Alumni Focus

As presidential candidates Barack Obama '91 and John McCain prepare for their parties' nominating conventions, rumors are swirling around two Harvard Law graduates as likely vice presidential candidates.

Navanethem Pillay LL.M. ’82 S.J.D. ’88 is expected to become the next United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon will announce Pillay’s nomination, which requires the approval of the General Assembly, early this week.

For the sake of the planet, a lawyer wins the right to sue on behalf of future generations

In rural Liberia, locals have a method for determining if someone is guilty of witchcraft. They administer poison to the suspect. If he survives, he’s innocent. That’s the sort of anachronism that vexes Deborah Isser ’96, a senior program officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Nationwide, only 24 percent of all judgeships are held by women. In federal courts, women make up barely 20 percent of the bench. Massachusetts Appeals Court Judge Fernande “Nan” Duffly ’78 wants to see these numbers rise and is passionate about making it happen.

Last summer, in South Dakota, when Steve Emery ’89 was made chief of the Prairie Dwelling Lakota, he was given the name Naca Wamni Omni (Chief Whirlwind). The name was meant to reflect his power with words, and the honor was the culmination of a career spent advocating for the sovereignty of his people—a mission he has shared with his brother, Mark Van Norman ’86.

Harvard Law grads share prestigious Gruber Foundation Prize for International Justice

Robert B. Zoellick ’81, president of the World Bank Group, was recently on the law school campus to receive the HLS Association Award in recognition of his leadership and dedication to public service.

John Matteson ’86 is one of eight writers selected to win the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Letters, Drama and Music. An associate professor of English at John Jay College, Matteson was recognized for his biography, “Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father.”

When Becca O’Brien ’05 and Ommeed Sathe ’06 returned to HLS last October to talk about building partnerships in post-Katrina New Orleans, they gave a painstaking account of what should, but doesn’t, work.

H. Marshall Sonenshine ’85 is chairman and managing partner of Sonenshine Partners, a New York-based investment banking firm, which has completed billions of dollars in M&A and restructuring deals in a broad range of industries worldwide.

When Dan A. Emmett attended Harvard Law School in the early 1960s, there was no such thing as an environmental movement, let alone an environmental law class or clinic. But five years after his 1964 graduation, an ecological disaster awakened Emmett and many of his fellow Californians to the cause of environmental protection.

After public service and private practice, Wendy B. Jacobs ’81 brings worlds of experience to a new clinic

Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree ’78 joined 13 other HLS alumni on National Law Journal’s “50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America,” which was published on May 26.

Michael Brown ’88 recently spoke about how his time at Harvard Law School inspired him and his classmate Alan Khazei ’87 to found City Year, a successful national service program that was the inspiration for the formation of AmeriCorps.

Six out of the seven honored recipients of the H. Thomas Austern Memorial Writing Competition were Harvard Law School graduates, the Food and Drug Law Institute announced last week.

In his keynote address Friday at Harvard Law School’s Public Interest Celebration, prominent death row attorney Bryan Stevenson ’85 praised alumni who use the power of a Harvard Law education to speak out against injustice.

Although he is best known for his time as governor of Massachusetts, William Weld '70 spoke about his career at a recent reunion of Harvard Law alumni and focused primarily on his experience as a U.S. attorney and Justice Department prosecutor.

Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy ’61 of the U.S. Supreme Court came to Harvard Law School this week for a two-day celebration of the 20th anniversary of his appointment to the Court.

Few lawyers ever get the chance to write something that will be studied closely by a justice of the United States Supreme Court.

A quiz, courtesy of the Potter Stewart, of famous quotations.