John F. Manning

Harvard Law School is expanding its advising and mentoring programs four months after a school task force studying diversity and inclusion released a report calling for more advising opportunities on campus...John F. Manning ’82, the school’s recently appointed dean, said the Law School changed its policies to foster more organic and effective advising relationships between students and faculty. "The value added by mentoring and advising is not evenly distributed across the population and the propensity to seek mentoring and advising is not evenly distributed across the population,” Manning said...I. Glenn Cohen, a Law School professor who leads student reading groups, said he thinks the new advising program will help connect students with mentors and advisers more likely to share their specific interests and are more capable of answering their questions. “The reading group topics are connected to areas the students may be interested in, and by having the reading group instructors serve and be advisors for the students, we’d be more likely to get a match between what a particular student’s interest is and what the faculty member’s expertise is,” Cohen said...Marcia Sells, the Law School’s Dean of Students, said the school also instituted a program for students to take faculty out to dinner with all expenses paid by the school, similar to the College’s Classroom-to-Table program. In addition, administrators created a new peer advising program, she said. “We said to [the peer advisors], ‘You are a resource to them, plan a time to meet with them and talk—they didn’t have to take them out to lunch—but just to be there as a sounding board,’” Sells said...Sadie Hillier [`20], a first-year student at the Law School, wrote in an email that she thinks the new faculty advising program is very helpful. She wrote that she thinks she got “lucky” with her reading group and advisor, Law School professor Michael J. Klarman. “I've been provided with an abundance of mentorship opportunities in the last couple of months, and I have seized onto every single one,” Hillier said...Still, David Sackstein ’14 [`20], another first-year student who said he was in Cohen’s reading group, said that he fears some people may not get the resources they need despite the new programs. “There’s always, always, always going to be students who slip through the cracks,” Sackstein said.

In almost every way, John F. Manning ’82 is the very image of a Harvard Law School dean. With two Harvard degrees, a Supreme Court clerkship, years of administrative experience at the school, and well-regarded scholarship to his name, Manning checks all of the expected boxes for the leader of one of the country’s preeminent legal institutions...“Being dean of Harvard Law School is a really hard job — there are a lot of demands on your time, a lot of constituencies that need to be satisfied — it’s like being president of a small college,” Law School professor Richard J. Lazarus said. “I think that people are very enthusiastic.”...“My job is to foster a large community in which there are lots of different perspectives, approaches, and methodologies,” Manning said. “What I do for my scholarship has nothing to do with what kind of things I’ll support as dean.”

Harvard Law School has raised $365 million for its capital campaign since its launch in 2015, according to Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82. When the campaign publicly launched in 2015, the Law School had already raised $241 million of its $305 million goal. The Law School did not set a new goal after reaching its milestone earlier this year. Manning said in an interview that the Law School will continue to solicit donations for the campaign—a portion of Harvard’s $8 billion University-wide effort—through the end of the school year. “We’ve got until June 30th to continue to raise money and we will,” Manning said. “We will be trying.”

A student-created report on Harvard Law School and the United States' commitment to providing legal services to the public argues that the Law School needs to do more to guide students into public interest law instead of corporate practice. The report, primarily authored by current third-year Law student Pete D. Davis ’12 [`18], argues that the Law School needs to refocus on training its graduates for public interest careers...Dean of the Law School John F. Manning ’82 said in an interview that both he and the Law School are strong advocates for public interest. “Harvard Law School is very supportive of public interest,” Manning said. “From the very outset we have a very large, energetic office of public advising, we have a program on law and social change that really helps people identify and think about careers that try to affect social change.” According to Manning, students in the class of 2017 spent an average of 586 hours working pro bono, well beyond the school’s required 50 hours.

At the kick-off of Harvard Law School’s bicentennial celebration last week, Dean John F. Manning took the stage in Sanders Theatre and, in reverse order of their classes at the school, introduced a retired justice and four sitting justices of the Supreme Court: Neil M. Gorsuch, J.D. ’91; Elena Kagan, J.D. ’86; David H. Souter, retired, ’61, L.L.B. ’66, LL.D. 2010; Stephen G. Breyer, LL.B. ’64; and Anthony M. Kennedy, LL.B. ’61. He saved for last John G. Roberts Jr. ’76 and J.D. ’79, chief justice of the United States. Manning observed that “it’s very easy to take for granted just how exceptional” HLS is, so he shared some facts about the institution that were startling even after he said they would be:

Although the speakers were U.S. Supreme Court justices who routinely rule on the nation’s most serious issues, it was a jolly affair. Six high-court judges, five current and one retired, gathered Thursday evening to talk about their former lives as law students, about the lessons they learned, the classes they favored, and the memories they cherished from the years before they sat on the highest court in the land. Laid back and genial, the justices, all graduates of Harvard Law School (HLS), engaged in a roundtable conversation with fellow alumnus Dean John Manning ’82, J.D. ’85, before a packed house at Sanders Theatre to mark the beginning of the celebrations of the School’s 200th anniversary.

A majority of Supreme Court justices reached across the ideological—and generational—divide Thursday to rule that their alma mater, Harvard Law School, totally rules. “The Harvard justices who preceded those on this stage, from Joseph Story to Antonin Scalia, have had an oversize influence on the law,” Chief Justice John Roberts, class of 1979, told a crowd of scholars, students and alumni gathered at Harvard’s Memorial Hall to celebrate the professional school’s bicentennial. Justices Anthony Kennedy (’61), Stephen Breyer (’64), Elena Kagan (’86) and Neil Gorsuch (’91), joined by retired Justice David Souter (’66), concurred. Then, under the gentle questioning of the law school dean, John Manning, the justices reminisced about law-school days, poked fun at one another (and their Yale-educated colleagues) and imagined dinner-table conversations with long-deceased predecessors. Although light in substance, the program gave a glimpse of the justices’ wit and personalities away from the solemn and sometimes somniferous legal points they make in oral arguments at the court.

Harvard Law School has produced 20 Supreme Court justices in its storied history and six of them traveled to Boston on Thursday for a lively and at times buoyant celebration.It wasn't lost on Chief Justice John Roberts that a majority of the current court hails from one elite law school."A minority of my colleagues send their regrets," Roberts joked to the audience.The Chief was joined on stage by Justices Anthony Kennedy ('61), Stephen Breyer ('64), Elena Kagan ('86), Neil Gorsuch ('91) as well as retired Justice David Souter ('66).Between them, they have covered a four-decade span at the school and they had some stories to tell...John F. Manning, the Dean of the School, posed questions to the group, and saved a lightning round for the end that featured everything from Gorsuch's revelation about a former pet goat named "Nibbles," to an unfortunate summer job when a youthful Justice Kennedy mistakenly nailed his work glove to a post.

Six members of the Supreme Court—one former and five current Justices—kicked off a marquee event of the Law School’s year-long bicentennial celebrations Thursday in Sanders Theatre. The Justices, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. ’76 and former Law School dean Elena Kagan, all attended the Law School as students and returned for the evening. The event, billed “HLS in the World,” featured remarks and a question and answer session between the Justices and current Law School Dean John F. Manning ’82. Manning, who introduced the Justices, spoke about the school’s outsized presence on the Court and in other high-profile institutions. “Our alumni are leaders in area after area, field after field, year after year, and now we can say century after century,” Manning said.

When a law school has educated one of every six justices to ever serve on the Supreme Court, and its alums make up a majority of the current court, a certain amount of gasconade — to use a Harvard word — is to be expected. So the audience was appreciative Thursday when Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. took the stage at Harvard Law School with one former and four current Supreme Court justices and announced: “A minority of my colleagues send their regrets.” The boastful gathering of justices marked the 200th anniversary of the law school: HLS in the World—The Harvard Bicentennial is the rather grand name of the summit...In a “lightning round” of questions, [John] Manning brought up little-known facts about the justices: Kennedy once worked on oil rigs in Canada and Louisiana. Roberts had a summer job in the steel mills. Souter was injured at Harvard in a mock duel, when his friend’s saber slashed his hand.

Several justices on the nation's highest court are heading to Massachusetts to celebrate the bicentennial of Harvard Law School. Chief Justice John Roberts will be joined by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and retired Justice David Souter at Thursday's event on campus...Roberts is expected to give remarks. Harvard Law School Dean John Manning will then lead a conversation with the justices...Other speakers on Friday include former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power.