Latest from HLS News Staff

First-year students entering HLS in the fall of 2002 will be the first required to meet the pro bono service standards of the law school's Strategic Plan.

The Harvard Law School Program on International Financial Systems held a colloquium today that examined risk-based capital standards. Participants explored how capital requirements are currently determined for various financial firms and how they should be determined in the future. The discussion was extremely timely as capital standards are currently under active review by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision which is responsible for setting capital standards for internationally active banks.

Citing the attacks of September 11 in a call to public service, White House Counsel and Harvard Law graduate Alberto Gonzales urged Class of 2002 graduates to consider the responsibilities lawyers have to the Constitution.

On Wednesday, June 5, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales will deliver Harvard Law School's 2002 Class Day address. The speech will begin at 2:30 p.m. on the steps of Langdell Hall on the Law School campus. For the first time in the Law School's history, the speech will be webcast live for those unable to attend the event.

Harvard Law School Professor Bill Alford was part of a delegation, led by Harvard President Lawrence Summers, that recently traveled to China to meet with President Jiang Zemin and other political and academic leaders of the PRC. The meeting with President Jiang, which was held at the leadership's Zhongnanhai compound, lasted more than an hour and a half and covered a broad spectrum of issues ranging from the Chinese environment to the role of liberal arts education to the likely impact of the WTO and China on one another.

Harvard Law School has announced that Lisa Dealy, formerly the director of the Law School's loan forgiveness and summer funding program, will head the School's Pro Bono Office. The office will direct the Law School's pro bono program which, beginning with next fall's incoming class, will require all students to perform a minimum of 40 hours of uncompensated public interest work.

This morning Princeton University announced that Harvard Law School Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter has been selected as the dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Slaughter will begin her tenure at Princeton on September 1.

Harvard Law School recently hosted the 12th annual meeting of the American Law and Economics Association. The conference, which featured 28 panels with speakers presenting papers on different aspects of law and economics, was attended by more than 200 people from around the world. Topics explored in the panel discussions included bankruptcy law, patent law, and dispute resolution mechanisms.

Harvard Law School Professors Steven Shavell and Anne-Marie Slaughter were among five professors elected fellows in the field of law by the American Academy of Arts and Science. Fellows are nominated and elected for the lifetime appointment by members of their academic discipline--in this case, social sciences. The Academy will welcome this year's new fellows and foreign honorary members at the annual induction ceremony October.

This summer, Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society will once again conduct a summer session on the emerging field of cyberlaw. The Internet Law Program--which will hold classes both in Cambridge and in cyberspace--will bring together leading legal scholars to examine cutting-edge cyberlaw issues.

As part of the Kids in the Court program, more than 200 local middle school students will argue legal cases on Wednesday, April 24 before a moot court composed of Harvard Law School students and professors.

In light of recent disturbing events at the Law School, I haveconsulted with various students and colleagues to consider what steps mightbe taken to create a better climate - an environment of genuine mutualrespect and improved behavior patterns.

On Tuesday, April 23, the American Constitution Society and the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review will present a panel discussion on the future of the Voting Rights Act. The event will begin at 7 p.m. in the Langdell South classroom and is free and open to the public.

On Saturday, April 20, 300 Harvard Law School students are expected to participate in the inaugural Springfest Volunteer Service Day. Students will volunteer at more than 16 sites across Cambridge and Greater Boston including Habitat for Humanity, the Cambridge Family YMCA, and the CASPAR Homeless Shelter. Of the 300 volunteers, more than 120 students will participate in the Annual Earth Day Charles River Clean Up.2002-04-17

On Friday, April 19, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor will speak about her childhood in the American Southwest. O'Connor and her brother, H. Alan Day, recently co-authored a book entitled: Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest. Day will join O'Connor at the event.

On Thursday, April 18, the Harvard Law School ArtsPanel will explore controversies surrounding the National Endowment for the Arts and artistic funding in America. Topics to be addressed include the impact of NEA v. Finley, the relationship between censorship and arts funding, and the role of the NEA given the increase in private funding for the arts. The panel, featuring Marjorie Heins and Karen Elias, will begin at 3 p.m. in Hauser 104.

New York University honored Harvard Law School Professor Laurence H. Tribe on April 15 at a ceremony dedicating its 2002 Survey of American Law to Tribe. The dedication award, an annual event at NYU since 1944, was given in 2000 to former Senator George Mitchell, in 1999 to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in 1998 to Attorney General Janet Reno, and, in other recent years, to three of the current members of the Supreme Court (Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg).

Harvard Law School's 9th annual student-run public interest auction today unveiled several of this year's highlighted items: a seven-day Mediterranean cruise, an adventure trip, a baseball signed by Mickey Mantle, and a trip to Disney World. Items will be auctioned on Thursday, April 11.