Latest from Harvard Law News Staff

Professor Robert Mnookin ’68, chairman of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, was honored by the International Academy of Mediators with a lifetime achievement award. The IAM Award is presented to a person who has made exceptional contributions throughout his or her career by personally advancing alternative dispute resolution and inspiring others to do so.

When Brody Jenny first started the DC Volunteer Lawyers Project, she imagined eventually attracting 10 attorneys; it now has 430.

On Nov. 9 the Harvard Law & International Development Society, an HLS student group, held its annual symposium, this year highlighting the increasingly global nature of anti-corruption efforts. The day-long event, “Development amidst Corruption | Developments against Corruption,” began with vivid personal narratives from the trenches: speakers included undercover agent Robert Mazur, Ombudsman of the Philippines Conchita Carpio-Morales, and El Cid Butyayan, senior litigator for the World Bank.

A new report produced by Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and its Youth and Media Project in conjunction with Pew Research Center’s Internet and America Life Project explores issues surrounding parents, teens, and online privacy in an increasingly digital world.

“Tribal Courts and the Federal System,” a two-day conference held Nov. 8 at Harvard Law School, was the first of its kind, bringing together tribal judges and attorneys, tribal, state, and federal government policymakers, and scholars to explore issues Indian tribal courts currently face in criminal and civil enforcement, jurisdiction, and lawmaking. The conference was sponsored by the HLS Native American Law Students Association.

David Souter hung up his judge’s robes more than three years ago, after nearly two decades on the nation’s highest court. But on Thursday night, the retired Supreme Court justice seemed as sharp as ever as he directed his easygoing, often droll, always astute wit at the Harvard Law School students arguing before his bench during the final round of the 102nd Ames Moot Court Competition.

The Harvard Law School Program on International Financial Systems fosters the exchange of ideas on capital markets, financial regulation, and international financial systems through its portfolio of Symposia on Building the Financial System of the 21st Century. The symposia, started in 1998, bring together senior financial leaders, high-ranking government officials, and distinguished academics from the U.S. and their counterparts from China, Europe, Japan, and Brazil each year for intensive dialogue on issues affecting international capital markets. The 15th annual Japan-U.S. symposium was held this year in Karuizawa, Japan from Oct. 24 to 26. In a Q&A, HLS Professor Hal Scott, PIFS director, talks about the symposium’s history and impact.

In October, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg issued two rulings bolstering the rights of persons with psycho-social disabilities. Both cases were brought by Hungarian-Slovakian disability rights activist János Fiala-Butora LL.M. ’10, an S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School and an associate of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability, known as HPOD.

Harvard Law School Professor and Democratic nominee Elizabeth Warren—bankruptcy expert, Wall Street reformer and consumer watch dog—has won a hard-fought race for the U.S. Senate against her Republican opponent, incumbent Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown.

Barack Obama ’91 has won election to the presidency of the United States for a second term.

The controversial question of what role race should play in college admissions, if any, stands again before the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas. Lani Guinier, the Bennett Boskey Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, teamed up with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, a professor of law at HLS and a professor of history at the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS), to explore the legal background and possible outcomes of the Fisher case, which was argued recently.

The growing trade in exploits of software security has become a “market in digital weapons,” leaving people in the U.S. and abroad vulnerable to cyberattack, said Christopher Soghoian, Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst at the ACLU, in an October 24th talk at Harvard Law School. “The entire industry, while it’s been in existence hasn’t received much sunlight,” said Soghoian, arguing that many regulators and policymakers do not even understand that the market exists. (Soghoian said that his talk, which was co-sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the Journal of Law and Technology, only reflected his views and not those of the ACLU.)

At a packed Harvard Law School event co-sponsored by the Human Rights Program and the Harvard National Security and Law Association, Ben Emmerson, United Nations Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, announced plans to launch an investigation into the use of drone attacks which have caused civilian deaths—including those carried out by the U.S.

Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow and John Levi ’72, LL.M. ‘73, the chairman of the Legal Services Corporation, presented the report of the Corporation’s Pro Bono Task Force in in HLS’s Wasserstein Hall on Oct. 3, at an event hosted by HLS Professor David Wilkins ‘80, director of the Law School’s Program on the Legal Profession. Established in 1974 by President Nixon, the LSC, a private, nonprofit corporation, is the nation’s largest funder of legal aid providers for low-income Americans.

At stake in the next election is nothing less than a redefinition of America’s priorities, according to Harvard scholars taking part in a panel discussion at Harvard's Barker Center. The panel which explored law, history, and the 2012 election, included moderator Jill Lepore and panelists Alex Keyssar, Elizabeth Hinton, and HLS Professors Annette Gordon-Reed, Kenneth Mack, and Jed Shugerman

Stockholm University conferred an honorary doctoral degree on Harvard Law School Professor David B. Wilkins ’80, director of the Program on the Legal Profession and vice dean for global initiatives on the legal profession.

A group of senior corporate managers, finance practitioners, and academics from Europe and the U.S. gathered at HLS on Sept. 14-15 for a conference on the role of corporate governance in encouraging long-term value in public corporations.