explores the foundations of private law — property, contracts, torts, and restitution. Emphasis will be on theories that offer explanations, justifications, and criticisms of architectural features of these areas of law and of their connections to one another. Sessions will be devoted to paper presentations by outside speakers and to discussions of classic and contemporary works reflecting philosophical, historical, and economic approaches to private law topics.

Spring 2025: Interim Dean John Goldberg and Professor Henry Smith
WEDNESDAYS, 1:30-3:30PM, Hauser 105

February 12: Janet Freilich, Law as a Lamp Post

February 19: Matthew Shapiro, Civil Procedure’s Partial Rule of Law

March 5: Shyamkrishna Balganesh, The Eunomic Analysis of Intellectual Property Law

March 12: Yotam Kaplan, The Reliance Interest in Intellectual Property Law (co-authored with Gideon Parchomovsky and Asaf Eckstein)

April 2: Aileen Nielsen, Is This What Contracting for Privacy Looks Like? Prospects for Automated Data Privacy Opt-Outs (co-authored with Yafit Lev-Aretz)

April 16: Martin Stone, Why Legal Positivism Once Seemed Exciting

April 23: João Marinotti, Property Defaults

Papers will be available approximately 7-10 days before each presentation.  For any questions or request for papers, please contact Susan Norton.