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It is the spring of 1997 and I am sitting in Pound 107 while Roger Fisher ’48, Williston Professor of Law, Emeritus, is telling a story about his serving as a weather reconnaissance pilot in World War II. As a teaching assistant for the Negotiation Workshop, I have heard the story at least a dozen times by now and feel my mind wandering. And yet, against my will, as the story reaches its crescendo and the combination punch line/negotiation lesson flows from Roger’s lips, I find myself involuntarily leaning forward and, a second later, helplessly bursting into laughter. The note I jot down to myself is: “All of life is about who tells better stories.”

Like many HLS students, Arvin Abraham ’09 took a job as an associate at a law firm after graduating. Yet, he did not leave his law school academic pursuits behind him. Thanks to a collaboration with a former professor, Lynn LoPucki LL.M. ’70, and a colleague, Bernd Delahaye LL.M. ’11, he is seeing the topic of his 3L paper expanded into a lengthy law review article to be published this fall.

Harvard Law School Professor D. James Greiner is co-author of a recent study on the experience of Boston voters in the election of 2008. As another election approaches, we ask Greiner a few questions about his study and the current efforts to pass tougher voter ID laws.

At a Sept. 19 event commemorating the signing of the U.S. Constitution, Harvard Law School Professor Michael Klarman, an expert on constitutional law and constitutional history, gave a lecture entitled "Why the Tea Party Has It Wrong: The Story of a Multifaceted Founding."

Viet D. Dinh '93, founding partner of Bancroft and a professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, spoke at Harvard Law School on Sept. 18 at an event sponsored by Harvard Law School's Program on the Legal Profession. Dinh, who served as U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy from 2001 to 2003 and played a key role in developing legal policy initiatives to combat terrorism, focused his remarks on “Peripatetic Reflections: Government, Academia and Boutique Law Practice."

On Sept. 5, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan ’86 joined Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow for a conversation on life as a Supreme Court Justice. The former and current deans spoke before an overflow audience in the Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center, Clinical Wing building.

On Sept. 20, Harvard Law School Professor Stephen Shay testified before the Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The topic of the hearing was “Offshore Profit Shifting and the U.S. Tax Code."

"The view from Tunis: Fire, tear gas, and normalcy," a piece by Harvard Law School Professor Noah Feldman, appeared in Bloomberg View on Sept. 14. Feldman, who is the Bemis Professor of International Law at HLS, is a regular contributor to Bloomberg View and the author of many books, including “Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Justices” (Twelve Books 2010), and “The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State” (Princeton University Press, 2008).  

Undergraduates gathered at Farkas Hall last week to audition for a workshop that taps into the power and poetry of language. Harvard’s new dramatic arts offering “Hip Hop and Spoken Word: Theater Performance Laboratory” is being taught by visiting lecturer Bryonn Bain '01, an activist, rapper, poet, and musician.

Lawrence Lessig, the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at HLS and director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, is the author of “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It,” an exhaustively researched and passionately argued indictment of Capitol Hill and the money-centered daily dance between lawmakers and lobbyists. As a columnist for Atlantic Magazine and in interviews on national media, he has shared his ideas on how to stop corruption in Congress. He was recently profiled in a Harvard Magazine piece by Jonathan Shaw entitled “A Radical Fix for the Republic.”

Professor Einer Elhauge ‘86 has released an e-book—titled “Obamacare on Trial” —on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act case decided by the Supreme Court. Elhauge raises points that were not aired in the courtroom, including the fact that the constitutional framers themselves had approved mandates to buy health insurance.

Young-Joon Mok LL.M. ’89, a Justice of the Constitutional Court of Korea, spoke at Harvard Law School on “Constitutional Adjudication in the Republic of Korea,” on Tuesday, Sept. 11 at an event sponsored by East Asian Legal Studies, International Legal Studies and the Korea Institute.

David Kennedy ’80, Harvard Law School’s Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law and director of the Institute for Global Law and Policy, recently joined a team of former political leaders and diplomats from across Asia in founding the new Asian Peace and Reconciliation Council (APRC), which will work to promote peace and reconciliation in the Asian region through quiet diplomacy.

The Harvard Law School Library has curated a collection of original documents and images from the life, legacy and world of Joseph Story, a lawyer, beloved teacher, prolific author and Supreme Court justice. The new exhibit, “A Storied Legacy: Correspondence and Early Writings of Joseph Story,” is on view in the Caspersen Room, Harvard Law School Library, through December 7, 2012. Complementing and expanding upon the exhibit is a new Joseph Story Digital Suite.

The Greenwall Foundation has chosen Harvard Law School Assistant Professor I. Glenn Cohen '03, a leading expert on the intersection of bioethics and the law, to receive one of three Faculty Scholar Awards in Bioethics. The award allows recipients to conduct extensive independent research to help set public policy and standards of clinical practice.  

Stephen Gageler LL.M. ’87 was appointed to a judgeship on Australia’s High Court on Aug. 21. He joins six other judges on Australia’s most powerful court.