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The United States’ response to the 9/11 attacks has altered the legal landscape. That premise was outlined by William K. Lietzau, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Policy, in his keynote address at a conference titled  “Understanding Detention and Predicting Prosecutions: Legal Challenges and Legislative Options Ten Years After 9/11.” The conference, sponsored by the National Security and Law Association, took place on February 4 at Harvard Law School and featured panel discussions focusing on prosecutions and detentions in the aftermath of 9/11.

Harvard Law School continues to strengthen its commitment to environmental sustainability and to make progress towards Harvard’s university-wide greenhouse gas reduction goal to reduce emissions 30% by 2016. In January, Harvard Law School recorded its 18th straight month of energy reductions.

During a Feb. 4 workshop called “Strategic Decision-Making in International Affairs,” sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs at the Center for Government and International Studies, the deans of Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School laid out some of the challenges facing the University in this era of increasing globalization. They were joined by Jorge Dominguez, the vice provost for international affairs, who offered the University’s viewpoint, David Hunter, dean for academic affairs at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Beth Simmons, director of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

For the third year in a row, Harvard Law School has won the Northeast Black Law Students Association’s Trial Advocacy competition. HLS sent two teams to the competition this year, and, for the second consecutive year, HLS took both first and second place.

The op-ed “Sometimes, Justice Can Play Politics,” by HLS Professor Noah Feldman, appeared in the February 12, 2011 edition of The New York Times. A constitutional law scholar, Feldman is the author of the recently published book “Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of F.D.R.’s Great Supreme Court Justices.”

Harvard Law School Professor David B. Wilkins will receive the Outstanding Scholar Award from The Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. The award is given annually to a member of the academy who has engaged in outstanding scholarship in the law or in government.

In a Jan. 27 talk titled “Line of Fire: On Being a 'Fortune 10' General Counsel," sponsored by the HLS Program on the Legal Profession, Stephen F. Gates ’72 (M.B.A. ’72) addressed the role and responsibilities of in-house counsel in today’s changing world of legal practice, and he spoke candidly about some of the specific situations he has faced in the “line of fire.”

In a recent lecture given at Harvard Law School and sponsored by the Safra Center for Ethics, Jim Cooper '80, a Blue-Dog Democrat from Tennessee's 5th congressional district, said offered the assessment that Congress is "deeply broken." 

African-American children, who account for just 15 percent of all children in the U.S., represent more than a third of children placed in foster care. The question is: Why? That controversial issue and others surrounding society’s efforts to protect children were the focus of the conference “Race & Child Welfare: Disproportionality, Disparity, Discrimination: Re-Assessing the Facts, Re-Thinking the Policy Options,” held January 28-29 at Harvard Law School.

Harvard Law School has announced the appointments of U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner and Stephen Shay, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, as Professors of Practice.

Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired a hearing on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act and the provision that requires, beginning in 2014, every American to maintain health insurance coverage. The law requires all citizens without work-based insurance to purchase plans in the private market.

The Harvard Law Review has elected Mitchell Reich ’12 as its 125th president.

This week, HLS Professors John G. Palfrey, Jonathan Zittrain, and HLS Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law Andrew K. Woods each weighed in on the Egyptian government's recent decision to block Internet access to prevent the use of social media outlets in light of escalating protests in the country. 

This week, HLS Professors John G. Palfrey, Jonathan Zittrain, and HLS Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law Andrew K. Woods each weighed in on the Egyptian government's recent decision to block Internet access to prevent the use of social media outlets in light of escalating protests in the country.

In a Jan. 26 review in The New Republic, HLS Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 examines the book “Honeybee Democracy” by Thomas D. Seeley, which explores group decision-making behavior in apian colonies, and he presents his assessment of its relationship to collective wisdom and decision-making in human societies.

In a Jan. 31 article in the Opinion section of the New York Daily News online, HLS Professor John G. Palfrey addresses the issue of corporate responsibility in the wake of the Egyptian government’s recent Internet access lockdown to prevent protesters from organizing against President Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

On Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011, HLS Professor Hal Scott testified before the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services in a hearing entitled “Promoting Economic Recovery and Job Creation: The Road Forward.”

Philip Alston, Harvard Law School’s Sidley Austin Visiting Professor of Law, received an honorary doctorate from Maastricht University in the Netherlands on Jan. 20 as part of the university’s 35th anniversary celebration.

An op-ed by HLS Professor Alan Dershowitz “The U.N. gangs up on Israel – again,” appeared in the January 26, 2011 edition of the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of numerous books, including “The Trials of Zion,” “The Case for Moral Clarity: Israel, Hamas and Gaza,” and “Finding, Framing, and Hanging Jefferson: A Lost Letter, a Remarkable Discovery, and Freedom of Speech in an Age of Terrorism.”