Latest from HLS News Staff

Time Magazine has named Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren one of the 100 Most Influential People in 2010. Warren is listed in the Thinkers category of the annual TIME 100 issue naming the people who most affect our world.

During the winter term, 10 Harvard Law students participated in the school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, led by Lecturers Thomas Goldstein, Amy Howe, and Kevin Russell—all of whom are leading Supreme Court practitioners and experts on appellate litigation. The clinic gave students the opportunity to spend the month of January in Washington, D.C., working on actual cases that would be heard before the Court.

Harvard Law School Professor John C. Coates IV testified before the Committee on House Administration yesterday regarding the Disclose Act (H.R. 5175), legislation that was created in the wake of the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court ruling.

 The following op-ed by Professor Mark Roe, “Derivatives Clearinghouses are No Magic Bullet,” appeared in the May 6, 2010, edition of the Wall Street Journal. Roe looks at the Senate financial overhaul bill, part of which is built around an emerging Washington consensus that a clearinghouse for derivatives could stem a financial crisis such as that which we just experienced.  Roe argues that while a clearinghouse can be a useful step in the right direction, it's incomplete, with other legal improvements needed to make it work well.

Harvard Law School Professor Einer Elhauge ’86 has been selected to receive the Jerry S. Cohen Award for Antitrust Scholarship for his article “Tying, Bundled Discounts, and the Death of the Single Monopoly Profit Theory” (123 Harvard Law Review 397, 2009).

Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of a petition for certiorari in a major corporate Alien Tort Statute case, Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman Energy, Inc. The Clinic served as counsel on behalf of international law scholars and jurists to argue that those who knowingly aid and abet egregious human rights violations can be held liable under customary international law.

Today, President Barack Obama ’91 nominated former Harvard Law School Dean and current Solicitor General Elena Kagan ’86 to the seat vacated by retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the United States Supreme Court.

Award-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed J.D. ’84 will join the Harvard faculty in July 2010 as a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Gordon-Reed will also be the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

In the following op-eds, HLS professors Charles Fried, Randall L. Kennedy, Lawrence Lessig, Charles Ogletree, Ronald S. Sullivan, Visiting Lecturer Tom Goldstein, and former HLS Dean Robert C. Clark write in support of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, former HLS Dean and current Solicitor General.

Senior Foreign Policy Adviser in the Obama Administration and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power ’99 will be the 2010 Class Day speaker at HLS. Selected by this year’s Class Marshals, Power will address graduates on May 26 as part of Class Day.

The op-ed “A better chance at justice for abuse victims,” by Professor Lawrence Lessig, appeared in the April 27, 2010, edition of the New York Times.

Harvard Law School Professors Gerald L. Neuman ’80 and Jack Goldsmith are amongst the new class of members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Sumner M. Redstone '47 has donated $1 million to be used by Harvard College and Harvard Law School to establish scholarships for 30 students committed to public service. 

Harvard Law School students Michael Admirand ’10, Cori Crider ’06, and Jacob Howard ’09 each received the Gary Bellow Public Service Award for their commitment to public interest and social justice work at an award ceremony on April 9.

Winners of Harvard Law School’s 57th annual Williston Competition, Harvard’s annual contract negotiation and drafting competition for first-year law students, were announced on April 5. 

In an address to the Harvard Law School community, HLS Dean Martha Minow offered a survey of "The Past, Present, and Future of Legal Education: HLS and Beyond.” After discussing the historical evolution of legal education up to the present "time of innovation and renewal,” she offered a preview of future trends and developments.