Martha Minow

Massachusetts legal aid organizations turned away nearly two-thirds of people qualifying for civil legal assistance over the last year due to a lack of funding, leaving thousands of low-income residents without representation in cases from domestic violence to foreclosure, according to the findings of a statewide task force to be released Wednesday. More than 30,000 low-income clients were denied legal services in 2013, meaning many were unable to pursue cases or were left to represent themselves in court, where they often lost their cases, according to the 37-page report. “The overused word ‘crisis’ actually applies here,” said Harvard Law School’s dean, Martha Minow, a member of the task force. “When you have people who are literally not represented in actions where they can lose their homes or face physical violence, where they can’t get legal remedies to which they’re entitled, there’s a failure to live up to the rule of law.”

Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow spoke at the Court of Appeals in Albany Monday during the fifth annual hearing on civil legal services. It was the last of four hearings that started in September to highlight the civil legal needs of low-income New Yorkers. Minow advised New York officials to consider public libraries as potential places to dispense civil legal services.

In a conversation to open the new academic year, President Drew Faust spoke at Sanders Theatre on September 16 with Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof ’82 ...On the further question of political diversity, given the documented liberal bias of academic institutions, Faust acknowledged, “This is an important issue for us,” and noted that intellectual prowess is the key factor in hiring professors. “We try to penetrate through political valences,” she said. She praised in particular the leadership of former Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan and current dean Martha Minow in shaping a politically diverse law faculty.

The Berkman Center for Internet and Society held a kickoff event for its Digital Problem Solving Initiative, a year-long program that brings together students and mentors from across the University to solve campus-wide issues through technology, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Gutman Library on Thursday. Following an introduction from Law School Dean Martha L. Minow and a lecture on best practices for entrepreneurship from Business School professor Thomas R. Eisenmann, students and advisors split up into eight teams focused on particular on-campus problems...Law School professor and Berkman Center Director Urs Gasser said the initiative not only aims to tackle problems across the University but also seeks to develop students “digital literacy skills.”

A host of new faculty members arrived at Harvard Law School this academic year, and over the summer, Dean Martha Minow announced two new faculty who will join HLS in 2015.

...In an entertaining talk in HLS’s Wasserstein Hall with Dean Martha Minow on Wednesday, [Elena] Kagan displayed her trademark wit and wisdom, honed during her years as a Harvard Law School (HLS) student, professor, and dean, her work with the Clinton administration, and her stint as solicitor general. She also pulled back the curtain a little on the nation’s highest court.

UCLA School of Law and Harvard Law School have announced the inauguration of the UCLA-Harvard Food Law and Policy Conference, a joint annual conference that…

Andrew Manuel Crespo '08, an expert in criminal law and criminal justice, will join the faculty of Harvard Law School in 2015 as an Assistant Professor of Law.

Cass Sunstein: The most important Supreme Court decision of the 2013 term may well be EPA v. Homer City, which upheld the Environmental Protection Agency’s cross-state air pollution rule…Laurence Tribe: In a year in which the high court weighed in on presidential appointment power, public unions, abortion and religious freedom, many observers will say that the court is reshaping our politics and culture with sweeping pronouncements that inject it squarely into the most salient, controversial issues of the day…Martha Minow: Free speech and religious expression win; equality does less well; growing reliance on communications technologies and on government to address environmental harms informs the law; corporations and employers gain power relative to employees; tensions between branches continue, amid bold assertions of humility…Mark Tushnet: ...The court is constructing what in fancy terms we can call an ideology or philosophy of constitutional law. And, the current court’s philosophy is, broadly speaking, conservative, skeptical of expansive exercises of government power in the domestic arena, tending in a mildly libertarian direction.

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society has announced a significant leadership transition as Professor William (Terry) Fisher steps down after 12 years as Chair of the Board of Directors and Professor Jonathan Zittrain, the co-founder of the Berkman Center and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School, assumes the role. The change will be effective as of July 1, 2014.