Latest from HLS News Staff

Harvard Law School students in two clinical programs saw their work showcased in a Canadian House of Commons committee hearing on February 8.

A report released today by the Boston Foundation finds that the city of Boston is so restrained by state government that it lacks the power and ability to shape its own future.

The following op-ed was published in The New York Times on February 14, 2007: Slowly but surely, corporate America is giving up the staggered board. Some businesses are responding to corporate governance rating agencies, which penalize companies that do not elect all of the directors each year.

Following today's announcement that Drew Gilpin Faust has been appointed the 28th president of Harvard University, Law School Dean Elena Kagan released the following statement:

Professor William Stuntz formally accepted the Henry J. Friendly Professor of Law chair on February 6. After an introduction by Dean Elena Kagan '86, Stuntz marked the occasion with a lecture entitled "Fighting Wars and Fighting Crime."

The Harvard Law Review has elected second-year student Andrew Manuel Crespo as its 121st president. Crespo was elected from a slate of five candidates.

Disabled people in China are receiving legal help thanks in part to Harvard Law School Professor William Alford '77. Alford traveled to Beijing last month to participate in the first conference on law and disability in China, and to open the first legal center for disabled people.

Home Depot, the world's largest home improvement retail chain, has agreed to amend its corporate bylaws in response to a shareholder proposal submitted by Professor Lucian Bebchuk in December of 2006.

Professor David Barron '94 testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Congress's Constitutional power to end a war. The committee hearing is expected to launch a larger debate about Congress’s power to stop the current Iraq war, which could begin as early as next month in the Senate.

Beginning in the fall of 2007, 12 Harvard Law School students will get hands-on experience participating in each step of the appellate process with a new Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Clinic.

On January 25, 2007 the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs heard testimony on the issue of credit card company policies and their effect on the American consumer.

Of the 37 law school graduates who are serving as clerks to the U.S. Supreme Court justices in the 2006-07 term, 11 come from Harvard Law School -- the highest number from a single law school this year, and one of the largest contingents in HLS history, matched only by the 11 HLS graduates who held clerkships in the year 2000.

The following op-ed by Visiting Professor Dan Coquillette was published in The Boston Globe on January 18, 2007: Last week's attack by a top Defense Department official on lawyers representing Guantanamo detainees raises an issue Americans have visited many times before -- an issue that was familiar to our Founding Fathers.

Professor Emeritus Richard A. Musgrave, a leading 20th century political economist who taught at Harvard University and at Harvard Law School between 1965 and 1981, died January 15 at the age of 96.

The following op-ed was published in The Wall Street Journal on January 16, 2007: Defense Department official Charles Stimson showed ignorance and malice in deploring the pro bono representation of Guantanamo detainees by lawyers in some of the nation's leading law firms, and in calling on their corporate clients to punish them for this work.

Earlier this week, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick '82 announced the appointment of a fellow Harvard Law graduate, Juliette Kayyem, as the state's undersecretary of homeland defense. Kayyem is a member of the class of 1995, as well as a 1991 graduate of Harvard College.

Domestic abusers who violate their restraining orders will be required to wear a GPS tracking device, according to a new Massachusetts state law spearheaded by HLS lecturer Diane Rosenfeld '96. Signed into law on January 4, the GPS initiative was first presented to the Governor's Commission on Sexual and Domestic Violence by Rosenfeld in early 2005.

The following op-ed was published in The Wall Street Journal on January 6, 2007: Apple Computer announced a week ago the conclusions of a special board committee that examined the "improper dating" of over 6,000 option grants during 1997-2002. The committee found no basis for having less than "complete confidence in CEO Steve Jobs and the senior management team," placing full responsibility for past problems on the company's former CFO and general counsel.

The following op-ed was published in the Boston Globe on January 5, 2007: Deval Patrick is off to a bad start. If the amendment to prohibit gay marriage ever reaches the people, I shall vote against it. I regret that the Supreme Judicial Court, in its closely divided 2003 decision in the Goodridge case, proclaimed that the state Constitution requires same-sex marriage.

Yesterday Mitt Romney '75 walked out of the Massachusetts governor's office and handed the ceremonial statehouse keys to Governor-elect Deval Patrick '82. Patrick will be sworn in today as the state's 71st governor, making him the latest in a string of Harvard Law grads to occupy the state's corner office.

Six Harvard Law students and recent graduates have been chosen to receive 2007 Skadden Fellowships that support work in public service. For the fifth year in a row, HLS students and alumni won more Skadden fellowships than affiliates of any other law school. Each year, the program provides funding to 30 law students and new lawyers from law schools across the country.