Latest from Elaine McArdle

Created in 1971, the Harvard Law School Prison Legal Assistance Project may be the only law school organization in the country to handle such a wide variety of inmate needs. It also plays a unique role in the lives of HLS students.

“Medical tourism—the travel of patients who are residents of one country (the ‘home country’) to another country for medical treatment (the ‘destination country’)—represents a growing and important business," writes Assistant Professor I. Glenn Cohen ’03 in a recent article.

Harvard Law School’s new lounge and pub in the Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center, Clinical Wing Building, was the gathering place for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents who stood side by side to follow the results on TV during a party organized by the School’s Dean of Students Office.

Jesse Reising ’15 was eager to start his career as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps upon his graduation from Yale—until his dream was derailed when he made a tackle during the 2010 Harvard-Yale football game, resulting in partial paralysis of his right arm. Medically disqualified from the Marines (he’d attended Officer Candidates School during college), Reising decided to serve those who serve in the military. Last summer, at Yale, he and two friends launched Operation Opportunity, with an initiative called the Warrior-Scholar Project, a two-week “academic boot camp” to help veterans transition from the military to college

This year’s 1L class at Harvard Law School includes 16 military veterans. There are also nine 2Ls, six 3Ls, and three LL.Ms at HLS with records of military service. Thirteen are attending through the Yellow Ribbon program, through which the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs matches what a law school offers to pay for a veteran’s tuition and expenses. HLS is one of very few schools making the maximum commitment—50 percent—which means, with the V.A.’s match, these veterans attend for free. Others are funding their HLS educations through the G.I. Bill and student loans. The three Navy JAG lawyers in the LL.M. program each receive a scholarship from HLS equivalent to the amount covered by the School under the Yellow Ribbon Program; their remaining costs are covered by the U.S. Navy.

This year’s 1L class at Harvard Law School includes 16 military veterans. There are also nine 2Ls, six 3Ls, and three LL.Ms at HLS with records of military service. Thirteen are attending through the Yellow Ribbon program, through which the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs matches what a law school offers to pay for a veteran’s tuition and expenses. HLS is one of very few schools making the maximum commitment—50 percent—which means, with the V.A.’s match, these veterans attend for free. Others are funding their HLS educations through the G.I. Bill and student loans. The three Navy JAG lawyers in the LL.M. program each receive a scholarship from HLS equivalent to the amount covered by the School under the Yellow Ribbon Program; their remaining costs are covered by the U.S. Navy.

For the first time in the history of U.S. presidential elections, both candidates of the major parties are graduates of Harvard Law School. Alumni remember the two presidential candidates as students.

Over the past 40 years the role of the general counsel has changed dramatically, according to HLS Professor David Wilkins '80, “so that it has become, in my view, the most important position in the legal profession, particularly in the corporate legal world,” he says. But until recently, that model remained uniquely American.

At the airport in New York one day last year, Alex Dimitrief ’85 was on a call regarding a problem that his company, faced in China. When his plane landed in London, he took a call on a different matter in Vietnam. And late that night, when he arrived in Lagos, he fielded yet another call, dealing with an issue back in the U.S. “It was an incredibly complicated day,” recalls Dimitrief, vice president and general counsel of GE Energy. And it illustrates the emerging role of today’s global general counsel.

On Feb. 9, following 17 months of intense negotiations, numerous late-night conference calls and not a few fractious meetings where all seemed hopeless, five of the nation's biggest mortgage lenders agreed to a historic $25 billion settlement that will provide financial relief to more than a million homeowners who were victims of improper foreclosures or other mortgage servicing abuses.

As an HLS student in the early 1980s, James O’Neal dreamed of combining his passions for law and education to help at-risk kids in New York City. But times were grim for lawyers interested in public interest work. The Legal Services Corporation, the primary provider of legal aid to low-income people in the United States, was in dire straits after losing much of its federal funding, and there were few other opportunities—and little support—for public service jobs. For O’Neal and others like him, the prospects were dim.

Last year, after Rory Van Loo ’07 left the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau implementation team to become assistant director of the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program, he asked his former colleagues how HLS students might assist the new agency. It had been created by Congress in 2010 largely thanks to the vision of HLS Professor Elizabeth Warren, and its mission included examining certain consumer financial services companies and large banks and credit unions. But the legislation creating it did not establish an appeals process for examining findings.

For the last several years, former Harvard Law School Dean Robert C. Clark ’72 has broken with tradition in teaching his mergers and acquisitions course. It isn’t enough to read leading cases, he realized; students still may leave the classroom without any real understanding of how to structure a deal, identify and avoid pitfalls, and recognize why personalities matter—in short, how M&As work in the real world.

While years ago, clinics at Harvard Law School were focused primarily on poverty law, student demand for business-oriented clinical experiences has since skyrocketed. And for HLS students interested in the business world, there are now numerous clinical opportunities.

How can technology help people gain better and easier access to the judicial system? Are there new technologies—or more efficient ways of using existing ones—that can assist low-income, pro se and other litigants to navigate the legal system while easing the burden on underresourced courts?

HLS clinic helps teens who have been victimized by acts of violence.

Eight Harvard Law School students in the HLS Education Law Clinic of the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI) recently spent a full day at the Massachusetts State House, testifying before the Joint Committee on Education and lobbying legislators to garner support for legislation proposed by the Clinic to create safe and supportive school environments.

Among this year’s entering class at Harvard Law School are 10 U.S. Marines and Army soldiers, all of whom served in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan – or both. Of the 10 members of this year’s class, one is an LLM candidate; the others are in the J.D. program. Five are part of HLS’s Yellow Ribbon Program, through which the U.S. Veteran’s Administration matches the amount a law school offers to pay for a veteran’s tuition and expenses. Four of these veterans share their experiences in the military and at HLS.

At HLS Reunion Weekend last weekend, Justices Breyer and Souter (who retired from the court in 2009) exchanged good-humored banter and insights about their service on the nation’s highest court, in an event, “A Conversation with the Justices,” moderated by HLS Dean Martha Minow.

Just two months after landing a major victory in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on behalf of homeowners fighting eviction, the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB) was back before the high court last week seeking more protections for people with homes in foreclosure. The court’s decision, expected to come down in several months, could lead to greater accountability for lenders trying to foreclose.

Harvard Law School was founded with a bequest from Isaac Royall, a brutal slave owner. Two centuries later, the first black President of the U.S. and first black First Lady are HLS alumni.