Alumni Focus

Childhood friends train together to fight Uganda’s draconian anti-gay laws

On April 20, Harvard Law School honored two members of its community—Donna Harati ’15 and Laura Maslow-Armand ’92—with the Gary Bellow Public Service Award, established in 2001 to recognize commitment to public interest work.

Loretta Lynch ’84 becomes the 83rd attorney general of the United States.

Mitt Romney ’75, former Massachusetts governor and Republican presidential nominee, visiting Harvard Law School (HLS) for a QandA session hosted by Dean Martha Minow, encouraged a renewed civility in politics and society, emphasizing the difference one person can make through serving others.

Jim Koch ’71, JD/MBA ’78, founder and chairman of the Boston Beer Company and creator of its flagship Samuel Adams brew, shared the story of his unique journey with students when he returned to Harvard Law School on March 6 for a conversation with Dean Martha Minow.

In advance of his visit to campus this week, the Harvad Gazette spoke with Lawrence Levy '83 about his transition from the corporate world (as CFO of Pixar Animation) to the nonprofit one, co-founding the Juniper Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to bringing meditation to contemporary life.

In a question-and-answer session with Dean Martha Minow at Harvard Law School on Nov. 6, former Congressman Jane Harman '69 reflected on her political career and discussed a range of issues from the fallout from the midterm elections to U.S. intelligence, foreign policy and the evolving threat of terrorism.

Every two years, the Harvard Law School Association appoints a new president to oversee an organization aimed at fostering engagement and community among the nearly 38,000 alumni living in 148 countries around the world.

“Phoning Home: Essays,” by Jacob M. Appel ’02 (South Carolina) Tapping into his background as a doctor, lawyer, and bioethicist—and his personal background and family experiences—Appel writes on subjects ranging from his secret prank calling of his parents (in the title essay) to his favorite psychiatric patient (upon their final parting, they share a mutual desire never to see each other again). He also tackles social issues such as opting out of end-of-life medical care. Throughout, the author shares emotions and insights with a humorous and skeptical perspective.

When Bryan Cressey J.D./M.B.A. ’76, a native of Seattle, was putting himself through the University of Washington by working at a conveyor-belt company, he grew intrigued by the “go-go era of the ’60s,” as he puts it, when business innovators such as James J. Ling were creating giant conglomerates. Cressey decided he wanted to build companies and applied to the J.D./M.B.A. program at Harvard. From his first job in 1976 with a venture capital firm in Chicago; to four years later co-founding Golder, Thoma & Cressey (later Golder, Thoma, Cressey, Rauner); to the present, Cressey’s leadership in industry consolidation with a particular expertise in the health care and medical services fields has been recognized by Fortune and Time magazines, among many other publications.

From rethinking how venture capital firms meet their legal needs to focusing on broadening access to legal services for all people, Sarah Reed '91 has been a pragmatic innovator.

Until last spring, scores of destitute people—virtually all of them African-Americans—were locked up in the city jail of Montgomery, Alabama, for traffic tickets they couldn’t pay, sentenced to a day in jail for every $50 they owed. They could earn a $25 credit daily by providing free labor, scrubbing blood and feces off jail floors and cleaning buildings.

On the second floor of the City-County Building in Madison, Wisconsin, there now hangs the portrait of a man named Nathan Dane. The same steady gaze examines visitors 1,100 miles away as they step off the elevator on the fourth floor in Langdell Hall at Harvard Law School.

Do recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on class actions mean less security in numbers?

A nonprofit law firm whose clients have ranged from Hobby Lobby to a Santeria priest

Twenty-two years. That’s how long Tom Mela ’68 and his colleagues fought the Boston Public Schools in a class-action lawsuit over huge backlogs in providing special education to students with disabilities.

It’s not often that Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow gets rattled. But then, it’s not every day that Clive Davis, the legendary record label executive, producer, and talent nurturer, stops by Wasserstein Hall to reminisce about his illustrious, six-decade career in the music industry.

Benjamin B. Ferencz ’43, known for his role as chief prosecutor in the Nuremburg Trials and for his work promoting an international rule of law and the creation of an International Criminal Court, has been awarded Harvard Law School’s highest honor: the Medal of Freedom.

Lacey Schwartz ’03 will return to Cambridge this weekend to speak about her new documentary “Little White Lie,” showing Saturday Nov. 15 and 17 as part of the Boston Jewish Film Festival. The film traces her personal story of being raised as a white Jewish girl in Woodstock, N.Y., only to find out as a young adult that her biological father was an African-American man with whom her mother had an affair.

Harvard Law School graduates across the country won political victories as part of the nation’s midterm elections. Rep. Tom Cotton ’02 (R-Ark.) successfully challenged two-term…