Faculty Scholarship

In “Blasphemy: How the Religious Right Is Hijacking Our Declaration of Independence” (John Wiley & Sons, 2007), Professor Alan M. Dershowitz contends that fundamentalist Christian political activists are misusing the declaration to Christianize America.

Headlines on any given day underscore the increasing globalization of antitrust law and economics—for example, “Apple iTunes charged by EC with restrictive pricing practices.”

Since presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama ’91 launched his campaign earlier this year, some have questioned whether Americans are ready to elect a black president.

This weekend, leaders from the financial sectors of the United States and China will gather in Half Moon Bay, Calif., at a symposium organized by Harvard Law School’s Program on International Financial Systems and the China Development Research Foundation to examine issues affecting the financial relationship between the two countries.

In its annual meeting this month, the American Law and Economics Association elected Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk, LL.M. ’80 and S.J.D. ’84 as its president. In accordance with the association's traditions, Bebchuk delivered a presidential address at the meeting.

What does it mean to 'think like a lawyer' - in particular, an American lawyer? After wrestling with that question for years, Harvard Law Professors David Kennedy '80 and William W. Fisher III '82 have given us an anthology of the law review articles they believe yield the answer.

What [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s conference [of Holocaust deniers] proclaims is that truth has no place in the world of politics; that if your ends are just, you can say anything, no matter how far-fetched.

Professor Carol Steiker ’86 helped persuade the Court to overturn a trio of Texas death sentences in April, convincing the justices that jurors weren’t given the opportunity to take mitigating evidence into account.

Harvard Law School's corporate law scholars like to collaborate--across a global array of subjects.

“Criminal Procedure Stories” (Foundation Press, 2006), edited by Professor Carol Steiker ’86, presents the stories behind the major Supreme Court rulings that have shaped criminal procedure.

An HLS professor is "the Elvis Presley of shareholder activism." And one of his fans is a key player in China.

Over the past 30 years, feminists have struggled to make domestic violence a public issue. But in a recent Yale Law Journal article, Assistant Professor Jeannie Suk ’02 takes a critical look at the use of protection orders by a criminal justice system that may now be too involved in private life.

Home Depot, the world's largest home improvement retail chain, has agreed to amend its corporate bylaws in response to a shareholder proposal submitted by Professor Lucian Bebchuk in December of 2006.

The following op-ed was published in The Wall Street Journal on January 6, 2007: Apple Computer announced a week ago the conclusions of a special board committee that examined the "improper dating" of over 6,000 option grants during 1997-2002. The committee found no basis for having less than "complete confidence in CEO Steve Jobs and the senior management team," placing full responsibility for past problems on the company's former CFO and general counsel.

The following op-ed was published in the Boston Globe on January 5, 2007: Deval Patrick is off to a bad start. If the amendment to prohibit gay marriage ever reaches the people, I shall vote against it. I regret that the Supreme Judicial Court, in its closely divided 2003 decision in the Goodridge case, proclaimed that the state Constitution requires same-sex marriage.

The HLS Program on Corporate Governance released a new study today called Lucky Directors, by Professor Lucian Bebchuk and co-authors Yaniv Grinsten and Urs Peyer suggesting that outside directors' options, and not only executives' options, have been favorably timed to an extent that cannot be explained by mere luck.

The following op-ed was published in The Boston Globe on December 13, 2006: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the egregious president of Iran, is hosting a conference this week on whether the Holocaust really happened.

The HLS Program on Corporate Governance recently released a study by Professor Lucian Bebchuk and co-authors Yaniv Grinsten and Urs Peyer, which examined the use of stock option backdating.

On Tuesday evening, November 7, Professor Joseph Singer was awarded the Bussey Professor of Law chair. Introduced by Dean Elena Kagan, Professor Singer marked the occasion with a speech titled, "Things That We Would Like to Take for Granted: Minimum Standards for the Legal Framework of a Free and Democratic Society."

International law professor David Kennedy was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam era, but during his early years teaching at Harvard Law School he realized it was time to rethink his position on the valid use of military force.

A blue-ribbon committee of business leaders and academic experts-including three HLS faculty members-will consider changes in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other laws, with the goal of boosting the competitiveness of American financial markets.