Student Spotlights

In a way, the seeds of Victoria White-Mason’s activism were planted long before she was born. Her grandfather was the first black man to graduate from Duke University, where he faced prejudice and discrimination. Her great-grandfather operated a business in Durham, N.C.’s Hayti district, a thriving African-American community during a time of segregation. Her family history helped raise her awareness of racial injustice and also the strength of black people in the face of adversity.

Growing up in Montana with a mother who owned a horse farm, Sean Morrison ’15 found his tax attorney father’s line of work a bit dull by comparison. So Morrison is a little surprised to find himself, years later, graduating from law school with the intent to specialize in tax law and policy.

As he prepares to finish his LL.M. year at Harvard Law, Lor Sok recalls all the benefits the experience has provided him. But the real test of the experience, he says, is what it will mean for Cambodia, his homeland.

At a time when right-to-work laws, which severely threaten the viability of workers’ unions, seem to be gaining in popularity, Antonia Domingo ’15 is something of a rare creature: a fervently pro-union loyalist.

Romeen Sheth ’15 is a team player who works well with others--not because he has to, but because he prefers to, and he wishes more lawyers felt the same way.

Karaoke with five HLS professors. A fashion shopping spree with Professor I. Glenn Cohen ’03. A classic movie night with Dean Martha Minow. These were just a few of the unique experiences auctioned off at the 21st annual Public Interest Auction on April 9th.

On April 20, Harvard Law School honored two members of its community—Donna Harati ’15 and Laura Maslow-Armand ’92—with the Gary Bellow Public Service Award, established in 2001 to recognize commitment to public interest work.

In recent blog posts, two students from the Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic shared their experiences working on education and transport-related issues in rural South Africa.

Harvard Law Today recently highlighted twelve Harvard Law School students who were selected as the 2015 Cravath International Fellows. The students traveled to 11 countries for winter term clinical placements or independent research with an international, transnational, or comparative law focus.

The Board of Student Advisers at Harvard Law School has elected Isabel Broer, ’16, as its president for the 2015-16 year. Broer succeeds Claire Johnson, ’15.

During the 2015 winter term, 52 HLS students traveled to 26 countries conducting research for writing projects or undertaking independent clinicals, with support from the Winter Term International Travel Grant Program, which includes the Cravath International Fellowships, the Reginald F. Lewis Internships, the Mead Cross Cultural Stipends, the Andrew B. Steinberg Scholarships, and the Human Rights Program Grants.

This March, several teams of HLS students used their Spring Break to work on a number of humanitarian projects, including documenting property rights issues in the Mississippi Delta, working with asylum seekers in detention centers at the Texas border, helping undocumented immigrants in Chicago with their applications for permission to stay in the U.S., and investigating debtors' prisons on behalf of indigent defendants and their families in Tennessee.

A small group of three Harvard Law School students spent a week with the ProBar South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project in Harlingen, Texas, working with the office that assists adults in the Port Isabel Detention Center who are seeking asylum. Clinic student Mojca Nadles LL.M. '15 shared her thoughts on the experience in a post for the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs blog.

A group of Harvard Law School students travelled to the Mississippi Delta during spring break to help make a documentary about the heirs property system in the state, which can contribute to family division, stolen economic opportunity and deprivation of land for families that they have held the land for generations.

Foregoing a week on a warm beach with friends or in front of a screen with Netflix on loop, five Harvard Law students instead spent their spring break on a pro bono trip in Chicago, all taking away from the experience a deeper understanding of community lawyering and activism in pursuit of social justice.

For the fourth year in a row, a team of Harvard Law School students won the North American regional moot court competition on WTO (World Trade Organization) law at the ELSA Moot Court Competition (EMC²).

Last week, the nine justices of the Supreme Court peppered Tom Goldstein, veteran of 35 oral arguments before the Court and a cofounder of SCOTUSblog, with nearly 75 questions in 30 minutes – questions he was able to answer with the help of seven Harvard Law students who spent their January term working around the clock to research, write and edit the entire respondents’ brief in City of Los Angeles v. Patel.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, the Harvard Law and International Development Society and the Harvard Women’s Law Association honored 50 women in their International Women’s Portrait Exhibit. More than a dozen of the honorees attended a luncheon as part of the event, on Tuesday, March 10.