Student Spotlights

This winter, as protests erupted throughout the Middle East, Jason Gelbort ’12 was one of the many obsessively watching the news, wondering if there was anything he could do to help. Then, on March 2, he went to a talk by Chibli Mallat, the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Visiting Professor of Islamic Legal Studies at HLS.

On May 25, the Class of 2011 gathered to celebrate their accomplishments and share reflections of their Harvard Law School experience. As part of Class Day festivities, the graduating class  hailed their Class Day speaker, actor Alec Baldwin, and honored Professor Jon Hanson as the recipient of this year's Albert M. Sacks-Paul A. Freund Award for Teaching Excellence.

On Thursday, May 26, 2011, Harvard Law School celebrated the class of 2011, conferring a total of 790 degrees—585 J.D.s, 195 LL.M.s, and 10 S.J.D.s during an afternoon ceremony in front of Langdell Library. HLS takes a look back at the day in pictures.

Elizabeth “Libby” Benton ’11 is the winner of the 2011 Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award, after performing over 2,300 hours of free legal services while at HLS.  The Class of 2011 surpassed the HLS record for pro bono hours, performing a total of 366,204 hours, an average of 628 hours per student.

During Class Day exercises on May 25, Sarah Min ’11 received the inaugural William J. Stuntz Memorial Award for Justice, Human Dignity and Compassion, which recognizes a graduating student who has demonstrated an exemplary commitment to these principles while at Harvard Law School.

Harvard Law School graduation festivities began on Class Day, Wednesday, May 25, and continued through Commencement Day on Thursday, May 26. This year, the Law School conferred a total of 790 degrees—585 J.D.s, 195 LL.M.s, and 10 S.J.D.s.

On an early morning in January, eight upper-year Harvard Law School students landed on the lone runway at the sleepy international airport in Lesotho where they were warmly welcomed by officials from the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (“MCC”), an innovative U.S. government foreign assistance agency.

Last month, Andrew Childers ’11 received a 2011 Law Student Ethics Award from the Association of Corporate Counsel—Northeast Chapter. Childers and 10 other students from area law schools were lauded for upholding the highest ethical standards of the legal profession as student lawyers.

Last month, Joseph G. Phillips ’12 and Joanne Box LL.M. ’11, students in the HLS International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), attended a U.N. disarmament conference, where they met with diplomats to urge adoption of stronger international laws regarding the use of incendiary weapons. The students worked under the supervision of HLS Lecturer on Law and Clinical Instructor Bonnie Docherty ’01, who is one of the country’s leading legal experts on cluster munitions and has expanded her work to other disarmament issues, including incendiary weapons.

Harvard Law School student Emily Inouye ’11 and alumna Cynthia Chandler ’95 have each received the Gary Bellow Public Service Award for their commitment to public interest and social justice work.

A Harvard Law School student appeared before the First Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday as the lead lawyer in an illegal downloading and sharing lawsuit brought against a Boston University student by the music recording industry. This is the first case of its kind to reach the federal appellate level.

After countless hours of interviewing their client, digging through documents and working with experts to prepare for two court hearings, students in the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic got what they were after: a grant of asylum.

For the third year in a row, Harvard Law School has won the Northeast Black Law Students Association’s Trial Advocacy competition. HLS sent two teams to the competition this year, and, for the second consecutive year, HLS took both first and second place.

The Harvard Law Review has elected Mitchell Reich ’12 as its 125th president.

In his first tour of duty in Iraq, in 2007, Marine Capt. Courtney Walsh LLM ’11 was one of two defense attorneys who represented Marines in Al Anbar Province charged with a range of infractions, from disciplinary violations to serious crimes tried in a court-martial.

This fall, more than 20 recipients of the 2010 Chayes International Public Service Fellowship gathered at the home of Antonia Chayes, widow of HLS Professor Abram Chayes '49, to share stories of their fellowship experience. Founded in memory of Chayes, the Fellowships allow HLS students to spend eight weeks working with governments of developing nations and those making difficult transitions to peace, stability, and democracy, and with inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations that support them. 

As a little girl in Berkeley, Calif., U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Sylvaine Wong LL.M. ’11 became enamored of the Navy when her dad took her each year to “Fleet Week” to clamber aboard aircraft carriers and visit other military craft.