Latest from Dick Dahl

HLS Professors John C.P. Goldberg and Henry E. Smith’s “New Private Law” blog launched recently in an effort to expand interest in the notion that traditional interpersonal, "private" law deserves a fresh look.

HLS Professor Oren Bar-Gill LL.M. '01 S.J.D. '05, a leading expert on contract law and behavioral law and economics, and author of 'Seduction by Contract: Law, Economics and Psychology in Consumer Markets,' (Oxford University Press, 2012) recently shared some thoughts about his current and anticipated work.

The Edmond J. Safra Research Lab marked the end of its five-year existence May 1 and 2 with "Ending Institutional Corruption," conference celebrating the lab’s accomplishments and featuring presentations by scholars, researchers, and activists.

When HLS Professor Lawrence Lessig was named as the director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard in 2008, he…

Last year, HLS Professor Jon Hanson and Jacob Lipton ’14 launched the Systemic Justice Project, a new venture intended to provide students with a new way to think about the role that law and lawyers play in society.

In a panel discussion at Harvard Law School in October commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Professor Kenneth W. Mack, characterized the legislation as…

“Religious Accommodation in the Age of Civil Rights,” a conference held at Harvard Law School April 3–5, brought together a group of distinguished legal scholars to discuss a broad range of controversies that have developed in recent years as marriage equality and anti-discrimination laws have prompted some religious organizations and private companies to assert claims of religious liberty and exemption from compliance with the law.

Harvard Law School Professor Jon Hanson believes that the traditional casebook method employed in many law courses and classrooms has its limitations. Last year, he devised a project he called “Frontier Torts,” in which students in his first-year torts class explored several developing areas of tort law in a much more interactive fashion than the casebook method would allow.

For decades, Alan M. Dershowitz has led a frenetic life as author of dozens of books, legal counsel to a multitude of celebrities and ubiquitous TV commentator on myriad issues of the day. Known to many around the world for his brash style and high-profile cases, after 50 years, Dershowitz is now leaving the role he loves best: Harvard Law School teacher.

Professor Alan Dershowitz Harvard Law School Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is retiring at the conclusion of the fall semester, and on Oct. 7…

The biennial Harvard Law School Conference on Intellectual Property Law attracted scores of IP lawyers, business people, academicians, and judges to the school April 12 to discuss recent developments in IP law.

On Feb. 15, a panel of legal and public-health scholars, moderated by Dean Martha Minow and including Clinical Professor Ron Sullivan and Alan A. Stone, professor of Law and Psychiatry, gathered at Harvard Law School for a public forum on gun violence, gun policy and the prospects for meaningful reform in a post-Newtown landscape.

On Feb. 15, a panel of legal and public-health scholars, moderated by Dean Martha Minow and including Clinical Professor Ron Sullivan and Alan A. Stone, professor of Law and Psychiatry, gathered at Harvard Law School for a public forum on gun violence, gun policy and the prospects for meaningful reform in a post-Newtown landscape.

Scholars and social media experts convened at Harvard Law School Feb. 6 to examine the ways in which electronic interactive media can sway human decision-making and behavior. The conference, “Social Media and Behavioral Economics,” was sponsored by Harvard Law School's new Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy and created by the program’s director, Cass Sunstein ’78.

At a time when Americans are expressing record dissatisfaction with Washington, the publication this fall of Professor Lawrence Lessig’s latest book couldn’t be more opportune. “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It” (Twelve) is an exhaustively researched and passionately argued indictment of Capitol Hill and the money-centered daily dance between lawmakers and lobbyists.

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.

In October, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice sponsored a two-day conference looking back at Cooper v. Aaron and the impact it’s had on law and education over the course of 55 years. The event brought together legal scholars, students, and civil-rights lawyers and featured a moot-court proceeding involving U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and nine appellate judges, to revisit the legal questions raised by Cooper.

An array of legal scholars, judges, practitioners and community leaders gathered at Harvard Law School on June 14 to discuss implicit racial bias, its presence in society and the law and new ideas about reducing its negative impact on disadvantaged groups.

Leading experts in the fields of law, science, and medicine gathered at Harvard Law School May 18 and 19 to discuss the future of human subjects research regulation. The topic for the conference, sponsored by HLS’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, was prompted by a July 2011 advanced notice of proposed rulemaking from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services proposing to amend the rule that has governed this research for more than 20 years.

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.

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.

Harvard Law School commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks with a two-day conference of top-level advisers and experts to elucidate the changing legal landscape in the battle against terrorism. "Law, Security and Liberty post-9/11," was held Sept. 16 and 17, and marked the launch of the new Harvard Law School-Brookings Project on Law and Security, a joint venture of HLS and the Brookings Institution.

President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, told conferees in a keynote address at HLS on Sept. 16 that the U.S. must not let down its guard in fighting terrorist organizations on a broad front. Brennan’s remarks, “Strengthening our Security by Adhering to our Values and Laws,” were delivered as part of a two-day conference on terrorism and national security, "Law, Security, and Liberty after 9/11: Looking to the Future," hosted by the newly-inaugurated Harvard Law School-Brookings Project on Law and Security.

In recent decades, legislative bodies throughout North America and Europe have enacted sweeping laws to protect racial and ethnic minorities, women, the disabled and other groups who are victimized by discrimination. Perhaps not surprisingly, these efforts have encountered resistance—oftentimes successful—leaving anti-discrimination scholars and activists to ponder new strategies for dealing with an age-old problem. On May 6 and 7, a group of these interested scholars from the U.S., Canada and Europe participated in a Harvard Law School workshop that analyzed the recent evolution of anti-discrimination law on both continents.

Harvard Law School Professor Philip Heymann contends that the crisis in Mexico involving drug cartels needs to be examined from the broader perspective of organized crime and its use of violence—not just as a drug-trafficking issue. For the second year in a row, a working group was assembled to take the next step of addressing the issues in very concrete detail. About 30 law-enforcement officials, prosecutors, investigators, legal scholars and proponents of treatment and prevention were in attendance.

On Sept. 13, John B. Bellinger III '86, chief legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the Bush Administration, gave a talk to students on how to launch and develop careers in international and public-interest law. The talk was sponsored by HLS's Office of Public Interest Advising.

Credit: Christopher Dydyk Joshua Greene, assistant professor of Psychology Harvard University; William Fitzpatrick, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Virginia Tech University, I Glenn Cohen,…

Harvard Law School students interested in international law had an opportunity to hear a diverse array of speakers with first-hand experience at the 2010 Harvard International Law Journal Symposium Friday, April 2.

“Localization of Immigration Law” was the subject of a Feb. 5 HLS symposium featuring speakers who took divergent views on the current American immigration enforcement scheme and its reliance on state and local law enforcement.



A group of Harvard Law School professors gathered on Sept. 29 for a panel discussion on the year-old global economic crisis and the prospects for recovery. 


Intelligent minds have long differed on the U.S. Constitution’s role as a blueprint for democracy. Some see it as the sacrosanct product of an enlightened era, its text to be followed literally. Others say that the Constitution must be interpreted more generally in order to apply its principles to current times.

Professor Adrian Vermeule’s newest book is likely to raise a few judicial eyebrows. “Law and the Limits of Reason,” just published by Oxford University Press, is a broad-based criticism of the dominant role played by courts in the American lawmaking process.

Professor Adrian Vermeule’s newest book is likely to raise a few judicial eyebrows. “Law and the Limits of Reason,” just published by Oxford University Press, is a broad-based criticism of the dominant role played by courts in the American lawmaking process.

At first, the notion that Israel could sit down with its sworn enemies and achieve a limited agreement to protect civilians seemed far-fetched to Gabriella Blum LL.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’03. The year was 1997, Blum was a young officer in the Israel Defense Forces, and she’d just been assigned to a group with the task of monitoring that noble, if dubious, effort.

The U.S. Constitution is 219 years old now, and the revolutionary system of government it created has survived and spread across the globe. No wonder many Americans consider it an almost sacred document, the final say on governmental powers and individual rights.

Randall Kennedy knows what it’s like to be called a sellout. Throughout his 24-year career at Harvard Law School, Kennedy has developed a reputation as a professor who is not afraid to challenge orthodoxies—sometimes to the alarm of liberals and black Americans.

Harvard-trained negotiators are working hard on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, in which everyone seems to know where they want to go but no one knows quite how to get there.

The evidence suggests that Dershowitz is not overstating the case. "Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights" (Basic Books), published in November 2004, was his ninth book since the beginning of 2000--and his 19th since 1982, when Random House published his first popular book about law, "The Best Defense."

Four HLS professors consider whether the old rules apply when the enemies don't wear uniforms and are willing to die with their victims.