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The future of Harvard Law School is emerging on Massachusetts Avenue, like a present waiting to be opened. Slated to be completed in December 2011, the environmentally friendly, 250,000-square-foot complex—with an academic building that will support the innovations in teaching that have been introduced into the school’s curriculum, an expansive student center and a new centralized home for the school’s burgeoning clinical program—is already revealing its handsome facade now that much of the scaffolding has come down.

A white tern in the tropical Pacific, photographed by Theodore Cross ’50 for “Waterbirds” (W. W. Norton, 2009). Nature magazine called the book “extraordinary.” The…

Jack Cogan ’52 jokes that he resides “in the shadow of Harvard,” having moved back to the Square after living in Lexington for years. A graduate of Harvard College (’49) and Harvard Law School, he’s had a long engagement with the school and the university, serving on the Visiting Committee and supporting HLS—including most recently its international programs.

Two Harvard Law School professors have been appointed to faculty chair positions: Jody Freeman LL.M. ’91 S.J.D. ’95 is the Archibald Cox Professor of Law, and Henry Smith is the Fessenden Professor of Law. Freeman and Smith took their new chairs on July 1.

Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain ’95, a leading scholar on the legal and policy issues surrounding the Internet, adds to his law school post a joint appointment to the faculty of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) as Professor of Computer Science. Zittrain is a co-founder of the university’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

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.