Faculty Scholarship

On Wednesday, Dec. 14, Harvard Law School Professor John Coates testified before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment at an open-session hearing titled “Examining Investor Risks in Capital Raising.” 

Annette Gordon-Reed wins a MacArthur and talks to the Bulletin about investigative history, redefining idols and inviting Jefferson to the Tea Party.

“Politics and Corporate Money” Professor Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84 Project Syndicate Sept. 20, 2010 “A recent decision issued by the United States Supreme Court expanded the freedom of corporations to spend money on political campaigns and candidates. … This raises well-known questions about democracy and private power, but another important question is often overlooked: who should decide for a publicly traded corporation whether to spend funds on politics, how much, and to what ends?

“Prospects for the Professions in China” (Routledge, 2010) edited by William P. Alford ’77, William Kirby and Kenneth Winston. Through its meditations on Chinese professional…

Dean Martha Minow answers seven questions about her new book, “In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Educational Landmark” (Oxford University Press, 2010).

In her study of money in law, Professor Christine Desan has found herself looking back as far as medieval times. But in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, in large part caused by liquidity problems—money oversupplied and then frozen in credit markets—her historical scholarship has led her to insights into today’s economic predicaments.

In “Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices,” Feldman focuses on four men with remarkably diverse resumes, who, despite shared links to Roosevelt, often found themselves at odds once they joined the Court.

Dean Martha Minow’s most recent book, “In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Educational Landmark,” recently received The Steven S. Goldberg Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Education Law. The award is given annually by the Education Law Association “in recognition of an outstanding article, book, book chapter, or other form of scholarly legal writing in the field of education law.”

In a Nov. 30 op-ed in Technology Review, Harvard Law School Professor Jonathan Zittrain discusses the consequences of the rise of mobile devices and the shift in power from the end user and software developers to operating system vendors.

According to John Palfrey, businesspeople are often insufficiently attentive to the ways that intellectual property rights can be acquired and exercised. His new book, “Intellectual Property Strategy” (MIT Press), is thus written with businesspeople in mind. Palfrey, Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources and Faculty Co-Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, argues for leaders of businesses and non-profit organizations to adopt IP policies that go beyond the traditional, highly restrictive “sword and shield” approach, and that instead focus on flexibility and creativity.

Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree delivered the Nathan I. Huggins Lecture on November 15th, 16th, and 17th at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. The lecture series, “Understanding Obama,” is divided into three parts: “From Barry to Barack,” “The Emergence of Race” and “The Conundrum of Race.” 

On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear challenges to the constitutionality of the Health Care Law. In an op-ed and a debate this past week, two HLS faculty members (Professors Einer Elhauge '86 and Laurence Tribe '66) and a prominent alumnus (former Solicitor General Paul Clement '92) shared their opinions on the mandate's constitutionality.

Harvard Law School Professor Annette Gordon-Reed ’84 was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as the academy’s Class IV speaker at the 2011 induction ceremony, held Oct. 1.

Harvard Law School Assistant Professor of Law I. Glenn Cohen joined medical and legal experts live via Skype on Oct. 25 at Mississippi College School of Law to debate the implications of Mississippi’s Personhood initiative, which will appear on the state’s ballot Nov. 8. The initiative asks: “Should the term 'person' be defined to include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the equivalent thereof?”

In a comprehensive review published Oct. 20 by the New York Review of Books, retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens provides thoughtful analysis of the recently published book "The Collapse of American Criminal Justice," by the late Harvard Law School Professor William J. Stuntz.

For generations, the assumption that selfishness drives human behavior has shaped the design of social systems in which we live and work. In his new book “The Penguin and the Leviathan: The Triumph of Cooperation Over Self-Interest,” Harvard Law Professor Yochai Benkler ’94 rejects this assumption as a “myth” and proposes an alternative, refreshingly optimistic model that asserts our human traits of cooperation and collaboration.

Professor John Palfrey ’01 was a keynote speaker at the Open World Forum, held September 22-24, in Paris, France. The Open World Forum brings together 160 experts from around the world to discuss technological, economic and social initiatives.

On September 24th, people from across America and across the political spectrum convened at Harvard Law School to discuss the advisability and feasibility of organizing a Constitutional Convention. The conference was co-hosted by Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig, founder of Change Congress, and Mark Meckler, co-founder and a national coordinator of Tea Party Patriots.

An essay, Why Death Penalty Opponents Are Closer to Their Goal Than They Realize, by HLS Professor Carol Steiker ’86, appeared in the Sept. 27 edition of The New Republic. The essay focuses on the decline of the death penalty in practice, politics and law, and how the present moment brings the genuine possibility of permanent abolition via judicial decision.