Alumni Focus

It was December 2000 in Ingushetia, Russia, where 170,000 displaced citizens of neighboring Chechnya were hiding from Russia's federal forces. Leonard Rubenstein ' 75 sat talking with a young man, one of dozens of Chechens he interviewed during his monthlong stay.

Riding in the back of the ambulance as the lights flashed and the siren wailed, Richard Wells '68 carefully tended to an 88-year-old woman who had just suffered a massive heart attack.

From his Times Square office overlooking Manhattan, Michael Hess '65 surveyed his 38-year career from public to private law--and back again. A native New Yorker, he is now blending his experience in both areas as senior managing director at Giuliani Partners, a crisis management firm hatched in 2002 after former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's eight-year tenure.

For most of his life, Irving "Ike" Isaacson '39 has practiced law in Lewiston, Maine. It's been steady work, and a career he's proud of. But he's equally proud of what he accomplished nearly 60 years ago, something hardly anyone knew about. In fact, until recently, neither did he.

Gustave M. Hauser '53 met his future wife, Rita E. Hauser '58, at HLS when he was a teaching fellow and she a 1L.

A lone woman joins a line of men in Langdell Hall to register for the start of the 1954-55 school year.

The year 1989 wound down with the law school being painfully reminded that its portrait collection was still conspicuously all male.

There's nothing noteworthy about being a female student at Harvard Law School today: About half of the students are women.

In her new book, Judith Richards Hope details the struggles and successes of the women classmates who "took the place of a man."

Fifty years after the first women graduated from Harvard Law School, alumnae come together to look back at the progress and ahead to the possibilities.

The urinal is the political. So are the toilet and the condom dispenser and the diaper changing station and everything else commonly found in men's and women's rooms (and even the fact that there are men's and women's rooms).

Rest assured, Dean Blackwood '95 is not demanding a 45-foot trailer filled with cardamom incense sticks and candy bowls with all the green M&M's removed.

Hannah Zagon knows her mommy now gets tired easily because of the ouchies in her head and lungs called cancer.

This year two exhibits of art collected by Harvard Law School alumni are on the move. "Bruegel to Rembrandt: Dutch and Flemish Drawings from the Maida and George Abrams Collection" toured London and Paris and is on display at Harvard's Fogg Art Museum through July 6.

Bernard Koteen '40 is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Holland & Knight. A telecommunications expert and member of the Federal Communications Bar Association, Koteen is also a strong supporter of public interest law.

When I graduated from Harvard Law School in 1970, my feelings about the place were clear, sharp.

Avon calls itself the company for women, and for senior counsel Laura Quintano '95, it's not just a slogan.

Daniel Victor ' 79 and Valerie Mitchell '93 are in the entertainment industry. They work around actors, rock musicians, larger-than-life characters, grouches, monsters and even one guy who speaks incessantly in the third person.

Of course, working for a toy company doesn't mean that you play "Heart and Soul" on a huge floor piano at FAO Schwarz, like Tom Hanks did in the movie "Big."

Almost exactly 10 years ago, Bernard Nussbaum '61 began his job as Bill Clinton's White House counsel.

With devotion to the president and the office, Alberto Gonzales '82 tackles the complications and controversies of the White House counsel's job.