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The distinguished tax law expert Martin D. Ginsburg ’58, a tax law professor at Georgetown University and of counsel at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, died Sunday in Washington, D.C. He was the husband of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

A bipartisan group of over 900 law professors from 152 law schools across the country have joined together to urge the confirmation of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court of the United States.

On Earth Day, the Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center, Clinical Wing project gained a set of new bicycle shelters at the Lewis Lot, south of Pound Hall. There are 26 bicycle racks within the two enclosures. Additionally, four new bicycle racks have now been added under the Pound Hall overhang facing Lewis International Law Center, and three new bicycle racks now sit under the Holmes Hall west entrance. All the bicycle racks are ready for use.

For ten of thousands of young people, childhood can consist of a pipeline to prison. On Thursday, April 29, 2010, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School hosted a conference addressing the issue locally: “Coming Together to Dismantle the Cradle to Prison Pipeline in Massachusetts: A Half-Day Summit of Community, Faith and Policy Leaders.”

Retired Navy Vice Admiral Bruce E. MacDonald LL.M. ’92 was appointed to the position of convening authority for military commissions, created by Congress in the Military Commissions Act. The appointment was made by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.

Five Harvard Law School alumni, including Lecturer on Law and Clinical Instructor at the Human Rights Project Susan Farbstein ’04, have been selected as finalists for the 2010 Trial Lawyer of the Year Award, which is presented each year by the Public Justice foundation to an attorney or team of attorneys who have made the most outstanding contribution to the public interest through precedent-setting litigation.

On May 20, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that blanket disenfranchisement of people with disabilities is contrary to the European Convention of Human Rights.

Harvard Law School students participating in this year’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic wound up winning a hat trick this year, with the Supreme Court ruling in their favor in all three cases in which the clinic’s students were involved.  

The special rights guaranteed to First Nations receive inadequate attention in British Columbia when compared to mining interests, the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) at Harvard Law School said in a report released on June 7.

Why is our health care system so fragmented in the care it gives patients? Why is there little coordination amongst the many doctors who treat individual patients, who often even lack access to a common set of medical records? A recently published book on health care in the United States, “The Fragmentation of U.S. Health Care: Causes and Solutions” (Oxford University Press, 2010), seeks to answer some of those questions.

HLS Dean Martha Minow presented nine staff members with the 2010 Dean’s Award for Excellence at an awards ceremony in Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall, on June 10.

Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow joined 68 other law school deans from around the country in a letter endorsing the nomination of Elena Kagan ’86 to a seat on the United States Supreme Court. The letter, which was addressed to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was distributed widely on Tuesday, June 15.

Harvard Law School Professor Kenneth Mack ’91 received an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree from Harrisburg University of Science and Technology during a commencement ceremony on May 20 in Harrisburg, Pa. Mack also delivered the commencement address.

“Rating the Raters,” by HLS Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M ’80 S.J.D. ’84, appeared in Project Syndicate on May 24, 2010. It is the latest installment of his monthly column for the publication. Bebchuk is a professor of law, economics, and finance, and director of the Program on Corporate Governance at Harvard Law School.

Lisa Kelly LL.M. ’08 was recently awarded a Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholarship. Annually, 15 doctoral candidates are awarded up to $180,000 each over a three-year period to support research “of compelling present-day concern” to the Trudeau Foundation, which was established in 2001 to honor the former prime minister of Canada.

The Committee on Capital Markets Regulation (CCMR), which is led by Harvard Law School Professor Hal S. Scott, sent Congressional leaders a letter on June 14 urging them to consider its positions on six “critical points” as they begin the final task of reconciling the two financial reform bills passed by the House and the Senate.

The Journal of Legal Analysis—the broad-focused, faculty-edited journal launched by Harvard Law School Professors J. Mark Ramseyer ’82 and Steven Shavell, in February 2009—is now available online. The journal is designed to provide the best legal scholarship from all disciplinary perspectives and styles, covering the span of the legal academy.

As Congress considers legislation to reform Wall Street, Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren remains on the front lines of the fight as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel. In a June 7 interview with NPR On Point host Tom Ashbrook, Warren said that lawmakers could end up with a bill that has “no real impact.”

In April, Dorothée Alsentzer ‘05, senior clinical fellow at the Health Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School’s WilmerHale Legal Services Center, and Lecturer on law Robert Greenwald, founding director of the clinic, received the Positive Leadership Award from the National Association of People with AIDS, during AIDS Watch, a federal grassroots HIV/AIDS advocacy event held in Washington, D.C.