Media Mentions

The World Bank can be sued when its overseas investments go awry. And so can some other international organizations. That is the clear message from the U.S. Supreme Court, which last week issued a 7-1 decision in Jam v. International Finance Corporation, ruling for the first time that international financial institutions, including various branches of the bank and other U.S.-based organizations like the Inter-American Development Bank, can be subject to lawsuits in cases where their investments in foreign development projects are alleged to have caused harm to local communities. ..."This decision certainly opens the door for more lawsuits," says Mark Wu, an international trade law scholar at Harvard Law School, who was not involved in the suit. "It may cause [international financial institutions] to be more cautious in the operations of the projects themselves." Wu added that the new legal liability might make the World Bank think twice about whether to fund projects that could come with high environmental or social risks.

There are times in life that you know something when you see it. In competitive sports, a very talented player usually stands out above the others. I can identify within seconds whether I will dislike the food at a restaurant based on the smell. Social media has become a significant part of the daily landscape of society. There is interaction, information-sharing, debate, discussion, vitriol, harassment, and a lot of people exhibiting the Dunning-Kruger Effect.  ...The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University published a collection of essays entitled Perspectives on Harmful Speech Online. In the essay "The Multiple Harms of Sea Lions," Amy Johnson writes: Rhetorically, sealioning fuses persistent questioning—often about basic information, information on easily found elsewhere, or unrelated or tangential points—with a loudly-insisted-upon commitment to reasonable debate. It disguises itself as a sincere attempt to learn and communicate. Sealioning thus works both to exhaust a target’s patience, attention, and communicative effort, and to portray the target as unreasonable. While the questions of the “sea lion” may seem innocent, they’re intended maliciously and have harmful consequences.

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., questioned former lawyer Michael Cohen about his knowledge of President Donald Trump's financial history, she may have laid the groundwork for future prosecution of the president. ...According to Laurence H. Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard, "it appears that Donald Trump made a practice of wildly exaggerating his wealth and the supposed business acumen that enabled him to amass it." Tribe told Salon, "Although there are no legal and especially criminal consequences to that kind of exaggeration on reality television or in talking to journalists at places like Forbes in order to cheat one’s way onto various lists of the wealthiest people around, there are very serious criminal consequences indeed when such lies, in the form of fraudulent financial statements, are used either to extract loans from banks or to obtain insurance on favorable terms from various insurance companies."

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: President Donald Trump has indicated that he may not want to comply with a series of 81 requests sent by the House Judiciary Committee as part of a strategy of full-on investigation of the president and his associates. His reaction is understandable, but his ability to resist is much more limited than he seems to think. If the House committee issues subpoenas, as opposed to simple requests, the addressees will have a duty to comply unless the information falls within the zone of a legally recognized privilege. And the relevant possibilities, executive privilege and attorney-client privilege, don’t apply widely.

Cyberbullying is a very real problem, with thousands of British children suffering at the hands of online bullies every year, according to Ofcom statistics. In fact, a 2017 Ofcom report revealed that around one in eight young people have been bullied on social media. And among teenagers, that figure might be even higher, with McAfee research suggesting that almost half (47 per cent) of 14-18 year olds have been bullied online. ... Facebook has also worked on resources for teachers – the Digital Literacy Library – which was recently rolled out in the UK. The lessons, designed by experts at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, are built for children aged 11 to 18 years old.

Corinthian Colleges was a higher-education scam that defrauded tens of thousands of low-income students out of as much as $100 million in federally backed loans. Many are still struggling with the consequences because the Trump administration is refusing to grant them full relief from their student debt. The Securities and Exchange Commission just settled its case against Jack D. Massimino and Robert C. Owen, the leading perpetrators of this deception, for a pittance. ...“Just comparing the slap on the wrist that the executives have gotten from the SEC to the plight of the students is pretty outrageous, both in absolute and relative terms,” says Eileen Connor of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at Harvard Law School, which has been representing many of the students in court.

Employees who obtained a favorable settlement of their Wage Act claim were considered “prevailing parties” entitled to attorneys’ fees under the statute’s fee-shifting provisions, the Supreme Judicial Court has determined. ... Harvard Law School student Elizabeth Soltan, who argued on the plaintiffs’ behalf, said she hopes the decision enables more attorneys to take on Wage Act cases. ... HLAB clinical instructor Patricio S. Rossi, plaintiffs’ counsel of record, noted that it is difficult for low-wage workers to get representation for Wage Act claims because such cases typically do not involve enough money to be worthwhile for lawyers to take on contingency.

The United States responded weakly after Russian cyber operations disrupted the 2016 presidential election. US President Barack Obama had warned his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, of repercussions, but an effective reply became entangled in the domestic politics of Donald Trump’s election. That could be about to change. ... Jack Goldsmith of Harvard Law School has argued that the US needs to draw a principled line and defend it. That defense would acknowledge that the US has itself interfered in elections, renounce such behavior, and pledge not to engage in it again. The US should also acknowledge that it continues to engage in forms of computer network exploitation for purposes it deems legitimate. And officials should “state precisely the norm that the United States pledges to stand by and that the Russians have violated.”

In the 1980s, China was beginning a long economic boom that would transform the global trading system, and Michael Korchmar decided to go there to launch a joint venture. He quickly soured on the country. ...Consider this: China has more companies in the Fortune 500 than any country except the United States. More than half of those firms are controlled by a single government agency, the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, wrote Harvard law professor Mark Wu, in a 2016 article, "The 'China, Inc.' Challenge To Global trade Governance." ... "The closest analogue would be if, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. Treasury Department set up a single government entity to act as the controlling shareholder of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo," Wu wrote. Even when a company has no explicit ties to the government or the party, executives must work hard to stay in Beijing's good graces, if they want their companies to have access to the best contracts, Wu says. "People understand what the objectives are and they'll operate within those confines," he says.

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: Impeachment investigation without actual impeachment: That’s the strategy House Democrats have unveiled for taking on Donald Trump for the 20 months until the 2020 presidential elections. The Michael Cohen hearings last week were, apparently, just the first salvo. On Monday, the House Judiciary Committee requested documents from 81 agencies, organizations and individuals connected to the president. The committee under Chairman Jerrold Nadler is preparing to leave no stone in Trump’s life unturned. This investigative barrage solves a political problem for the Democrats, namely the danger that impeaching Trump would not lead to his being removed by the Senate and might instead help him win re-election, by energizing his supporters.

The difficulty of covering the Trump administration is that the scandals are so numerous and frequent that it is nearly impossible to focus on one before being overtaken by another. ... Perhaps the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission were deciding these cases on the merits. But T-Mobile executives seem to have gotten the message that they can influence antitrust proceedings by currying favor with the president: They dramatically increased their patronage at the Trump hotel in Washington as soon as they announced a merger with Sprint. If Trump misused his authority to reward his friends in the media and punish his enemies, Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein argues, that would be an impeachable offense.

We’re joined by Harvard law professor and former presidential candidate Lawrence Lessig for a conversation about the power of money in politics, specifically, the money primary. He’ll be in Rochester as a guest of SUNY Geneseo, but first, he’s our guest on Connections.

After our article on Jan. 19 about three marriages from a Harvard Law School section, Richard J. Lazarus wrote The Times. Professor Lazarus, who also teaches first-year law students at Harvard, applauded the newlyweds and his friend and colleague Jon Hanson, the head of that featured section (1L, Section 6).  But as a member of the Class of 1979 and as someone familiar with all things Harvard Law, Professor Lazarus also wanted to alert us to an even higher romantic bar set by 1L, Section 3: Six couples not only married from that section, but — drum roll please — they are all still married. “I am happy to report that, 40 years later, all six couples are still intact,” said Professor Lazarus, who refers to that section as “the love section.” (Professor Lazarus was a student in Section 4 that year.)

Before the vote, Maryland Del. Charles E. Sydnor III had planned to rise to explain why he would cast a ballot to censure his colleague, a fellow Democrat who began her state legislative career with him five years ago. ... Sydnor was one of 137 members of the House of Delegates who, on the final day of Black History Month, took the rare action of censuring Del. Mary Ann Lisanti (Harford) for conduct that “brought dishonor to the entire General Assembly of Maryland.” The revelation Monday that Lisanti, a white lawmaker, had described an area of Prince George’s County as a “n----- district,” sent feelings of hurt, shock, anger and disgust through the State House, across Maryland and into Prince George’s, a community long hailed as a mecca of the black middle class. ... “It is the most notorious racial-ethnic-group slur in the American language, and that is saying something because the American language is filled with slurs,” said Harvard Law professor Randall L. Kennedy.

The graffiti showed up on the door of a Harvard University building last week: “Our rage is self-defense,” and “Whose side are you on?” The unexpected target was Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., who is an accomplished lawyer, the director of Harvard’s criminal-law clinic and the first African-American to be appointed as a faculty dean. Earlier this year, Mr. Sullivan joined a team of lawyers representing the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who heads to trial in June in Manhattan on rape and related charges. ... In his first public remarks, Mr. Sullivan said in a phone interview on Monday that he did not anticipate the level of backlash he has received. He has a long history of taking on high-profile and, at times, controversial clients, as well as representing students who have been victims of sexual assault, he said. “Lawyers are not an extension of their clients,” Mr. Sullivan said. “Lawyers do law work, not the work of ideology. When I’m in my lawyer capacity, representing a client, even one publicly vilified, it doesn’t mean I’m supporting anything the client may have done.” ... But many of Mr. Sullivan’s colleagues have come to his defense. Dozens of law professors from the university on Feb. 14 sent a letter to the college in support of Mr. Sullivan. On Feb. 28, The Chronicle of Higher Education published an article by Randall Kennedy, a Harvard law professor, who wrote: “Those calling for Sullivan’s resignation or dismissal as a faculty dean solely because he is serving as Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer in a rape prosecution are displaying an array of disturbingly widespread tendencies.

The legal battle over who’s at fault for the opioid crisis, which involves more than 1,600 lawsuits in federal and state courts, could get even more complicated soon, with OxyContin manufacturer Purdue Pharma reportedly considering filing for bankruptcy. ...The idea is to produce a resolution in a faster, more focused manner than would be the case in civil court. And even if plaintiffs only receive a fraction of what they are owed, the aim is to get everyone a piece of the pie. Otherwise, different plaintiffs might try to accelerate their own efforts so they can take the full amount owed to them, leaving little for other plaintiffs. “If [a company] has to pay cases as they were finalized, the plaintiff that had reached a resolution in its case earlier might get paid in full, but there would be nothing left for anyone else,” said Jesse Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School.

An op-ed by Stephen L. Carter:  If you’re able to shift your attention for a moment from the drama being played out in Washington, take a moment to worry about the drama being played out in Cambridge, where a professor at Harvard Law School is under fire for choosing to represent an unpopular client. The professor in question is Ronald Sullivan, an experienced criminal defense lawyer, and the client in question is Harvey Weinstein, which of course means that the fat was in the fire from the first. For signing on to defend one of the most hated men in America, Sullivan (so say a group of Harvard students) should no longer be permitted to serve as a faculty dean of Winthrop House, one of several residence halls for Harvard undergraduates. Ron Sullivan is a friend of long standing, and one of the most generous and decent men I have ever known. The things his critics are saying about him have nothing to do with what kind of person he is; they all stem from his choice of clients. So let’s focus on that.

More than four years ago, Liat Malka waited anxiously for a sperm sample from a deceased man she had never met to fertilize her solitary egg in a hospital petri dish. ... Historically, reproduction has remained sensitive in the U.S. because of the politicization of abortion rights, experts say. Further, Shelly Simana, an Israeli doctoral degree candidate at Harvard Law School, said that posthumous reproduction presents an especially off-putting predicament for Americans since they tend to “not like to think about death.” The American Society for Reproductive Medicine ethics committee has mirrored the Israeli guidelines prioritizing the spouse over parents of the deceased and requiring a waiting period before the material can be used. But because laws in this realm are inconsistent and difficult to enforce, there have been several cases of parents using their deceased children’s genetic material to create a child, said Simana.

An op-ed by Randall Kennedy: Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. is the faculty dean of Winthrop House, one of the 12 undergraduate dormitories in which most students live during their final three years at Harvard College. The faculty deans are mentors, guardians, and counselors — truly in loco parentis. They are responsible for their house’s overall social environment and manage a staff charged with facilitating the well-being of the students. Sullivan, the first black faculty dean at Harvard, is also a clinical professor at Harvard Law School, where I have taught for over three decades. In addition to those roles, Sullivan engages in private legal practice. He helped win an acquittal in the double-murder prosecution of the professional football player Aaron Hernandez (a convicted murderer in a different case, who eventually committed suicide). He represented the family of Michael Brown, whose death at the hands of a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., fueled the Black Lives Matter movement. At the invitation of the Brooklyn district attorney, he designed and adopted a conviction-review program that freed scores of improperly imprisoned people. Sullivan is, in short, an imposing, deeply respected figure in the legal community.

In a groundbreaking announcement, the House Judiciary Committee has opened a far-reaching investigation into President Trump and his associates ...“Of all the scandals that have enveloped the Trump administration, the one theme that keeps returning time and again is his attempt to politicize law enforcement,” says former Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller. “This is just another example of how he sees DOJ as his personal enforcement agent, there to punish his enemies and reward his friends, and it is the grossest abuse of power possible.” Constitutional scholar Larry Tribe agrees, telling me, “If Trump did order Cohn to take that action, it would’ve been a clear abuse of presidential power in violation of the First Amendment.”

The law professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. is among the most accomplished people at Harvard. He has helped to overturn scores of wrongful convictions and to free thousands from wrongful incarceration. ... Sullivan faces this “clamor of popular suspicions and prejudices” because he agreed to act as a criminal-defense attorney for an object of scorn and hatred: Harvey Weinstein. ... Catharine MacKinnon, Harvard’s James Barr Ames Visiting Professor of Law, emailed: The issue is not whether Ron can represent reviled clients accused of crimes and still be the faculty dean of a college. Of course he can. The issue is substantive. ...The Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig echoes the argument that it’s possible to be a survivor of sexual assault and feel comfortable with Sullivan’s choice. ...“The skills, capacities, and dispositions that would help to make a person a valued defense counsel are also the skills, capacities, and dispositions that would help to make a person a valued Faculty Dean,” [Randall Kennedy] argued.  ... The Harvard professor Jeannie Suk Gersen emailed me her concerns with such “processes”: "Professor Sullivan has chosen to represent and defend persons whom many people would not defend. Strong disagreement with those choices is of course part of the exploration of differences of principle and opinion that we’d hope for in a university." ... “Little more than half a century ago, mainstream lawyers were frightened away from defending alleged Communists who faced congressional witch hunts, blacklisting, criminal trials, and even execution,” Harvard Law’s Alan Dershowitz wrote. ... The Harvard professor Janet Halley calls Harvard’s actions “deeply disturbing.” She explained in an email: The right to counsel even for the most despised defendants, the basic role of counsel in our legal order, the presumption of innocence, academic freedom, and the right of University employees to assist persons accused in the University’s Title IX proceedings—are all implicated here. ... The Harvard law professor Scott Westfahl, however, defended the idea of a climate review, also by email. ... “We are all better off as a result,” and he noted, “I completely support the right of Professor Sullivan, an extremely talented defense lawyer, to take on a very difficult case. Should Mr. Weinstein be convicted, there will be absolutely no doubt that he received a fair hearing with the best possible defense counsel.”