Latest from Carolyn Kelley

"What Matters in Corporate Governance," a 2009 study by Harvard Law Professors Lucian Bebchuk, Alma Cohen, and Allen Ferrell continues to have enormous influence on present-day research

Harvard Law Professor Kenneth Mack ’91 discusses the origins and history of the filibuster, a controversial and powerful political tool.

Harvard Law Professor Alexandra Natapoff is an award-winning legal scholar and criminal justice expert.

Happy Holidays and warm wishes from Harvard Law School!

Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 crisis intensifying discussions about corporate purpose duties to stakeholders, the European Corporate Governance Institute and the London Business School Centre for Corporate Governance recently hosted a virtual debate on stakeholder capitalism between Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84 and London Business School Professor Alex Edmans.

In the unusual year of 2020, Harvard Law authors continued to do what they always have: Write.

Christopher Lewis, a political philosopher and scholar of the criminal legal system, has been named an assistant professor of law at Harvard Law School, effective Jan. 1.

In a recent Harvard Gazette roundup, Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Phil Torrey and other university scholars, analysts, and affiliates took a look at what the election tells us about the prospects for greater unity and progress, and offered suggestions and predictions about where the new administration will, and should, go.

This Saturday, October 3, 2020, the Systemic Justice Project at Harvard Law School and the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University School of Law will launch a year-long pilot project called “The Justice Initiative” with the first of 10, three-hour programming sessions.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants ’80, a tireless advocate for access to justice, died on Sept. 14. Renowned for his intelligence and his integrity, Gants used his leadership role in the commonwealth’s court system to press for fairness, equality under the law, and justice for all.

In August, Harvard Law School officially kicked off the start of the fall 2020 academic year with a multi-day, highly interactive orientation for incoming students.

In a welcoming address during virtual orientation Thursday, Harvard Law School Dean John F. Manning ’85 predicted that many incoming students would use their legal education to help confront the most pressing challenges facing the United States and the world today.

Students from the incoming classes of J.D.s and LL.M.s talk about what inspired them to pursue a legal education.

Faculty and staff kick off Orientation 2020 with a big welcome to incoming students.

As William Alford completes his tenure, Mark Wu assumes vice deanship of the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies at HLS.

On August 3, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated a trial court judgment that had been entered in favor of Bolivia’s former president, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, and former defense minister, José Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, for the massacre of unarmed Indigenous people in 2003.

Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic and the University Network for Human Rights released a report Monday documenting widespread human rights abuses carried out under Bolivia’s interim president since she assumed power in November 2019.

A study co-authored by Harvard Law School Professor Alma Cohen, has received the American Risk and Insurance Association's 2020 Robert I. Mehr Award, presented each year to research published ten years earlier in the Association's journal that has remained relevant in the decade since.

Lawrence Lessig issues a statement on the unanimous Supreme Court ruling that states can require Electoral College voters to back the victor of their state’s popular vote.

Effective July 1, two faculty members were promoted and a new scholar joined the Harvard Law School faculty.

Elizabeth Papp Kamali ’07, a scholar specializing in medieval legal history, has been promoted to professor of law at Harvard Law School, effective July 1.

Beatrice Lindstrom, clinical instructor and supervising attorney in the International Human Rights Clinic, has been working for nearly a decade to secure accountability from the U.N. for a devastating cholera outbreak caused by UN peacekeepers in Haiti in 2010.

Addressing graduating S.J.D.s, LL.M.s, and the first class of J.D.s he welcomed as dean three years ago, Dean John F. Manning ’85 saluted them for showing “resilience, strength, adaptability, and purpose,” and urged them to build “career[s] of meaning and purpose.”

The Class of 2020 chose Professor David B. Wilkins ’80 to receive the Albert M. Sacks-Paul A. Freund Award for Teaching Excellence.

Harvard Law School faculty and staff share virtual goodbyes with graduating students.

Nationally renowned child welfare expert Elizabeth Bartholet wants to see a radical transformation in homeschooling.

Renowned Public Interest Lawyer Bryan Stevenson J.D./M.P.P. ’85 was named Harvard Law School’s 2020 graduation speaker.

Statistics released by the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) indicate that, as of the beginning of 2020, Harvard Law School faculty members featured prominently on SSRN’s list of the most-cited law professors.

Martha Minow shared her thoughts on the subject of law and forgiveness, a focus of her most recent scholarship at TEDWomen, an annual conference that highlights the contributions and ideas of notable women across a number of fields.

Catherine Pattanayak ’04 has been appointed Harvard Law School’s assistant dean for public service and director of the Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising. She was formerly OPIA’s interim assistant dean for public service.

A study by professors Lucian Bebchuk, Alma Cohen, and Allen Ferrell that puts forward a corporate governance index—the Entrenchment Index (E Index)—for assessing the quality of corporate governance in public companies has been applied and used over 1,000 times in empirical analyses as of the end of 2019.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Harvard Law School J.D. Admissions Office announced last week that the deadline to apply for the School’s Junior Deferral Program has been postponed by two months, and clarified that pass/fail grades in spring 2020 will not harm an applicant’s chances of admission.

In the Berkman Klein Center's Medium collection, BKC fellow and S.J.D. candidate Beatriz Botero Arcila talks about governments' use of digital technologies and big data analytics in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Harvard’s Animal Law & Policy Program filed its first Supreme Court brief challenging the Trump administration’s waiver of laws regarding the U.S.-Mexico border wall construction. Ashley Maiolatesi ’20 recently corresponded with Harvard Law Today about what is at stake, the specific ramifications of these waivers, and her own personal connection to the project.

On Feb. 15, Harvard Law School LL.M. Class of 2020 celebrated the annual International Party in Wasserstein Hall.

Professors Annette Gordon-Reed, Kenneth Mack and David Wilkins discuss the Harvard Law School's first black graduates and the legacy of African Americans at HLS throughout the years.

Rebecca Tushnet, the inaugural Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment and a director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary's Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, on Feb. 11, on “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act at 22: What is it, why was it enacted, and where are we now?”

Effective Jan. 1, three faculty members were promoted and two new scholars joined the HLS faculty.

Eloise Lawrence, a community lawyering advocate, was named assistant clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School and deputy faculty director of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.  

Professor Crystal Yang ’13 discusses her paper "Fear and the Safety Net: Evidence from Secure Communities," which examines the link between tougher immigration enforcement in the United States and the lack of participation in government safety-net programs by Hispanic citizens.

Harvard Law School has announced the launch of the new LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic, to be led by HLS Lecturer and Clinical Instructor Alex Chen '15, a tireless advocate in recent years in efforts to protect and expand LGBTQ+ civil rights.

In 2018, avid hiker Alexis Wheeler '09 founded the Harvard Club of Seattle's Crimson Achievement Program (CAP), an initiative that helps illuminate the path to college for high-potential ninth- and 10th-graders from Western Washington school districts in low-income areas.

When Benet Magnuson joined Kansas Appleseed in 2013 as its executive director he pretty much had only himself to supervise. But within a couple of years the social justice nonprofit had a dozen staffers working all over the state.

This fall, the Harvard Law School Library hosted a series of book talks by Harvard Law School authors on topics ranging from forgiveness in law, transparency in health and fidelity in constitutional practice.

As a member of Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, Madelyn Petersen '19 and several other students traveled to northwest Iowa to study how the federal government’s plan to potentially privatize the U.S. Postal Service might affect the small, largely rural communities there.

Two teams of 3Ls competed for the coveted recognition of their advocacy skills in the final round of the 2019 Ames Moot Court Competition on November 12 at Harvard Law School.