Harvard Legal Aid Bureau

As he prepares to graduate, Mario Nguyên ’17 can stand as an example as someone who has overcome hardship and doubt, who has achieved more than he ever thought possible and plans to achieve much more. He will soon begin a job at a firm in his native Texas, with a goal of using his legal skills to bring about systemic change to benefit disadvantaged and marginalized people.

Harvard Law School student William Ahee ’17 and alumnus Lam Nguyen Ho ’08 have received the Gary Bellow Public Service Award, established in 2001 to honor HLS Professor Gary Bellow ’60, his commitment to public service, and his innovative approach to the analysis and practice of law.

On the morning of Jan. 9, Dayne Lee ’17, a student practitioner with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, slipped into a suit after three sleepless nights leading up to his major argument before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in a case pitting federally controlled mortgage giant Fannie Mae against homeowner Elvitria Marroquin – a Lynn, Mass. homeowner who has been fighting foreclosure since 2008.

In this collection of photos selected from the Harvard Law School’s Historical & Special Collections, the Harvard University Archives and the Harvard Law Bulletin, threads of continuity are woven throughout the Law School experience, no matter which decade—or even which century—you arrived.

Five Harvard Law School students and recent graduates have been awarded Skadden Fellowships to support their work in public service.

In the summer of 2016, 19 students traveled to 13 countries through the Chayes International Public Service Fellowship Program. Chayes Fellows spend eight weeks working within the governments of developing nations, or with the inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations that support them.

It took Pedro Spivakovsky-Gonzalez several years and nearly 10,000 miles, on a journey that included several cities around the world, to find his calling in his hometown.

The David Grossman Memorial Lecture, entitled “Eviction, Displacement, and the Fight to Keep Communities Together,” was held at HLS on April 5. Grossman ’88, who died last July, was a lawyer and teacher dedicated to serving the poor, and he was Director of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau for close to a decade.

In late May, four Harvard Law faculty — Scott Brewer, Gerald Neuman '80, Esme Caramello '99, and Urs Gasser LL.M. '03 — shared snapshots of their latest research with the Harvard Law School community as part of the HLS Thinks Big speaker series.

Joseph Michalakes '16 is the winner of the Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award, chosen for exemplifying a pro bono public spirit and demonstrating an extraordinary commitment to improving and delivering high quality volunteer legal services in low-income communities.

Now in its 14th year, a compact on policing in Cincinnati, Ohio, focused on building strong police-community relationships is a lauded model nationwide. John Cranley ’99, now the city’s mayor, was there from the start of the landmark agreement known as the Collaborative.

Harvard Law students provide legal referrals to outside agencies and other services at Y2Y—the new shelter in Harvard Square for homeless youth aged 18-24 staffed by young people about the same age.

This is the last in the Harvard Gazette's series on inequality, one of America’s most vexing problems, examining Harvard’s ground-level efforts to make a difference in the surrounding communities, and beyond.

Delivering the 2015 Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Distinguished Lecture at Harvard Law School on Oct. 22, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus ’75 told attendees that “one of my proudest moments as Secretary” was the reinstatement of the Reserve Officers Training Program on the Harvard campus in 2011.

After I learned that David Grossman had entered hospice care, I sat at my computer, trying to write a goodbye email, but the words were not coming. I did not know how to express how much Dave’s mentorship impacted my life and my career, and I still do not. Eventually, I gushed out how much Dave meant to me and hit “send.” Then I pictured him reading it, and smiled, realizing how much he would be teasing me for its sappiness.

This year’s Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award was presented to Chad Baker, honored for demonstrating an extraordinary commitment to improving and delivering high quality volunteer legal services to disadvantaged communities. Baker contributed over 2000 pro bono hours working with the Tenant Advocacy Project, the Prison Legal Assistance Project, and the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.

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.

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.

Esme Caramello '99 has been appointed Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Caramello has been a lecturer on law and clinical instructor at the law school as well as deputy director of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.

On January 28, 2014, Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB) student attorneys Nicholas Pastan ’15 and Breana Ware ’14 found themselves conducting a trial in federal court and asking a Judge to decline to enforce a Petition brought against their client pursuant to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.