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Latest from Jeff Neal

  • President Trump with Michael Flynn

    All the president’s pardons

    December 1, 2020

    Can President Donald J. Trump pardon himself before his term ends in January? This hotly debated legal question was given new urgency by the president’s recent decision to pardon Michael T. Flynn, his first national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his contacts with Russia.

  • U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer making an arrest

    Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program scores a victory for asylum seekers

    November 20, 2020

    In recent court victory, students from the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program help safeguard the lives of countless asylum seekers by preventing more stringent federal immigration rules from going into effect.

  • Transforming law into a science

    November 10, 2020

    Professor Jim Greiner at the Access to Justice Lab is aiming to find out whether the practice of law can be transformed by using evidence to determine which legal interventions are safe and effective, both for individuals in the justice system and society as a whole.

  • people voting

    Ranked-choice voting, explained

    October 26, 2020

    On Nov. 3, voters in Massachusetts and Alaska will have the opportunity to adopt ranked-choice voting (RCV) statewide. HLS Lecturer Peter Brann argues that Maine has led the nation in adopting the system that better ensures that the most popular candidate in any election wins.

  • FDA headquarters in Washington DC

    Building public trust in a coronavirus vaccine

    October 6, 2020

    In an interview with Harvard Law Today, Carmel Shachar, executive director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, says that political interference in the FDA’s process for ensuring that a vaccine is both safe and effective “opens the door to a public health disaster.”

  • President Donald Trump

    Not ‘manifestly criminal’

    September 29, 2020

    Harvard Law Today spoke Monday with tax experts Keith Fogg and Thomas Brennan about the New York Times' report on President Donald J. Trump’s taxes.

  • A view into the courtroom from the interior hallway of U.S. Supreme Court.

    Should Democrats pack the Supreme Court?

    September 23, 2020

    Mark Tushnet discussed with Harvard Law Today the possibilities for, and potential pitfalls of, any effort by an incoming Democratic majority to pack the Supreme Court.

  • Mark Wu

    A Q&A with Mark Wu on his appointment as vice dean for the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies

    August 16, 2020

    Mark Wu, the Henry L. Stimson Professor at Harvard Law School, was recently appointed the new vice dean for the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies. He replaces William Alford, who served in the role for the past 18 years. 

  • Young girl sitting with her bunny stuffed animal at a table with a pencil in her hand watching a teacher on a laptop.

    Will online schooling increase child abuse risks?

    August 14, 2020

    As more schools plan for remote learning, Elizabeth Bartholet and James Dwyer argue that school districts, child protective services, and other agencies across the nation must adopt new safeguards to prevent and respond to incidents of child maltreatment.

  • COVID State of Play

    ‘Feeding the virus’?

    July 30, 2020

    “Confused,” “frustrating,” “fragmented,” “acute,” and “a reckoning” were just some of the ways three health care experts described the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic during a recent Berkman Klein virtual discussion.

  • A federal officer in a camouflage uniform wearing a gas mask pepper sprays a protester wearing a motorcycle helmet next to a graffiti covered building.

    Professor Crespo says events in Portland raise serious concerns about unlawful police tactics

    July 21, 2020

    Andrew Crespo ’08 recently discussed the federal government’s law enforcement actions in Portland, Oregon with Harvard Law Today.

  • MassHumanities Reading Frederick Douglass Together event image

    Reading Frederick Douglass together

    June 30, 2020

    In a July 2019 Q&A, David Harris, managing director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice, discussed the annual public reading of Douglass’ speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”, virtual this year for the first time in its 12-year history.

  • Sign that points to the climate and USA in opposite directions

    No ‘silver lining’ for the climate

    April 21, 2020

    Jody Freeman discusses the progress the nation has made in protecting the environment since Earth Day was founded in 1970, the Trump administration’s efforts to undo Obama-era federal climate regulations, and COVID-19’s urgent lessons for the planet’s health.

  • Professor Charles Fried

    Charles Fried addresses Trump administration’s ‘contempt for the rule of law’

    April 10, 2020

    Harvard Law Professor Charles Fried, who served as solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan, joined 21 other conservative or libertarian attorneys in a statement condemning inspector general Michael Atkinson’s ouster as part of a “continuous assault on the rule of law.”

  • Doctors and Medical equipment

    Emergency statutes must be passed to protect doctors and hospitals from potential lawsuits, say Harvard Law professors

    April 7, 2020

    HLS Professors Glenn Cohen and Andrew Crespo discuss their proposals to protect doctors and hospitals from potential lawsuits and criminal prosecution during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Mary Ann Glendon delivers the Scalia Lecture.

    Who needs foreign law?

    March 4, 2020

    The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ’60 believed America had much to learn from laws adopted by nations abroad, according to Harvard Law School Professor Mary Ann Glendon. In an address titled “Who Needs Foreign Law?,” Glendon, the Learned Hand Professor of Law, gave a clear, if somewhat surprising, answer: Scalia did.

  • A window into the world of Justice Scalia

    February 7, 2020

    Harvard Law Today recently sat down with Ed Moloy, the library’s curator of modern manuscripts, and Project Archivist Irene Gates to discuss the Antonin Scalia Collection, the work of archiving, preserving, and making it public, and other collections held by the Harvard Law Library.

  • United States Supreme Court in Washington DC

    Harvard Law expert says Supreme Court case poses major threat to school voucher programs

    January 21, 2020

    On January 22, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, a case that may dramatically impact the ability of states to provide public funding to private, religiously-affiliated schools. In advance of the arguments, Harvard Law Today sat down with Professor Mark Tushnet to preview the case.

  • Senator Mike Lee addressing the audience at an event sponsored by the Federalist Society..

    ‘The move away from federalism and separation of powers has had lasting impacts on American democracy’

    December 3, 2019

    Senator Mike Lee offered his perspective on the current state of constitutional law in America at a recent event organized by the Harvard Federalist Society.

  • Medieval Painting

    Law & Order in Medieval England

    November 20, 2019

    In a Q&A, Elizabeth Papp Kamali ’07 discusses her new book, trial by ordeal, medieval juries and "felonies committed feloniously."

  • Martha Minow, 300th Anniversary University Professor

    Forgiveness in an age of ‘justified resentments’

    November 6, 2019

    At a recent Harvard Law School Library book event, Martha Minow and panelists discussed her recent release, "When Should Law Forgive?", which explores the complicated intersection of the law, justice, and forgiveness.