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The academic work of the Harvard Law School faculty is downloaded from the online database of the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) more frequently than that of any other law school faculty, according to the popular law blog, Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports. Works by HLS faculty were downloaded 107,591 times during the period studied for the survey.

The following op-ed, “Trial by Firefighters,” co-written by HLS Professor Lani Guinier and Columbia Law Professor Susan Sturm, was published in the July 11, 2009, edition of The New York Times. They are also the co-authors of “Who’s Qualified: A New Democracy Forum on the Future of Affirmative Action” (Beacon Press, 2001).

In a diploma ceremony on June 4, 731 members of the Class of 2009 received degrees from Harvard Law School: 567 J.D.s, 151 LL.M.s and 13 S.J.D.s. While the new graduates now all share a common alma mater, the diversity of experiences that brought them to law school and the opportunities they took advantage of while at HLS were very different. Here is a look at some members of the graduating class.

John C. Coates, the John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics at HLS, issued a set of recommended reforms regarding the regulation of mutual funds, in June. The recommendations were made to the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, an independent and nonpartisan organization whose research is aimed at improving financial regulations and practices.

The following op-ed by Harvard Law school Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’81 S.J.D. ’84, “The fall of the toxic assets plan,” appeared in the July 9, 2009, edition of the Wall Street Journal.

As the ground shifts, an expert evaluates the role of litigation.

A major research project from Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society’s Internet and Democracy Project has lent enormous insight into the previously unexplored flow of online communication in the Middle East and North Africa. The study, “Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture and Dissent,” comes at a time of tremendous political unrest and electronic activism in the Middle East.

Assistant Professors of Law I. Glenn Cohen ’03 and Benjamin Roin ’05 are the new co-directors of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. Professor Einer Elhauge ’86, who has served as faculty director since the Center’s founding in 2005, will remain associated with the research program as its Founding Director.

In a follow up to their May 21, 2009, Financial Times’ op-ed, Harvard Law School Professor Mark Roe ’75 and New York University School of Law Professor Michael Levine discuss how to make a petrol tax politically viable. Their op-ed appeared in the July 7, 2009 edition of the Financial Times.

Susan Cole, HLS Lecturer on Law and director of the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative Clinic at the WilmerHale Legal Services Center at HLS, was interviewed in the Washington Post on the Supreme Court’s recent special education ruling in Forest Grove School District v. T.A.  The Q&A, “The Special Education Ruling,” with Cole and the Post’s Stacey Garfinkle appeared in the July 6, 2009 edition of Washington Post.

The following op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith, “Defend America, one laptop at a time,” appeared in the July 1, 2009, edition of the New York Times.

As the global economy continues to reel, the key question is how to prevent a crash from happening again. Accountability is key, experts agree, and HLS faculty have been quoted daily in newspapers and online over the past few months on how to keep the economy out of trouble in the future.

In March, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of a crackdown on protests in Tibetan regions in China, people across the PRC found they couldn’t access YouTube—which had hosted videos of the protests the year before.

In 2007, when Erika Rickard was a 2L at Harvard Law, same-sex marriage had been legal in Massachusetts for more than three years. By that…

When Ariel Rothstein ’10 and Andrew Freedman ’10 spotted the whirling blue lights of a patrol car behind them as they drove through rural Texas in January, they assumed they had been driving too fast.

What if the government forced all citizens to get genetic testing to find out if they were carriers of a deadly disease such as Tay-Sachs? “Any constitutional problem with that?” I. Glenn Cohen ’03 asks the 25 students in his popular course, Genetics and Reproductive Technology: Legal and Ethical Issues, as he paces before the blackboard in a Hauser classroom.

Howard and Abby Milstein met while students at HLS. Both serve on the Executive Committee of the Dean’s Advisory Board, and on the boards of numerous philanthropic, civic and professional organizations. The Bulletin’s Margaret Salinger spoke with the couple at Howard Milstein’s offices in New York City.

Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84 will be writing a monthly column for Project Syndicate, an international association of 425 newspapers in 150 countries, with a total circulation of about 56 million papers. Bebchuk’s series of monthly commentaries, titled “The Rules of the Game,” will focus on finance and corporate governance.