Student Spotlights

Last week, HLS welcomed a new class of J.D., LL.M. and S.J.D. students to campus. Orientation included an ice cream social, section photos and a visit from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan ’86.

A typical Harvard Law School student has limited free time. It might be filled with journal work, or student practice organizations, or intramural sports. For a year, Crispin Smith ’18, Nick Gersh ’18, and Ahsan Sayed ’18 spent their free moments exploring the successes and challenges facing religious and ethnic minorities in Iraqi Kurdistan on behalf of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

In June, Harvard Law School’s World Trade Organization (WTO) moot court team won the 15th Annual European Law Students Association (ELSA) Moot Court Competition on WTO Law, marking the first win for an HLS team, and making them the first team from North America in the history of the competition to take top honors.

In a victory for Harvard Law School’s Crimmigration Clinic, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that state authorities cannot detain someone for a U.S. immigration violation based solely on a Detainer.

In May 2017, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court extended the American with Disabilities Act to mentally and physically disabled prisoners seeking parole, ruling that the state must help them get support systems in place in the community—thanks to years of work by students with Harvard's Prison Legal Assistance Project.

This year, as they prepared to graduate, several members of the Class of 2017 took time to reflect on their interests and share experiences they will take from their time at Harvard Law.

On Thursday, May 25, the Harvard Law School Class of 2017 braved the rain to pick up their diplomas and officially become HLS graduates. Here's a look at their day of celebration with family, friends and a steady supply of rain ponchos.

Harvard Law School’s 2017 Class Day ceremony featured speeches by Sally Yates, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, and Harvard Law School Professor Mark Wu, winner of the 2017 Albert M. Sacks-Paul A. Freund Award for Teaching Excellence.

A number of Harvard Law students from the Class of 2017 received special awards during Class Day. They were recognized for their outstanding leadership, citizenship, compassion and dedication to their studies and the profession.

Members of the Harvard Law School Class of 2017 gathered this week for two days of Commencement festivities which featured an address by former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, a send-off from Dean Martha Minow, and accolades bestowed on students, staff and faculty including Mark Wu, who was honored by the Class of 2017 with the Sacks-Freund award for Teaching Excellence.

Mana Azarmi ’17 is the winner of the Outstanding Clinical Student Award from the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA) of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS), presented annually to one student from each law school for his/her outstanding clinical coursework and contributions to the clinical community.

The subject of Konstantin Tretyakov’s doctoral thesis, the “right to die” and how it is handled in different countries, would be a fascinating one under any circumstances. But as a Russian student who has also studied Chinese law, Tretyakov brings a unique perspective to the topic.

Gloria Scott LL.M. ’17, who is from Liberia, served as chief justice of her country’s Supreme Court from 1997 to 2003. She has also been a practicing lawyer, a senator, and most recently, the chair of Liberia’s Constitutional Review Committee. But for the past year she has been eager to be a student again.

Hundreds of Harvard Law students have now joined the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program’s Immigration Response Initiative. Some of them had never considered practicing immigration law. Others have been familiar with the realities of immigration since childhood. Here are some of their stories.

For five years in the Army, including one in Afghanistan, David E. White Jr. was zealous about leadership and public service. At Harvard Law School, he added to his passionate pursuits. “At the end of the day, it’s about justice,” said White, J.D. ’17. “In everything I pursue, my goal is to do justice.”

Erika Johnson is this year’s winner of the David A. Grossman Exemplary Clinical Student Award, which is named in honor of the late Clinical Professor David Grossman ’88 and recognizes students who have demonstrated excellence in representing individual clients and undertaking advocacy or policy reform projects.

You would never know it from her unhesitating, responsive arguments in the Ames Courtroom, but when Amanda Mundell ’17 was growing up in California she dreaded giving presentations in class. “I was a very nervous speaker,” she remembers, “so I decided that I was never going to do anything like this.

For Trenton Van Oss ’17, coming to Harvard Law School meant adapting to a different culture and experience as a student who had been educated at Christian schools, and whose strong allegiance to the GOP put him in a distinct minority at a secular school with a predominantly liberal student body and faculty.

As he prepares to graduate, Mario Nguyên ’17 can stand as an example as someone who has overcome hardship and doubt, who has achieved more than he ever thought possible and plans to achieve much more. He will soon begin a job at a firm in his native Texas, with a goal of using his legal skills to bring about systemic change to benefit disadvantaged and marginalized people.

HLS student Bradley Pough ’18 and Qian Wan, a mechanical engineering Ph.D. candidate at Harvard's Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, have co-written “Digital Analytics and the Fight Against Blight: A Guide for Local Leaders,” a paper that provides data-driven recommendations city officials can use to battle urban housing blight.

The Harvard Law School mock trial team of Kaitlyn Beck ’19, Haydn Forrest ’19, Rahul Garabadu ’19, and Marilyn Robb ’18 took Fifth Place at the National Student Trial Advocacy Competition March 30–April 2 in Cleveland.