Henry Smith

From conformity and the power of social influences to felony and the guilty mind in Medieval England

This fall, the Harvard Law School Library hosted a series of book talks by Harvard Law School authors on topics ranging from forgiveness in law, transparency in health and fidelity in constitutional practice.

Harvard Law School Professor Robert H. Sitkoff has co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Fiduciary Law, a handbook, slated for release today, that features important contributions from Sitkoff and from several other HLS scholars to the growing field of fiduciary law throughout its 48 chapters.

Each May since 2011, Harvard Law School has presented "HLS Thinks Big," a TED Talks-style event that invites faculty members to present a "big idea" in front of an audience of faculty, students and staff.

HLS Professors John C.P. Goldberg and Henry E. Smith’s “New Private Law” blog launched recently in an effort to expand interest in the notion that traditional interpersonal, "private" law deserves a fresh look.

More than 100 legal scholars gathered in Geneva, Switzerland for the Geneva-Harvard-Renmin-Sydney Law Faculty Conference, a three-day event that brought together faculty from Harvard Law School, the University of Geneva, Renmin Law School (China), and Sydney Law School (Australia) to explore property law in its many dimensions.

“Prospects for the Professions in China” (Routledge, 2010) edited by William P. Alford ’77, William Kirby and Kenneth Winston. Through its meditations on Chinese professional…

On March 31, Professor Henry Smith delivered his Chair Lecture in honor of his appointment as Fessenden Professor of Law. His lecture, entitled Equity Revisited, explored the relationship between law and equity. He examined, through the lens of economic analysis, equity as a solution to opportunism on the part of those who exploit bright-line law, with a focus on equitable maxims, defenses, and remedies.

HLS Professors John Goldberg and Henry Smith are working to reinvigorate the study of contracts, torts, and property with the new Private Law Workshop, which they co-teach as part of the Project on the Foundations of Private Law at Harvard Law School. The workshop, said Goldberg, is “an opportunity to introduce students to some of the emerging literature that’s aiming to rethink the significance of private law in modern legal systems.”

The Harvard Law School Library recently hosted Professors John Goldberg and Henry Smith for a discussion of their contributions to Oxford University Press’s new series, “Introductions to U.S. Law” (2010).

Two Harvard Law School professors have been appointed to faculty chair positions: Jody Freeman LL.M. ’91 S.J.D. ’95 is the Archibald Cox Professor of Law, and Henry Smith is the Fessenden Professor of Law. Freeman and Smith took their new chairs on July 1.