Latest from Harvard Law News Staff

Lawyers and leaders must do a better job of recognizing the intermeshed dilemmas posed by an overcrowded planet and an increasingly interconnected globe. That was the message delivered by world renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs in a recent lecture at Harvard Law School.

On October 1st, Professor Jody Freeman and Visiting Professor Richard Lazarus '79, director of the Supreme Court Institute at the Georgetown University Law Center, previewed environmental law cases that will be heard by the Supreme Court this term.

In an op- ed “Fight for the Family Home” published in the October 10, 2008 edition of The New York Times, Eric Nguyen ’09 argues for reform of bankruptcy laws.

The Constitutional basis for physician-assisted suicide can be found in the 9th Amendment, Dr. Jack Kevorkian said in a lecture sponsored by the Harvard Law Forum on October 6.

Professor Anne Alstott, giving the Webster Lecture on Wealth Transfers at the University of Iowa College of Law, spoke of the clash between family values and the estate tax.

On October 2, Harvard Law School Professor Carol Steiker ’86 was presented with the Hugo A. Bedau Award by Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty for her contributions to death penalty scholarship.

An overflow crowd in the Ames courtroom heard Associate Justice Antonin Scalia '60 of the U.S. Supreme Court present a lively defense of originalism on October 2, in the inaugural Herbert W. Vaughan Lecture.

The following op-ed written by Professor Jon Hanson, "In crisis, beware illusion of reform," was published in the October 2, 2008, edition of the Providence Journal.

Staff and students from the WilmerHale Legal Services Center’s Health Law Clinic attended this year’s United States Conference on AIDS last month, where they introduced and described their new program to educate the public about the current state of health care law.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ’60 will give the inaugural Herbert W. Vaughan lecture tomorrow afternoon at 4:30 p.m. The event will be open to members of the Harvard community.

Four individuals with Harvard Law School connections have been named to Esquire Magazine’s list of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century: Professor Noah Feldman, Samantha Power ’99, Barack Obama ’91, and Supreme court Justice John Roberts ’79.

Is the proliferation of online customized news sources a boon or a hindrance to democracy?That was the question posed by Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein in his Constitution Day lecture, entitled “Free Speech in the Age of the Internet.” Watch the webcast.

The international legal community needs to make “lawlessness” a top priority, said human rights scholar Samantha Power ’99 during a speech at Celebration 55: The Women’s Leadership Summit at Harvard Law School.

The following article by Professor Noah Feldman, "When judges make foreign policy," was the cover article for the September 28, 2008, New York Times Magazine.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude—the artists whose notable projects include “The Gates” in New York City’s Central Park—received the Great Negotiator Award from HLS’s Program on Negotiation.

The following op-ed by Professor Howell Jackson '82, "Build a better bailout," was published in the September 25, 2008, edition of the Christian Science Monitor.

Four days before the first 2008 presidential debate takes place in Mississippi, a panel discussion at HLS looked at past, present and future presidential debates.

The following op-ed, "Let's get the bank rescue right," was co-authored by Harvard Law School Professor Hal Scott, Dean of Columbia Business School R. Glenn Hubbard, and University of Chicago Graduate School of Business Professor Luigi Zingales. It appeared in the September 24, 2008 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

About a hundred years ago, when Milton Hershey founded the Hershey Company—now the largest confectionery company in North America—he also established a school for needy children, and a charitable trust for the benefit of the school. Today, the trust—worth over $8 billion—holds a controlling interest in the publicly traded Hershey Company.