Latest from Lana Birbrair '15
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From analysis to (phone) application
April 19, 2017
When David Webb ’17 was approached with the opportunity to become a part-owner of Hiatus—an app that can scan users’ accounts to uncover auto-renewing charges that they may be unaware of—lessons from classes such as Consumer Contracts and Law, Economics, and Psychology, taught by Harvard Law Professor Oren Bar-Gill, immediately sprang to mind.
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One year after a major win in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, will Obergefell herald a narrowing of space for those who oppose same-sex marriage to express their views?
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Getting to Obergefell | Evan Wolfson Rests His Case
October 5, 2015
Since his 3L year, Wolfson has been arguing for a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
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Beyond Obergefell | Alumni Advocates for LGBT Rights Reflect on the Challenges That Remain
October 5, 2015
What will the movement look like after a blockbuster win and how to engage the public with causes that have received comparatively scant attention?
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What precedes precedent? Hint: The answer goes back to the 13th century
September 9, 2015
According to Professor Charles Donahue, the best-known innovation in legal academia— the case method of legal teaching—may have had an early precursor dating all the way back to the 13th century.
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Safe at any Speed: Ralph Nader’s new museum offers a meandering road trip through the history of tort law
September 9, 2015
On September 26, Ralph Nader '58 will oversee the opening in his hometown of Winsted, Conn. of the nation's first and only museum dedicated to law: the American Museum of Tort Law.
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President Ma of Taiwan visits HLS
August 27, 2015
On July 11, Harvard, for the first time in the century-long history of the Republic of China, welcomed a sitting president of Taiwan, hosting President Ma Ying-jeou S.J.D. ’81 for a nostalgic visit to his alma mater.
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Harvard Law School: The road to marriage equality
June 26, 2015
Since at least 1983, when Harvard Law student Evan Wolfson ’83 wrote a third-year paper exploring a human rights argument for same-sex marriage, Harvard Law School has participated in anticipating, shaping, critiquing, analyzing and guiding the long path toward marriage equality.
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Closing argument: Sean Morrison ’15, merging a passion for tax law and a penchant for politics
May 26, 2015
Growing up in Montana with a mother who owned a horse farm, Sean Morrison ’15 found his tax attorney father’s line of work a bit dull by comparison. So Morrison is a little surprised to find himself, years later, graduating from law school with the intent to specialize in tax law and policy.
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At a time when right-to-work laws, which severely threaten the viability of workers’ unions, seem to be gaining in popularity, Antonia Domingo ’15 is something of a rare creature: a fervently pro-union loyalist.
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On Thursday, April 23, Bruce Bromley Professor of Law John Manning ’85 capped off a four-part series of “Last Lectures” for the Harvard Law School Class of 2015 with a list of eight simple rules students should live by if they wish to be both “happy lawyers and human beings.”
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An Event Supreme
May 4, 2015
On Dec. 15, 2014, 34 Harvard Law alumni, from the Classes of 1971 to 2010, gathered at the U.S. Supreme Court to join the bar for the highest court in the nation.
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On April 20, Harvard Law School honored two members of its community—Donna Harati ’15 and Laura Maslow-Armand ’92—with the Gary Bellow Public Service Award, established in 2001 to recognize commitment to public interest work.
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Describing himself as a 'recovering,' though not yet 'recovered,' lawyer, Richard Tofel ’83, president of the Pulitzer Prize-winning non-profit news organization ProPublica, explored the challenges facing investigative journalism in the digital age at a talk he gave at Harvard Law School on April 3.
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Fifty years after the Supreme Court kicked off its line of “right to privacy” cases with Griswold v. Connecticut, which declared unconstitutional a state statute prohibiting couples from using contraceptives, a panel of three Harvard Law professors met to discuss the impact and legacy of the landmark case.
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Last week, the nine justices of the Supreme Court peppered Tom Goldstein, veteran of 35 oral arguments before the Court and a cofounder of SCOTUSblog, with nearly 75 questions in 30 minutes – questions he was able to answer with the help of seven Harvard Law students who spent their January term working around the clock to research, write and edit the entire respondents’ brief in City of Los Angeles v. Patel.
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Criminal Justice and Policing after the Events in Ferguson, Staten Island, Cleveland and Elsewhere (video)
February 12, 2015
On Friday, Feb. 6, after several town hall meetings in which Harvard Law students and faculty shared their experiences and observations of discrimination and systemic injustice, as well as hopes for pedagogical and cultural shifts at the law school, the HLS community convened to discuss a somewhat more familiar law school topic: legal and policy reforms.
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President of a community without borders
November 24, 2014
Every two years, the Harvard Law School Association appoints a new president to oversee an organization aimed at fostering engagement and community among the nearly 38,000 alumni living in 148 countries around the world.
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Origin Story
November 24, 2014
On the second floor of the City-County Building in Madison, Wisconsin, there now hangs the portrait of a man named Nathan Dane. The same steady gaze examines visitors 1,100 miles away as they step off the elevator on the fourth floor in Langdell Hall at Harvard Law School.
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Judge Easterbrook delivers inaugural Scalia lecture: ‘Interpreting the Unwritten Constitution’ (video)
November 20, 2014
On Monday, Nov. 17, Judge Frank Easterbrook of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals kicked off an inaugural lecture series named after his old friend, colleague and intellectual compatriot, Justice Antonin Scalia, who attended the talk titled “Interpreting the Unwritten Constitution.”
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Paycheck Fairness Act debated at HLS
October 2, 2014
Is legislation the best way to address the pay gap between men and women? And is such a pay gap even real? Both questions were debated at Harvard Law School on Monday, Sept. 29 at an event weighing the pros and cons of the Paycheck Fairness Act, hosted by the Federalist Society and the Women’s Law Association.
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Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program celebrates 30 years
October 2, 2014
On September 19, Harvard Law School hosted a celebration of the 30-year anniversary of the school’s Human Rights Program (HRP), a home for human rights scholarship and advocacy founded in 1984 by Professor Emeritus Henry J. Steiner.
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Crossing Boundaries to Enforce Boundaries
May 15, 2014
When Elise Young ’14 describes the work she is doing with the Digital Problem Solving Initiative, or DPSI, it almost sounds as if she is telling a joke. Three Harvard Law School students, several computerscientists, a physicist and a design student walk into a room.
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Congressman Sarbanes proposes Government By the People Act as way to limit influence of money in politics
April 7, 2014
Just days after the Supreme Court decided McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, which struck down aggregate limits on individual campaign contributions, U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes ’88 (D-Md.) delivered a keynote address at a Harvard Law School symposium on proposed legislation to reform campaign finance and dilute the influence of major donors.
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The Insular Cases: Constitutional experts assess the status of territories acquired in the Spanish–American War (video)
March 18, 2014
More than 100 years after the U.S. Supreme Court decided a series of cases that left citizens of territories including Puerto Rico, Guam and the American Samoa with only limited Constitutional rights, Harvard Law School hosted a conference to reconsider the so-called Insular Cases and the resonance they continue to hold today.
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Will the Supreme Court fundamentally alter the laws governing labor unions and collective bargaining? A Q&A with Benjamin Sachs
January 29, 2014
Harvard Law School Professor Benjamin Sachs, a labor law specialist who focuses on unions in politics, sat down with a reporter for the HLS News office to reflect on the Supreme Court's increased involvement in labor cases and the state of labor law today.
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A Friendship Endures Across Continents and Time
January 1, 2014
Arnold Mytelka ’61 can no longer remember just how he met Amanuel Andemicael LL.M. ’60. But, as Mytelka recalls now, something always stood out about the man who would become his lifelong friend.
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Royalty kick-off Arab Weekend conference at HLS
November 13, 2013
Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan On Thursday, Nov. 7, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan announced a new educational partnership between Harvard and…
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A conversation with HLS Lambda’s John Dey ’14 and Shane Hunt ’15
November 1, 2013
‘We are always working for greater inclusion’ HLS Lambda co-presidents John Dey ’14 and Shane Hunt ’15 HLS Lambda Co-presidents John Dey ’14 and…
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On Thursday, Aug. 8, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) delivered an address at Harvard Law School on proposed legislation to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, just hours after news outlets reported additional revelations concerning the scope of information gathered by the National Security Agency.
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Sharing the Pie
July 1, 2013
On May 30th, Shannon Liss-Riordan ’96 opened The Just Crust, a worker-owned pizza restaurant that came as a result of a class-action lawsuit against Boston chain, The Upper Crust Pizzeria. Liss-Riordan is hoping to turn the infamous case accusing the pizza chain of stealing workers’ wages into an example of how giving employees a voice can be both fulfilling and profitable.
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He’s Got Game
July 1, 2013
If you really want to improve your legal writing, says Harvard Law School alum Mark Yohalem '05, try writing a video game. A prosecutor at the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles with a Supreme Court clerkship under his belt, Yohalem has written more than 20 short stories and seven computer games in his free time.
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In March, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick ’82 nominated Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Institute clinical instructor Gloria Tan to a seat on the Massachusetts Juvenile Court. Tan came to CJI, which supervises third-year law students representing indigent criminal defendants in local district and juvenile courts, after serving as a public defender for the Committee for Public Counsel Services in Boston. When a spot opened up on CPCS's Youth Advocacy Project, Tan switched to working on juvenile cases and has spent her career doing so ever since. Tan was sworn in on May 3rd.
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Associate White House Counsel Kathleen Hartnett ’00 reflects on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
April 23, 2013
As the gay rights movement continues to gain momentum, it's easy to forget just how recently the tides of change were moving in the opposite direction, Associate White House Counsel Kathleen Hartnett '00 said at an April 11 talk at Harvard Law School, hosted by the Harvard chapter of the American Constitution Society.
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At the annual international party hosted by the Harvard Law School LL.M class of 2013, students, faculty, staff and family members filled the Harkness Commons in the Caspersen Student Center for a chance to immerse themselves in the cultures of their graduate student classmates, who hail from more than 70 countries.