Alumni Focus

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?

The Harvard Law School Library has announced the public release of the first batch of papers and other items from the Antonin Scalia Collection. His papers were donated by the Scalia family following the influential justice's death in 2016.

Harvard Law Today recently sat down with Ed Moloy, the library’s curator of modern manuscripts, and Project Archivist Irene Gates to discuss the Antonin Scalia Collection, the work of archiving, preserving, and making it public, and other collections held by the Harvard Law Library.

With headlines declaring 2019 the year that the world woke up to climate change, Aminta Ossom ’09 sees hope in approaching the issue from a specific angle: human rights.

In “Unmaking the Presidency,” HLS lecturer on law Benjamin Wittes and Susan Hennessey ’13 say Trump has bucked norms and expanded power, but whether others will follow his lead is unclear.

John F. Cogan, Jr. ’52, a legal leader, civic activist and dedicated supporter of Harvard Law School, has died. He was 93.

In 2018, avid hiker Alexis Wheeler '09 founded the Harvard Club of Seattle's Crimson Achievement Program (CAP), an initiative that helps illuminate the path to college for high-potential ninth- and 10th-graders from Western Washington school districts in low-income areas.

Ambassador Samantha Power ’99 reflects on her life and career in her new memoir "The Education of an Idealist."

Starting and growing successful businesses, and devising solutions to some of the toughest problems in public and higher education, have more in common than may appear at first blush. Both require creativity, and both offer the opportunity to better the lives of other people, says Steve Klinsky ’81.

In a small trailer, surrounded by hundreds of other trailers, encircled by a fence, in the middle of South Texas scrubland, Brianna Rennix does her…