Alumni Focus

Today, President Barack Obama ’91 nominated former Harvard Law School Dean and current Solicitor General Elena Kagan ’86 to the seat vacated by retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the United States Supreme Court.

Senior Foreign Policy Adviser in the Obama Administration and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Samantha Power ’99 will be the 2010 Class Day speaker at HLS. Selected by this year’s Class Marshals, Power will address graduates on May 26 as part of Class Day.

Sumner M. Redstone '47 has donated $1 million to be used by Harvard College and Harvard Law School to establish scholarships for 30 students committed to public service. 

Harvard Law School students Michael Admirand ’10, Cori Crider ’06, and Jacob Howard ’09 each received the Gary Bellow Public Service Award for their commitment to public interest and social justice work at an award ceremony on April 9.

Winners of Harvard Law School’s 57th annual Williston Competition, Harvard’s annual contract negotiation and drafting competition for first-year law students, were announced on April 5. 

Edith Ramirez ’92 was sworn in as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission in April. Nominated by President Barack Obama ’91, she joins a five-member commission that works against deceptive advertising and enforces adherence to antitrust law.

"War Don Don," a film directed Rebecca Richman Cohen '07, will be shown at this year’s Independent Film Festival in Boston on April 24 at 2:30 p.m. at the Somerville Theater. The film examines the aftermath of the civil war in Sierra Leone and how the international justice system tries to address the atrocities that were committed, documenting the trial of Issa Sesay, a former rebel leader who eventually played a role in the peace negotiations.

Harvard Law School students interested in international law had an opportunity to hear a diverse array of speakers with first-hand experience at the 2010 Harvard International Law Journal Symposium Friday, April 2.

As an impoverished youth in Kenya, Chris Mburu LL.M.’93 was threatened with expulsion from his primary school because he couldn’t afford the fees. A woman named Hilde Back decided to help, and wrote a check for $15 dollars to sponsor the Kenyan student for one term. Little did she know just how much Mburu’s life would be changed.

On March 8, Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli ’91 returned to Harvard Law School to discuss the Department of Justice’s new violence against women initiative. Perrelli’s visit marked the first stop on a month-long college campus tour sponsored by DOJ.

The Citizen Media Law Project, joined by the Public Participation Project, the Online News Association, and the Chicago Current, submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Illinois Supreme Court this week, urging the Court to reject two lower courts’ narrow interpretations of the state’s Anti-SLAPP statute.

Former presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader ’58 and former Deputy Attorney General and FCC General Counsel Bruce Fein ’72 come from somewhat different places ideologically, but both agree that lax oversight has allowed government to run amok.

A restaurant employee is fired. He didn't violate company policy. In fact, he's a good employee, according to his manager. But he is fired because, as the regional manager put it, he is one of "those people."

The HLS International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), under the direction of Clinical Director Tyler Giannini and Lecturer on Law Susan Farbstein, recently filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case Samantar v. Yousuf. 

Harvard Law School today announced the creation of the Public Service Venture Fund, which will start by awarding $1 million in grants every year to help graduating J.D. students pursue careers in public service.

David H. Souter ’66, a native New Englander and Harvard alumnus who served nearly two decades on the U.S. Supreme Court before stepping down in 2009, will be the principal speaker at the Afternoon Exercises of Harvard’s 359th Commencement.

At the southwestern tip of the Amazon, in Porto Velho, Rondônia, Brazil, stands Urso Branco, a prison notorious for deadly human rights violations. It’s nowhere anyone would choose to be. But it was into this dank, dark, and volatile world that Clara Long ’11, Fernando Delgado ’08, and James Cavallaro, executive director of Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program, insisted on going.

Robert D. Joffe ’67, former presiding partner of Cravath, Swaine & Moore and an active member of the HLS alumni community, died Thursday, Jan. 28.  He was 66.

Lucy Koh ’93 has been nominated by President Obama on to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.