Latest from HLS News Staff

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.

The intersection of medical tourism and ethical and legal questions are at the heart of I. Glenn Cohen's new book, “Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Law, and Ethics,” the focus of his year as a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

On Oct. 3, former United States Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky came to Harvard Law School to share her experiences with students in the Advanced Negotiation Workshop taught by Clinical Professor Robert Bordone ’97 and Lecturer Rory Van Loo ’07.

The Morality of the Free Market was the topic of a Sept. 27 address at Harvard Law School by Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research organization in Washington, D.C. The event was sponsored by the Harvard Law Federalist Society.

One of the highlights of the Second Celebration of Latino Alumni, held Sept. 27 to 30 at Harvard Law School, was a gala dinner Saturday night that featured a presentation of the Harvard Law School Association (HLSA) Award to Joaquin Avila ’73, a nationally recognized expert on Latino voting rights, and a keynote address by Mario L. Baeza ’74. (see video below)

On Oct. 4, Harvard Law School Professor Lani Guinier participated in a panel discussion on race and college admissions. The discussion, broadcast on C-SPAN, was hosted by The Century Foundation, a nonprofit, non-partisan research foundation that focuses on issues of equity and opportunity in the United States.

The second Celebration of Latino Alumni, held at Harvard Law School from Sept. 27 to 30, drew about 200 alumni and guests to the school to share their experiences and reflect on the path of social change.

Robert H. Sitkoff, the John L. Gray Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, has been appointed to two new Uniform Law Commission committees—the study committee on trust protectors, and the drafting committee on Series of Unincorporated Business Entities.

Officially launched on Sept. 25, the Harvard Law School Public Service Venture Fund will award $1 million in grants each year to Harvard Law graduates pursuing careers in public service. The Fund supports two kinds of post-graduate fellowships: “seed grants” for startup public interest ventures, and, through “existing organization-based fellowships,” salary support to graduating HLS students to work at nonprofits or government agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

As two HLS graduates are vying to lead the United States, we asked six legal historians on the faculty to reflect on the connections between legal education and leadership.

Barry Volpert J.D./M.B.A. ’85 is chief executive officer of Crestview Partners, a private equity firm he co-founded in 2004 after retiring from Goldman Sachs, where he was head of the Merchant Banking Division in Europe. Based in New York City, Crestview has about $4 billion in assets under management. "We like to focus on complex and difficult situations," he says, "that many other private equity firms tend to avoid."