Faculty Scholarship

In 1932, in a Philadelphia courtroom, a defense attorney representing a man accused of murder cross-examined a police officer. There was nothing unusual about this scene, except that the defense attorney, Raymond Pace Alexander ’23, was black, and the officer he was aggressively questioning was white. This scene is one of many dramatic moments in the new book by HLS Professor Kenneth Mack ’91, “Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer.”

In the April 19 edition of The New York Times’ DealBook, Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk defends the of work of his Shareholder Rights Project (SRP) at HLS in light of a recent memo criticizing the project. The SRP is a clinical program that assists public pension funds and charitable organizations in improving corporate governance at publicly traded companies.

Harvard Law Professors David Wilkins ‘80 and Adrian Vermeule ’93 have been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Wilkins, the Lester Kissel Professor of Law, is director of the Program on the Legal Profession and vice dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession. Vermeule is a leading scholar of administrative law and constitutional law and theory.

Gabriella Blum LL.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’03 delivered the lecture “The Fog of Victory” on April 10 to mark her appointment as the Rita E. Hauser Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Harvard Law School.

Susan Farbstein, a leading practitioner in the field of human rights, has been appointed assistant clinical professor of law and co-director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School.

"The Roots of Clarence Thomas' Black Burden," an op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Kenneth Mack ’91, appeared in The Root on April 6. In it, Mack examines Thomas' role as an African American justice who, according to Mack, has "embraced the role of representative of his race"—50 years after William H. Hastie bore a similar "burden" as the first African American federal judge.

Here’s the scorecard: Bush: $3.4 billion. Clinton: $14 billion. Obama: $91.3 billion. These numbers represent the net monetary benefits of final, federal agency regulations issued through the third fiscal year of each of these administrations. They were presented to HLS students and faculty on March 26 by Cass R. Sunstein, former Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law and current administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a department within the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. As administrator, Sunstein oversees the federal government’s entire regulatory process. He was on campus to discuss “New Directions in Regulatory Policy.”

In a recent edition of The New Republic’s online review ‘The Book,’ Harvard Law School Professor Adrian Vermeule reviews David M. Dorsen’s “Henry Friendly, Greatest Judge of His Era” (Belknap Press 2012)—a “clarifying biography” in which the author thoroughly examines Friendly’s judgments, arguments, and extrajudicial writings “with an eye to pinning down Friendly’s legacy.”

If the countless headlines in recent years are an indication, we live in an age dominated by a corporate playbook that considers success at the expense of others a standard part of doing business. But increasingly, observers fear that same philosophy is too often becoming the norm in other professions. Journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin explored the trend’s impact on the legal profession in his recent New York Times column “Conflicted, and Often Getting a Pass,” said Harvard’s Professor Howard Gardner during a Mar. 21 discussion at Harvard Law School.

"The Alternative to Shareholder Class Actions," an op-ed by Harvard Law School Professor Hal Scott and Leslie N. Silverman, appeared in the Apr. 1 edition of The Wall Street Journal.

The presidency is more powerful, larger, and has more tools at its disposal than ever before, said Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith. But, he quickly added, that’s only half the story. The other half of the story—the forces that constrain presidential power—was the main topic during a March19 panel discussion of his new book “Power and Constraint: The Accountability Presidency after 9/11,” hosted by the Harvard Book Store at the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square.

by Daily Beast writer Matthew DeLuca Over the three days of argument devoted to the health-care law, the Supreme Court held the attention of Americans…

The Supreme Court opened its review of the national health-care overhaul on Mar. 26, the first of three days of oral arguments on the 2010 law. In light of the historic arguments, law schools professors at HLS and elsewhere in the Boston area have incorporated the debate into their classrooms, and, In the media, HLS Professors I. Glenn Cohen. Einer Elhauge, Noah Feldman, Charles Fried and Laurence Tribe weighed in on the case.

Columbia University announced on Mar. 14 that a recent book by Tomiko Brown-Nagin will be awarded the 2012 Bancroft Prize. Her award-winning book “Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement” (Oxford University Press, 2011) offers a startling new perspective on the Civil Rights movement.

In a recent book review for The New Republic, Harvard Law School Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 examines Richard A. Epstein’s “Design for Liberty: Private Property, Public Administration, and the Rule of Law” (Harvard University Press, 2011).

Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith appeared on the Mar. 12 edition of NPR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook alongside ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero. The two addressed the controversy over Attorney General Eric Holder’s recent remarks at Northwestern University Law School in which he defended the legality of the Obama administration’s use of targeted killings of Americans suspected of terrorism-related activity.

A scholar of administrative law and constitutional law and theory, Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 has written the new book “The System of the Constitution” (Oxford University Press), in which he explores how individuals and larger institutions together shape the constitutional order. Vermeule recently spoke about his book and an event in London that featured discussion of his ideas.

Director of the Project on Law and Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School (PLMS), Professor Jon Hanson has long combined social psychology, economics, history, and law in his scholarship. In a recent Q&A, he spoke about the new book, the connection between law and mind sciences, and his own work in a field that has grown rapidly over the past 20 years.

David J. Barron ’94, Harvard Law School’s Hon. S. William Green Professor of Public Law, has been appointed by Governor Deval Patrick ’82 to the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, the governor’s office announced Monday.