Faculty Scholarship

Retired federal judge Nancy Gertner asks whether ‘it is fair to use the criminal legal system’ to assess the actor’s responsibility.

Howell Jackson discusses what could happen if the United States defaults on its debts for the first time in history.

Harvard Law’s Michael Ashley Stein is ‘calling for systemic and urgent disability inclusion’ in climate resilience planning.

Now that the champagne is long gone, the confetti has been swept up, and we are settling into 2023, Harvard Law Today wondered what changes the new year might have in store for the practice of law.

Former Department of Justice chief and appellate lawyer Andrew Mergen will join Harvard Law School as director of the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic.

Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos, Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law, was elected as a member of the American Law Institute, this fall.

In a new podcast, Harvard Law Professors Jonathan Zittrain and Jill Lepore road-test an idea to enlist high school students across the country as “advertisement juries.”

Harvard Law Clinical Professor Robert Greenwald retires after a long career securing health care access for vulnerable populations

This fall, Harvard Law School showcased the works of faculty, alums, and students at book events throughout the semester.

In this installment of "Cases in Brief," Laurence Tribe reflects on the landmark decision involving a popular Harvard Square bar denied a liquor license by the church next door.

Stephen Sachs, the Antonin Scalia Professor of Law, outlines a way to smooth the Constitutional amendment process without softening it.

Professors Jeannie Suk Gersen and Janet Halley lead the Academic Freedom Alliance, an organization that protects the rights of faculty to speak or publish without fear of sanction or punishment.

Constitutional law expert Vicki Jackson argues that the disproportionate voting power of smaller states in the U.S. Senate creates a ‘significant democratic deficit.’

Rosalie Abella, former Canadian Supreme Court justice and Harvard’s Pisar Visiting Professor of Law, believes that ‘it’s the majesty of justice’ that is ‘the law’s purpose.’

Tomiko Brown-Nagin argues that a Constitutional amendment enshrining the right to vote would demonstrate ‘absolute commitment’ to full participation in U.S. democracy.

HLS Alexandra Natapoff argues in her revised book that snitching undermines justice and recommends what we should do about it. 

In a Library book talk, Professor Vicki Jackson and panelists discuss constitutionalism, and rights to effective government

In the third of a yearlong lecture series examining “The Supreme Court in a Constitutional Democracy," panelists debate reforming the Court.

Constitutional law expert Sanford Levinson on the ‘enduring dysfunctionality’ of Article V.

Harvard Law Professor Mark Roe says that Wall Street short-termism has gotten a bad rap.

Harvard Law Professor Joseph Singer says the Supreme Court’s decision in Brackeen v. Haaland has the potential to upset tribal sovereignty.

This article was originally published in the Harvard Gazette. Jean Salata is a climate optimist, enough to often elicit a gentle eyeroll from his…

In remarks made as part of the biennial Vaughan Academic Program, Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule argued that the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia began his judicial career as a champion of the administrative state.

Property law expert Molly Brady tells us about the possible origin of the jack-o’-lantern, what happens if you need to sell your haunted house, and why you should add “cursed land surveyor” to your costume rotation.

Harvard Law expert Hannah Perls explains why so many Florida homeowners lack flood insurance and what should be done about it.

The Harvard Law School Library has been chosen as a steward of the papers of Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., the celebrated and influential Harvard Law professor and civil rights scholar.

Rebecca Tushnet explains the purpose of fair use in copyright law and how a Supreme Court decision could alter the arts in America.

A panel of experts at Harvard Law School examine the Supreme Court’s fidelity to past precedents in the wake of the precedent-busting term.

What are the real differences between common and civil law systems? Probably not the ones lawyers typically think about, said Harvard Law School Professor Holger Spamann S.J.D. ’09 in a lecture commemorating his appointment as Lawrence R. Grove Professor of Law.

A panel of experts say that a seminal Supreme Court decision on the powers of the president may raise more questions than it answers.

Harvard Law Professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos explains how the Alabama redistricting case could affect the future of the Voting Rights Act.

Legal scholar, thought leader, and equal rights champion Catharine A. MacKinnon, 2022 recipient of the American Philosophical Society’s Henry M. Phillips Prize in Jurisprudence, discusses her teaching and the changes she has spent her career fighting for.

Keith Fogg, clinical professor of law emeritus at Harvard Law School, says that IRS audits of two former FBI officials deserve an investigation, but he doubts tampering.

Clinical Professor Deborah Anker LL.M. ’84, ‘one of the architects of modern refugee law’ and founder of the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, moves to emerita status.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin’s book recounts the remarkable — and too little-known — life and achievements of civil rights lawyer and judge Constance Baker Motley

Adrian Vermeule proposes an approach to constitutional interpretation rooted in classical legal tradition

From the Hughes Court to stock market short-termism to the U.S.'s "defend forward" cyber strategy

Articles by four Harvard Law faculty were selected in an annual poll of corporate and securities law professors as three of the ten best corporate and securities articles of 2021.

Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith says laws and norms established after President Nixon's resignation 'had a great run,' but the Trump presidency proved that new reforms are needed.

Harvard Law Professor Rebecca Tushnet discusses the copyright infringement lawsuit against 'Top Gun: Maverick.'

Professor Kristen Stilt, faculty director of the Animal Law & Policy Program, weighs in on the campaign by one animal rights organization to release Happy the elephant from the Bronx Zoo.

Professor Guy-Uriel E. Charles, the Charles Ogletree, Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

On Earth Day, we highlight some of the work being done by Harvard Law students, scholars, clinics, and programs to address some our most pressing environmental issues.

The Supreme Court stands poised to decide whether a high school coach’s penchant for prayers with players poses First Amendment problems.

In celebration of National Poetry Month, HLS lecturer and poet Jessica Fjeld reads a passage from a poem by Terrance Hayes, and discusses the importance of poetry in building empathy and connection.

Subsidies offered by the federal government for the purchase of new electric vehicles (EVs) may actually increase total greenhouse gas emissions without similar aid for secondhand buyers, concludes a new study led by Ashley Nunes, Ph.D., a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program.

In the first of the series, “Cases in Brief,” Harvard Law Professor Dehlia Umunna discusses the infamous “Scottsboro Boys” case, Powell v. Alabama (1932), in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled for the first time that defendants in capital cases have the right to adequate legal counsel.