Laurence Tribe

"Best Lawyers," a peer review legal publication, has named HLS Professor Laurence H. Tribe ’66 “Lawyer of the Year” in the category of Boston Appellate Practitioners. Only one lawyer in each specialty in each community is honored as the “Lawyer of the Year.”

Harvard Law School Professor Laurence H. Tribe ’66 appeared on PBS’s Charlie Rose show July 11 to discuss his participation in Valentini v. Shinseki, a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court by Tribe, Santa Monica City Councilman Bobby Shriver, the ACLU and numerous veteran representatives and advocates against Veterans Administration Secretary Eric K. Shinseki. The lawsuit alleges that the Department of Veterans Affairs is misusing its West Los Angeles VA Campus.

Professor Laurence Tribe ’66, who has been teaching at HLS for four decades, is back in Cambridge after nine months as the first head of the new Access to Justice Initiative at the Department of Justice, launched in March 2010 to improve access to justice for all, the middle class as well as the poor.

The following op-ed, Why Wounded Warriors Sleep in Dumpsters, written by Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe ’66 and Bobby Shriver, appeared in the June 9 edition of The Wall Street Journal. An expert on Constitutional Law, Tribe was appointed Carl M. Loeb University Professor in 2004. His most recent book is The Invisible Constitution (Oxford University Press 2008). He recently served as senior counselor for access to justice in the U.S. Justice Department.

In an op-ed in the Apr. 16 edition of The Boston Globe, Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe ’66 assesses the attempted use of the judiciary branch to establish global warming policy in light of a lawsuit that has recently come before the Supreme Court. The suit seeks a judicially imposed cap on power companies’ emissions, and the Court will hear oral arguments on Tuesday.

In an Apr. 3 op-ed in The Boston Globe, Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe ’66 discusses the debate on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act—specifically the individual mandate, which requires those otherwise uninsured (by an employer or by a federal program such as Medicaid) to purchase health insurance.

In his op-ed “On Health Care, Justice Will Prevail,” which appeared in the Feb. 8, 2011 edition of The New York Times, Harvard Law School Professor Laurence H. Tribe says that the Supreme Court will judge the constitutionality of the health care law based on precedent, not politics.

Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Tribe ’66, now a senior Justice Department counselor, received a standing ovation from the nation’s state chief justices last week after challenging them to take immediate steps to improve access to justice for juveniles, the poor and the middle class. An article by Tony Mauro in the National Law Journal reported on Tribe’s address, including his proposals for reform.

Professors Laurence H. Tribe ’66, and Charles J. Ogletree both received honorary degrees at law school commencement ceremonies this spring.

Harvard Law School Professors Martha Minow, Cass R. Sunstein ’78, and Laurence Tribe ‘66 are among the new class of members elected to the American Philosophical Society.

Constitutional expert and Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe ’66 testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties today regarding the future of the First Amendment and campaign finance reform in the wake of the Citizens United case.

There is no doubt that Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission marks a major upheaval in First Amendment law and signals the end of whatever legitimate claim could otherwise have been made by the Roberts Court to an incremental and minimalist approach to constitutional adjudication, to a modest view of the judicial role vis-à-vis the political branches, or to a genuine concern with adherence to precedent.