Alumni Focus

A year after Christopher Columbus Langdell assumed the deanship of Harvard Law School in 1870 with the promise of making the school competitive and meritocratic,…

With students and faculty members joining in the celebration, a delegation from Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, a leading international law firm, came to Harvard Law School on September 18 to formally announce the establishment of the Sullivan & Cromwell Visiting Professorship of Law at HLS.

Recent Harvard Law School Graduate Jessica Beess und Chrostin '13 won a major law student writing competition with her paper, "Mandatory Arbitration Clauses in Donative Instruments: A Taxonomy of Disputes and Type-Differentiated Analysis." The contest was sponsored by the Real Property, Trust and Estate Law section of the American Bar Association.

Harvard Law School alum Margaret Stock '92 is one of 24 recipients of the 2013 MacArthur Fellowship, more commonly known as the MacArthur "Genius Award". Stock is an immigration attorney with a focus on improving the immigration system through direct representation, policy-based advocacy and an emphasis on the idea that immigration does not threaten national security.

Harvard Law School will host more than 600 alumnae this weekend as part of "Celebration 60," a reunion event to mark the 60th anniversary of the first women graduates of Harvard Law School. The three-day event, which will be held Sept. 27 to 29 on the law school campus, is part of a worldwide women's leadership summit of Harvard Law School alumnae, titled "Leaders for Change—Women Transforming our Communities and the World."

Not many judges have served on every court in their home state. And not many have been on the bench for nearly 40 years. But Harvard Law School alum Robert Bell ’69 has an even more unusual distinction: He serves on a court that at one time ruled against him.

Detlev Frederick Vagts '51, a renowned scholar of international law at Harvard Law School and one of the world's foremost experts on transnational business problems and the laws affecting international commerce, died Aug. 20. Vagts' career at Harvard Law School spanned more than 50 years.

Samantha Power ’99, who has served as an adviser to President Barack Obama ’91 on foreign policy and national security, won confirmation Thursday as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

The Harvard Law School Library Blog, “Et Seq.,” frequently publishes historical documents and images from the law school’s archives. For a recent post, they showcased a historical image of the editorial board of Volume 51 of the Harvard Law Review celebrating a successful year outside of Austin Hall.

“The Morphine Dream,” by Donald L. Brown ’89, with Gary S. Chafetz (Bettie Youngs Books). The title of this memoir is literal—and relates to Harvard Law School. While on morphine, recovering from an operation meant to restore his ability to walk after an accident, the author imagined he would graduate from the school. And walk across the country. His doctor thought he was delirious. After all, Brown had few prospects and only a ninth-grade education. But the dream did indeed come true; he tells the story of his long walk both literal and metaphorical.

Rachel Brand ’98 is leading the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s campaign to roll back government regulations while also serving as a charter member of a government Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board.

Back before students could get their readings in a digital format and listen to them on their computers, Joseph F. Nocca ’55, legally blind since childhood, found his own way to get through his law school assignments. A friend from college, Arthur J. Greenbaum ’55, also enrolled at HLS, offered to take the same classes as Nocca and read all the material to him aloud.

The CEO of TIAA-CREF and former vice chair of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve talks about his dreams—and the reality of helping others realize theirs.

On May 30th, Shannon Liss-Riordan ’96 opened The Just Crust, a worker-owned pizza restaurant that came as a result of a class-action lawsuit against Boston chain, The Upper Crust Pizzeria. Liss-Riordan is hoping to turn the infamous case accusing the pizza chain of stealing workers’ wages into an example of how giving employees a voice can be both fulfilling and profitable.

If you really want to improve your legal writing, says Harvard Law School alum Mark Yohalem '05, try writing a video game. A prosecutor at the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles with a Supreme Court clerkship under his belt, Yohalem has written more than 20 short stories and seven computer games in his free time.

Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform from 2009 to 2011, answers questions about the Affordable Care Act.

When you next have a free moment online, visit the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Digital Suite, launched by the Harvard Law School Library early…

Many Harvard Law School alumni have been extraordinarily successful, many have lived unusual lives, and not a few have done both—including Morgan Chu ’76, one of the most successful IP lawyers in the world, who, along with his wife, Helen, is endowing in perpetuity the dean’s chair at HLS. Dean Martha Minow will be honored as the inaugural Morgan and Helen Chu Dean’s Professor.

In recognition of their commitment to public interest and social justice work, Harvard Law School alums Stephanie Davidson ’13 and Laurel Firestone ’04 were named this year’s recipients of the Gary Bellow Public Service Award.

Sixteen public service visionaries and social entrepreneurs from Harvard Law School have been selected as the inaugural recipients of grants from the Public Service Venture Fund, a unique program which will award up to $1 million each year to help graduating Harvard Law students and recent graduates obtain their ideal jobs in public service—even if those jobs don’t yet exist. At the same time that it announced the recipients of the new Public Service Venture Fund, the Law School also announced the winners of three other fellowships for public service/public interest post-graduate work: the Skirnick Fellowships, the Kaufman fellowships, and the One Day's Work Fellowships.