Alumni Focus

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s influence on Harvard Law School runs deep. On Thursday, September 24, a star team of Harvard deans and HLS professors remembered Ginsburg as a teacher, boss, colleague, inspiration and friend.

The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was enrolled at HLS from 1956 to 1958. In the years since, Ginsburg returned to Harvard Law School many times.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’56-58, whose lifelong fight for equal rights helped pave the way for women to take on high-profile roles in business, government, the military, and the Supreme Court, died on Sept. 18. She was 87.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants ’80, a tireless advocate for access to justice, died on Sept. 14. Renowned for his intelligence and his integrity, Gants used his leadership role in the commonwealth’s court system to press for fairness, equality under the law, and justice for all.

Anne Fleming ’05, a former HLS Climenko Fellow, a legal historian and a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, died suddenly Aug. 26 from an embolism. Her research interests included contract and commercial law, consumer finance, and American legal history, with a focus on the relationship between law and poverty.

After a health scare, William D. Zabel ’61 reflects on a life and career of making a difference for society and his clients—with more to come.

David Beck ’91, senior vice president and chief legal counsel at Boston Medical Center, shares what it took to get the safety-net hospital ready for the coronavirus and the most challenging month in its history—and what might come out of this difficult season.

Juliana (Ratner) Andonian ’17 went to law school for one reason and one reason only: to get people out of prison. She is now fulfilling that mission at a time when it could not be more urgent.

“Carly” Anderson ’12 wrote on Dec. 4 to report that Mitch Reich ’12 had argued Rodriguez v. FDIC before the Supreme Court just the day before. Among those listening to the argument in the courtroom were Anderson and four other HLS classmates—Stephanie Simon, Matthew Greenfield, Stephen Pezzi and Noah Weiss—who, along with Reich, had all been members of the 2011 winning Ames Moot Court Competition team.

From new takes on famous figures from American history to the stories of lesser-known figures, including two who resisted fascism in war-torn Europe and went on to become the authors’ parents

HLS sectionmates Phil Caruso ’19 and Gareth Rhodes ’19 unexpectedly found themselves working to address the COVID-19 crisis in their home state of New York less than a year after graduation. Caruso became a Department of Defense liaison to the New York City Emergency Management Department and Rhodes was a member of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s COVID-19 task force.

Deirde Mask ’07, author of “The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power” illuminates the richness and history behind the seemingly prosaic numbers and names that mark the places in our lives in her book and talks about how the books came to be.

No one in legal academia has ever combined the roles of constitutional teacher, scholar, advocate, adviser, and commentator with the dazzling breadth, depth, and eloquence of Larry Tribe ’66. And no constitutional law professor has ever so seamlessly integrated all these roles for his students’ benefit.

In a book featuring speeches and writings over the course of his 30 years in the law, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch ’91 offers “personal reflections on our Constitution, its separation of powers, and some of the challenges we face in preserving and protecting our republic today.”

In a Q&A, Jason Harrow ’11, who argued before the Supreme Court in a case involving the electoral college and faithless electors, shares where he believes U.S. electoral reform should go from here.

A warrior for reproductive rights, Julie Rikelman ’97 has taken the fight for access to abortion to the Supreme Court and won.

This year's commencement speaker, renowned public interest attorney Bryan Stevenson ’85 urged HLS graduates to keep their hopes intact and work to change the narratives that sustain inequality.

In late April, a federal appeals court handed an unprecedented win to schoolchildren, becoming the first appellate federal court in American history to conclude that children have a fundamental right to a minimum education that provides basic literacy.

Lila Fenwick ’56 was a student at Harvard Law School in 1954 when the Supreme Court decision in Brown v.  Board of Education came down. “I was delirious,” recalled Fenwick, one of only a handful of women students at HLS at the time and the only black woman among them.

Professors Annette Gordon-Reed, Kenneth Mack and David Wilkins discuss the Harvard Law School's first black graduates and the legacy of African Americans at HLS throughout the years.

The Harvard Law School Forum was born in 1946, when Jerome “Jerry” Rappaport approached Harvard Law School Dean James Landis with an idea: What if Harvard Law School sponsored a speaker series on issues that would shape the post-war world?