Archive

Lyonel Jean-Pierre Jr. recently joined the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau as a clinical instructor.  He started his law career as a Massachusetts Legal Services Corporation…

Via Harvard Law Today Rachel A. Viscomi ’01 has been appointed assistant clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School and named director of…

The Community Enterprise Project (Fall 2018 and Spring 2019) is a by-application division of the Transactional Law Clinics in which students engage in transactional legal…

A coalition of legal organizations in Boston, including Greater Boston Legal Services(“GBLS”), Justice at Work, the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (“HLAB”), and Volunteer Lawyers Project, in collaboration with community groups in Boston, is bringing justice to victims of wage theft in Boston Municipal Court (“BMC”) Central’s small claims court.

The Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs would like to extend a warm welcome to Shelley Barron, who recently joined the Tenant Advocacy Project (TAP) as a Clinical Instructor.

The Human Rights Program is pleased to announce its cohort of post-graduate fellowships in human rights. This year, Conor Hartnett, JD’18, and Alejandra Elguero Altner, LLM’17, have been awarded the Henigson Human Rights Fellowship and Jenny B. Domino, LLM’18, and Anna Khalfaoui, LLM’17, have been awarded the Satter Human Rights Fellowship.

When does a simple 10 minute phone call from one spot in Massachusetts to another cost nearly $5? When you are in the county lock-up in Bristol County in the southeast corner of the state. These exorbitant fees can mount quickly and are a huge burden for families of people awaiting trial or serving sentences. They are now also the focus of a class action lawsuit that has given a pair of Harvard Law School students the opportunity to help frame both the legal and media strategies for prosecuting a high profile case to upend a lucrative prison telephone company contract that exploits inmates while enriching one county sheriff’s coffers.

As preparations for a US-North Korea summit highlight the ongoing threat posed by nuclear weapons, proponents of nuclear disarmament should increase their support for the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Momentum has been building. In May alone, three more countries ratified the treaty, bringing the total to 10; another 48 have signed. In addition, several countries have initiated national processes that represent an important step toward coming on board. In this context, the Clinic is releasing two papers demonstrating why it is legally possible for even allies of nuclear armed states to join the TPN.

While in law school Cassie Chambers devoted herself to clinical work at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.  In 2016, after a clerkship year, she received a Skadden Fellowship to work on domestic violence issues in Kentucky.  There she discovered that her divorce client, who was a survivor of domestic violence, was required to pay for a divorce attorney for her incarcerated spouse.   Cassie worked to change that. 

A number of Harvard Law students from the Class of 2018 received special awards during the Class Day ceremony on May 23. They were recognized for outstanding leadership, citizenship, compassion and dedication to their studies and the profession. This year’s Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award was presented to Tabitha Cohen, Annie Manhardt and Edith Sangueza.

When he was in high school in his native South Korea, Ha Ryong (Michael) Jung ’18 volunteered at a custodial facility for neglected children. “It was wonderful and at the same time heartbreaking,” he remembers. “It seemed like they were isolated from the system and society. I was young at the time myself, so I didn’t really know what I could do as a person. But the more I gained work experience, the more I saw the need for law to help protect these children and their rights.”

Last month the Harvard Women’s Law Association presented the annual Shatter the Ceiling Award to Carol Flores, Administrative Coordinator of the Criminal Justice Institute (CJI). 

Of the four students whose work is represented in the Harvard Law Review’s April 2018 “Developments in the Law” issue, three are former students in the Cyberlaw Clinic and all have taken classes with our staff. The issue of the Law Review focuses on challenges posed by the vast amount of personal information that individuals now store digitally and with third party technology companies. The student authors, Audrey Adu-Appiah, Chloe Goodwin, Vinitra Rangan, and Ariel Teshuva, presented on their work to a packed room on Thursday, April 18, at the Law School, followed by a conversation moderated by Chris Bavitz

“What counts as ‘income’ for taxes?” “Will paying taxes affect the public assistance I receive?” “Will I lose my veterans disability benefits if I make too much money?” These are some of the questions street vendors of Spare Change News grapple with—questions students of Harvard Law’s Community Enterprise Project aim to answer.

Meals on Wheels of Central Indiana will hold the second annual “Food Is Medicine” state symposium Thursday, April 12 in Indianapolis. The symposium will take an in-depth look at how medically tailored food plays a essential role in outcome-driven, cost-effective health care models.

The humanitarian impact of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) depends on both its comprehensive ban on nuclear weapons and its obligations to assist victims and remediate the environment affected by use and testing. The former aims to prevent future harm, while the latter addresses harm that has already occurred. The Clinic is releasing new papers on victim assistance and environmental remediation in order to increase awareness of these elements of the treaty.

After Hurricane Maria roared over Puerto Rico in September 2017, crippling the island where Natalie Trigo Reyes ’19 grew up and where much of her family still lived, she felt “completely overwhelmed.” Within days, however, she put together an event that raised about $40,000 for relief efforts, collected enough emergency goods to fill three large trucks, and joined Harvard Law Professor Andrew Manuel Crespo ’08 and Lee Mestre of the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs to plan the school’s response to the disaster.

Via the Harvard Immigration & Refugee Clinical Program On March 30th, HIRC filed an amicus brief challenging President Trump’s latest immigration order. The brief…

In a landmark decision today, a federal jury found the former president of Bolivia and his minister of defense responsible for extrajudicial killings carried out by the Bolivian military in September and October 2003. The decision comes after a ten-year legal battle spearheaded by family members of eight people killed in what is known in Bolivia as the “Gas War.” It marked the first time in U.S. history a former head of state has sat before his accusers in a U.S. human rights trial. The jury awarded a total of $10 million in compensatory damages to the plaintiffs.

Over Spring Break, I had the opportunity to work with Project Citizenship, a Boston-based organization that exists to help Legal Permanent Residents become United States citizens.  I had an amazing experience that enabled me to jump right into working with clients, including providing direct representation at a USCIS citizenship interview.

From Harvard Crimson—A Harvard-sponsored office which provides legal said to low-income residents of Cambridge will soon be guided by a policy-making board composed largely of representatives of the community served by the office.