Since 2005, Raoul Berger-Mark DeWolfe Howe Legal History Fellows have established careers in the legal academy, primarily in the United States. Past fellows and their current positions are listed below.
2025-2026 Berger-Howe Fellow
JELANI HAYES
Jelani Hayes is the Raoul Berger–Mark DeWolfe Howe Fellow in Legal History at Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. candidate in History at Harvard University, with a secondary field in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.
She earned her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Journal of Law & Feminism, and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar. Following graduation in 2023, she worked with the Legal Defense Fund of the National Association of Social Workers.
Jelani’s doctoral research examines the origins and development of the family regulation system in the United States. Her dissertation traces how federal, state, and local authorities built a vast apparatus to investigate and manage child neglect and abuse allegations — a system that has disproportionately impacted Black and Native American communities. Her dissertation argues that family regulation law and policy reconstituted the relationship between these communities and federal and state governments, contributing to the persistent overrepresentation of Black and Native youth in foster care.
Jelani has served as the Graduate Student Representative for the American Society for Legal History and the Student Fellow for the Harvard Law School Program in Law & History. She received her B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and is a proud native of Southern California.
| BERGER-HOWE FELLOW | FELLOWSHIP YEAR(S) | CURRENT POSITION |
| Rephael (Rafi) G. Stern | 2025-2026 | Associate Professor Boston University School of Law |
| No Fellow | 2023-2024 | |
| Jesse James | 2022-2023 | 2023-2024 Fellow Institute for Ideas & Imagination Columbia University |
| No Fellow | 2021-2022 | |
| Jamie Grischkan | 2020-2021 | Associate Professor Arizona State University, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law |
| Lael Weinberger | 2019-2020 | Non-resident Fellow, Constitutional Law Center Stanford University |
| William P. Sullivan | 2018-2019 | Associate Three Crowns |
| Marie-Amélie George | 2017-2018 | Professor of Law Wake Forest School of Law |
| Nikolas Bowie | 2016-2017 | Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law Harvard Law School |
| Adam Lebovitz | 2015-2016 | College Lecturer Stanford University |
| Maeve Glass | 2014-2015 | Associate Professor of Law Columbia Law School |
| Sara Mayeux | 2013-2014 | Associate Professor of Law and Associate Professor of History Vanderbilt Law School |
| Peter C. Pihos | 2012-2013 | Associate Professor of History Western Washington University |
| Sam Erman | 2011-2012 | Professor of Law University of Michigan Law School |
| Jedidiah Kroncke | 2010-2011 | Associate Professor Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong |
| Deborah Dinner | 2009-2010 | Dorothea S. Clarke Professor of Law Cornell Law School |
| Kara Swanson | 2008-2009 | Professor of Law and Affiliate Professor of History Northeastern University School of Law |
| Cynthia Nicoletti | 2007-2008 | Paul G. Mahoney Research Professor of Law and Professor of History University of Virginia School of Law |
| R. Owen Williams | 2007-2008 | Morehouse College Board Member and Author |
| Diana I. Williams | 2006-2007 | |
| Daniel I. Sharfstein | 2005-2006 | Dick and Martha Lansden Chair in Law and Professor of History Vanderbilt Law School |
Learn more about the Raoul Berger-Mark DeWolfe Howe Legal History Fellowship