Latest from HLS News Staff

Professor William Alford '77 traveled to Dublin, Ireland in December to deliver two lectures concerning China, U.S., and Europe.

On December 13, 2006, members of the HLS community and representatives of international disability rights organizations scored a major victory when the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the first human rights treaty of the 21st century to promote and protect the rights of the disabled.

The HLS Program on Corporate Governance released a new study today called Lucky Directors, by Professor Lucian Bebchuk and co-authors Yaniv Grinsten and Urs Peyer suggesting that outside directors' options, and not only executives' options, have been favorably timed to an extent that cannot be explained by mere luck.

HLS Professor Gerald Neuman '80 has co-written an amicus brief challenging the constitutionality of a new law denying courts jurisdiction to entertain petitions for writs of habeas corpus by alien detainees whom the government has deemed 'enemy combatants.'

The following op-ed was published in The Boston Globe on December 13, 2006: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the egregious president of Iran, is hosting a conference this week on whether the Holocaust really happened.

Adrian Vermeule joined the faculty this year as a professor of law, coming from the University of Chicago Law School. Here, he talks with HLT editor Robb London.

Constitutional law scholar and well-known author Noah Feldman, currently a tenured professor of law at New York University, has accepted an offer to join the Harvard Law faculty beginning next fall. Feldman is a leading expert in many aspects of constitutional law, particularly law and religion, constitutional design and the history of legal theory.

Professor Emeritus Roger Fisher and lecturer Daniel Shapiro are this year’s recipients of the prestigious Cloke-Millen Award. The prize -- formerly called the "Peacemaker of the Year" award -- honors outstanding professionals working in mediation, negotiation or dispute resolution, and is given out by the Southern California Mediation Association.

The following op-ed was published in the National Post on December 2, 2006: Sometimes, you really can tell a book by its cover. Jimmy Carter's decision to title his new anti-Israel screed Palestine: Peace Not Aparteid tells it all.

The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute recently hosted a panel discussion entitled, "Is Brown Still Relevant?: The Seattle and Louisville School Cases," reviewing two current cases that challenge the implementation of racial integration in public schools.

In a recent annual meeting of the American Society for Legal History, HLS Professor Morton Horwitz '67 was unanimously confirmed as an honorary fellow, the highest honor the society can give a legal historian in North America.

Since they first appeared on the scene more than 20 years ago, market-based approaches, such as the emission trading system to control acid rain, have become the tools of choice when trying to solve difficult environmental problems.

The HLS Program on Corporate Governance recently released a study by Professor Lucian Bebchuk and co-authors Yaniv Grinsten and Urs Peyer, which examined the use of stock option backdating.

On Tuesday, November 14, Harvard Law School hosted the 95th Annual Moot Court Final Competition. In front of a standing room only crowd in Ames Courtroom, two teams of six HLS students each argued the case of Adam’s Apple Markets v. Aphrodite Cosmetics.

On Tuesday evening, November 7, Professor Joseph Singer was awarded the Bussey Professor of Law chair. Introduced by Dean Elena Kagan, Professor Singer marked the occasion with a speech titled, "Things That We Would Like to Take for Granted: Minimum Standards for the Legal Framework of a Free and Democratic Society."

The first-year law school curriculum took shape more than 100 years ago. The basic curriculum hasn't changed much over the course of the last century. Meanwhile, the practice of law has changed dramatically.

Harvard Law School graduates across the country won political victories today as part of the nation's midterm elections. Two of the biggest winners were alumni from the 1980s who were elected governor. In New York, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer '84 was elected the state's chief exective, while Deval Patrick '82 was elected governor of Massachusetts.

No one can accuse Harvard Law professor J. Mark Ramseyer of having modest goals in his latest book "The Fable of the Keiretsu: Urban Legends of the Japanese Economy," published this year by Chicago University Press.

On October 18, members of the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center and the Jamaica Plain community celebrated the sale of the first of 11 planned affordable housing units in the Hyde/Jackson Square area, all of which are being developed by the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation.

On Saturday, October 28, the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau hosted a panel discussion on poverty law challenges after Hurricane Katrina. The focus of the conversation was on the continuing needs of people and organizations in the Gulf Coast region after the massive hurricane devastation.

Kenneth Chenault, the CEO of American Express and a 1976 Harvard Law graduate, returned to Cambridge this weekend to speak at the school's fall reunion exercises. Well-known for his record of reorganizing American Express in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Chenault spoke about the value of legal education in preparing people for the uncertainties of life.