Media Mentions

In the past year, I’ve been on a mission to pester as many people in my life as possible. The first victim was my editor, whom I abruptly asked one morning to stop messaging me about story ideas on our office’s chat platform, Slack. Instead, I said, let’s talk the ideas out over the phone. ... Guhan Subramanian, the director of the Harvard Program on Negotiation, which teaches business- and law-school students the finer points of conflict resolution, argues that spoken conversation accomplishes far more in a shorter amount of time. In any discussion, “people are asking questions, probing, asking follow-up questions,” he says. “It’s obviously a lot easier to do when you’re over the phone or in person, compared to by email or text.”

Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley is introducing a resolution to open an impeachment inquiry over new and expanded allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. We discuss what we know, what we don't, and where we go from here. Guests: ... Nancy Gertner, WBUR legal analyst, retired federal judge, senior lecturer at Harvard Law School.

An op-ed by Evelyn Douek [S.J.D. candidate and affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society]: You won’t like Facebook’s new Oversight Board. Yesterday, the social-media giant unveiled its “charter” for a 40-person board with the power to review the company’s decisions about which content can appear on Facebook-owned platforms and which rules it applies when taking postings down. Deciding which videos are too violent, which photos too racy, and which behavior too “inauthentic” is a job destined to make the board unpopular. That it can be unpopular—with users, the media, and Facebook employees alike—and still exist is precisely the point.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), in opening remarks before the testimony of Corey Lewandowski, said, “Today’s hearing is entitled ‘Presidential Obstruction of Justice and Abuse of Power.’ This hearing is the first one formally designated under the Committee’s procedures adopted last week in connection with our investigation to determine whether to recommend articles of impeachment with respect to President Trump.” ... Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe weighs in: “Communications by the president to a crony asking the latter to carry out a criminal act on the president’s behalf are covered by no privilege and subject to no immunity, and the president’s lawyers as well as the Justice Department lawyers must know as much.” He added, “Today’s spectacle was just another chapter in the ongoing criminal obstruction of justice in which this president has been engaged for well over a year, obstruction of justice designed to cover up the president’s illicit dealings with a hostile foreign power to help him acquire his office and to hold onto it.”

A New York Times piece over the weekend presented a witness account of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh allegedly sexually assaulting a young, unnamed woman while they were both in college — a new allegation in addition to those levied against the judge during his confirmation hearing last year. ... Now, some Democrats are calling for Kavanaugh’s impeachment, saying they are concerned both about continued allegations of sexual misconduct and the possibility that he may have lied under oath. ... To discuss, Jim Braude was joined by retired federal Judge Nancy Gertner, now a professor at Harvard Law School, and James Rappaport, former chair of the Massachusetts Republican Party and director of the New Boston Fund.

All things have a price – and if not, economists will find one. Researchers have calculated the going rate for thoughts and prayers offered in hard times. Rather than settling on one price for all, the study found the value of a compassionate gesture depended overwhelmingly on a person’s beliefs. While Christian participants were willing to part with money to receive thoughts and prayers from others, the idea made nonbelievers baulk. Instead of shelling out to receive the gestures, on average they were willing to pay to avoid them. ... The Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, who was the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under Barack Obama, called the study “a strong and powerful paper”.

Opening statements are arguably the most important part of a patent trial. But attorneys who tell an interesting story, stay out of the weeds and make a connection with jurors are setting themselves up for success. ... Here, experts share their tips for making a great opening statement. ... During opening statements, jurors will be hearing a lot of information for the first time. WilmerHale partner Louis Tompros said it is critical to present this information in a familiar way, preferably in the form of a simple story. Tompros said he encourages students in his patent trial advocacy course at Harvard Law School to watch movies with great opening statements. One of his favorites is the opening of Capt. Jack Ross, played by Kevin Bacon, in "A Few Good Men." Prosecuting two Marines accused of murder, Ross tells the story of the night that a fellow Marine died in his barracks room.

Elaine Chao, who serves as President Donald Trump's transportation secretary and is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is being investigated by House Democrats over accusations of conflicts of interest involving her family's shipping company. ... Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, called Chao's potential conflicts of interest "extremely serious." ... "Secretary Elaine Chao’s potential conflicts of interest that the House Democrats’ letter targets are extremely serious, especially given Chao’s proximity to the center of Republican legislative power and Senate confirmation power in her husband, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell," Tribe told Salon by email.

... But history can move in unexpected ways. Last month, 181 American chief executives issued a collective “statement on the purpose of a corporation” that abandoned their long adherence to shareholder primacy. Instead, the group – which was organised by the Business Roundtable under the leadership of Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan – pledged “a fundamental commitment to all our stakeholders”. ... In universities, economists such as Eugene Fama declared that free markets were the only valid engine of growth and value, while law professors such as Lucian Bebchuk insisted corporate boards had no right to ever overrule investors, however short-term their focus. ... Shareholder rights are essential for keeping managers and directors accountable,” insists Bebchuk, who often exchanged bitter words with Lipton.

Purdue Pharma, the company that made billions selling the prescription painkiller OxyContin, filed for bankruptcy days after reaching a tentative settlement with many of the state and local governments suing it over the toll of opioids. The filing late Sunday night in White Plains, New York, was anticipated before and after the tentative deal, which could be worth up to $12 billion over time, was announced last week. ... The bankruptcy means Purdue will likely be removed from the first federal opioid trial, scheduled to start in Cleveland on Oct. 21. According to Harvard Law Professor Mark Roe, an expert on corporate bankruptcy, anyone who wants money from Purdue will now have to go through the bankruptcy court.

An article by Noah Feldman: Tuesday, Britain’s Supreme Court will start a pivotal hearing related to Brexit. What it decides could tell us just how aggressive judicial review has gotten, and how far it’s spread from its foundations in the U.S.. Over the last 50 years, the American practice of judicial review has made its way around the world. It has become increasingly common for judges in constitutional systems to see themselves as the final decision-makers on constitutional legitimacy.

An article by Cass Susntein: What is the role of chance in human life? If a book tops the bestseller list, if a new product takes over the market, or if people suddenly want to stem immigration, might it all be some kind of accident? Over a decade ago, a celebrated paper by sociologists Matthew Salganik, Peter Dodds and Duncan Watts tried to answer such questions. They asked: When a song turns out to be a spectacular success, is it because it’s really great, or is it just because the right number of people, at an early stage, were seen to like it?

In her new memoir, “Education of an Idealist,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning academic and diplomat Samantha Power describes the “immense warmth” of Joe Biden, whom she worked with during the Obama administration. Power, who served as Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, didn’t agree with Biden on every issue but had a good relationship with the then-vice president. “He was blunt and demonstrative. He could go on too long. But he seemed to see the value of each person he met, irrespective of their status,” she wrote. In a new interview, Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer asked Power whether she’s supporting Biden’s presidential bid. Widely considered the front-runner in the race for the Democratic nomination, Biden had the highest favorability rating among Democrats, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. “I'm not in the endorsement business. But I have great affection for Vice President Biden,” said Power, who’s currently a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School.

In the first hour of Donald Trump’s presidency, the newly appointed administration wiped Barack Obama’s administration’s climate and energy pages from the White House website, replacing them with the America First Energy Plan, which mostly focused on “clean coal”. A few weeks later, the EPA’s website was stripped of any mention of climate change at all. ... Caitlin McCoy, a climate, clean air, and energy fellow at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program who keeps track of the Trump administration rollbacks, says these lawsuits are kind of the point. “The Trump administration is trying to transform our fundamental environmental laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act by proposing new interpretations of the laws, through these new regulations, that dramatically limit EPA’s authority, and the authority of states in some cases as well,” she told The Independent.

An op-ed by Charles Fried: In 1865, in Ex parte Garland, the Supreme Court ruled that the president’s pardon power, granted in Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, was absolute: Once exercised it could not be reversed, and therefore, because of his presidential pardon, former Confederate Senator Augustus Garland was beyond the reach of punishment or disqualifications for his past crimes. In that case, President Andrew Johnson, against the evident wishes of the Republican Reconstruction Congress, had pardoned Garland, one of many former Confederate politicians. It is a logical entailment of that ruling that the pardon power cannot be subject to prior legal constraints or limits on its valid exercise. Thus, though President Trump has blatantly ignored the procedures established to examine the propriety and circumstances of its exercise (there is in the Justice Department a pardon attorney who, with a staff, documents the relevant grounds for granting a pardon and makes recommendations based on past practice regarding its exercise), his pardon, once granted, as in the case of Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, cannot be undone.

An op-ed by Sharon Block and Benjamin Sachs: The struggle for gig workers’ rights took a big step forward this week when the California legislature passed a law classifying many such workers—including Uber and Lyft drivers—as “employees.” Once it is signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), the law will grant workers in California critical protections such as minimum wage, overtime pay, workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance — all of which they currently lack. Uber has vowed to fight application of the law to its drivers through litigation or repeal by referendum. It’s a significant victory for the gig workers, and California’s move could lead other states to act, but there’s a problem. It’s that the new law fails to offer gig workers one of the most important employment rights of all: the right to form a union. As important as minimum wage and overtime pay are, they are minimum protections that fall far short of ensuring that workers earn what they need; only a union and a collective bargaining agreement enable workers to demand and secure anything beyond these minimum standards. But even more important, a substantial body of economic research confirms that basic workplace protections are adequately enforced only when there’s a union on the scene.

IIt was a Saturday night in May 2018 in Fox Hill, N.Y., and the Notre Dame political-science professor Patrick Deneen was talking about his garden. The occasion was a conference called “Beyond Liberalism,” organized around Deneen’s unlikely bestseller, Why Liberalism Failed (Yale University Press, 2018). The setting was the mess hall of a “Bruderhof” intentional community, patterned on those established by Christian pacifists in the wake of World War I. ... In the year and a half since the conference, other writers who have staked out public positions on the nonliberal right include the Harvard law professor Adrian Vermeule, the First Things editor R.R. Reno, the former Washington Examiner managing editor Helen Andrews, and the University of Dallas assistant professor of political science — and deputy editor of the journal American Affairs — Gladden Pappin. One might add Mary Ann Glendon, the Harvard law professor and former ambassador to the Vatican, who in July was named the head of President Trump’s Commission on Unalienable Rights. (The commission includes professors from Stanford, the University of South Carolina, the University of California at Irvine, and Notre Dame.)

The Trump administration on Thursday announced the repeal of a major Obama-era clean water regulation that had placed limits on polluting chemicals that could be used near streams, wetlands and other bodies of water. The rollback of the 2015 measure, known as the Waters of the United States rule, adds to a lengthy list of environmental rules that the administration has worked to weaken or undo over the past two and a half years. ...  Under the provisions of the Clean Water Act, legal challenges must be heard in Federal District Court, which is based at the state level, rather than federal appeals court. Richard J. Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard Law School, said that meant that opponents of the Trump administration would focus their challenges in states they perceived as friendly. “It’s going to be chaos,” Mr. Lazarus said. “We’re going to see suits brought all over the country.”

How should American leaders use their power on the global stage? Former United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power spent her career in journalism and diplomacy contemplating this question. Her new memoir is called “The Education of an Idealist.” We hear from her, and we also speak with Raj Kumar. Kumar has worked on “researching and writing about aid interventions in the developing world,” throughout his life, according to Vox., and is the president of Devex, a media platform for people and organizations working in global development. How much foreign interference is too much? How can more economically powerful countries best assist those that are still developing? And should they? We talk about those questions and more. Guests: Samantha Power, Professor of Practice in Human Rights, Harvard Law School; former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; author of “The Education of an Idealist”; @SamanthaJPower. Raj Kumar, Founding president and editor-in-chief of Devex; author of “The Business of Changing the World”;

CNN reports on the House Judiciary Committee’s vote on impeachment rules, “Thursday’s vote, which does not need to be approved by the full House, gives Nadler the ability to deem committee hearings as impeachment hearings. It allows staff to question witnesses at those hearings for an hour after members conclude, gives the President’s lawyers the ability to respond in writing to public testimony and allows the committee to collect information in a closed setting.” ...  After a period of quiet, the resolution signals impeachment is very much on the table. Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe explains, “Today’s resolution marks an important milestone in the all-but-inexorable march toward President Trump’s eventual impeachment for ‘high Crimes’ against the United States — abuses of power that involve not only obstruction of justice and defiance of the rule of law but compromising entanglements with hostile foreign powers and, to put it simply, greedy and corrupt rip-offs of hard-working American taxpayers.” He adds, “Two particularly significant procedural features of the resolution are its provisions for direct participation by the president’s lawyers and by expert legal staff for the committee.”  

Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe said Donald Trump will have to "face the music" after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Friday revived a lawsuit alleging the president is violating the Constitution with his business entanglements. The three-judge panel ruled 2 to 1 to throw out a lower court ruling dismissing the lawsuit, sending the case back for further proceedings. The lawsuit argues that Trump failed to comply with the Constitution's emoluments clause by profiting from domestic and foreign officials who visit his hotels and restaurants. The plaintiffs in the case cite several examples of foreign government officials, like the Embassy of Kuwait, choosing to stay at Trump's properties over other venues while visiting the U.S. "It seems to me that now we're really cooking with gas in terms of holding the president's feet to the fire of the emoluments clause," Tribe told Newsweek on Friday shortly after the court's decision. Tribe is part of the legal team suing the president. The case was originally filed by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and other private groups.