Student Spotlights

Last week, five current Harvard Law School students who have served or are currently serving in the U.S. armed forces spoke to a packed audience about their experiences in Iraq. Panelists Robert Merrill '08, Geoff Orazem '09, Erik Swabb '09, Hagan Scotten '10, and Kurt White '10 each drew upon their varied military posts during the invasion, the Second Battle of Fallujah, and counterinsurgency operations, to explain what it is like to serve as a junior officer in Iraq.

While in Guatemala this winter, Therese Rohrbeck touched what remains of The Dream of Pope Gregory IX.

On May 7, Lena Konanova '08 capped off her law school experience by representing a client bringing a case of employment discrimination before the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

On April 26, the Harvard Law School crew team took home a first place finish in the International Graduate School Regatta. The regatta featured graduate school crews from Boston College, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, MIT, Yale, and Harvard.

David Kessler '09 will have an article published in the January 2009 edition of the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. Though students regularly publish "notes" in law reviews and journals, it is more unusual for them to have articles published.

Last January, Andrew Klaber ’09 was invited to Davos, Switzerland, to participate in the World Economic Forum with the world’s elite business, political and intellectual leaders.

An effort to block the eviction of a family from its rental home turned into a celebration Wednesday, when, after months of effort by HLS students, the bank instead agreed to discuss selling the Dorchester house to them so the family could stay in place.

Phil Telfeyan ’08 and Elizabeth Barchas ’08 recently won the ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition, finishing in first place as national champions.

Last weekend, a team of students representing Harvard Law School took first place in The Negotiation Challenge in Leipzig, Germany. This year's Harvard Negotiators team was represented by Rene A. Pfromm LL.M. '08, Stefan Neata '08 and Jessica Price '08. Their win marks the second year in a row HLS has won the competition.

On March 30, the Harvard Law School chapter of the Black Law Students Association (HBLSA) received the Chapter of the Year award from the National Black Law Students Association.

The Harvard Law Review has elected Robert Allen '09 as its 122nd president. Allen has excelled at HLS, winning last year's prestigious Sears Prize, which is awarded to the student with the highest grades in the 1L class each year.

How should societies deal with the aftermath of cataclysmic war and mass atrocities? It’s a question documentary filmmaker Rebecca Richman Cohen ’07 has asked former Nuremberg prosecutors.

Last fall, when most new LL.M. students were just settling into their studies in Langdell Hall, Sajjad Khoshroo ’07 found himself on the other side of Harvard Square—and in the middle of a political demonstration. As Mohammad Khatami’s personal assistant and interpreter, he accompanied the former president of Iran to a conference at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

When threatened in court by the leader of a death squad known for killing its victims with chainsaws, Brazilian prosecutor Raquel Ferreira Dodge was undeterred.

On Tuesday, November 14, Harvard Law School hosted the 95th Annual Moot Court Final Competition. In front of a standing room only crowd in Ames Courtroom, two teams of six HLS students each argued the case of Adam’s Apple Markets v. Aphrodite Cosmetics.

Law, too, is going offshore. Two Harvard Law students are getting a firsthand look.

On world refugee day in June, Kofi Annan and Angelina Jolie urged the world to keep hope alive for millions of refugees. In a camp in eastern Africa, Scott Paltrowitz ’08 found that hope is often all that refugees have.

A day-by-day account of the run-up to the Ames Moot Court Finals--and some thoughts afterward from the chief justice of the state of Ames (aka David Souter '66)

After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, many HLS students felt helpless watching news accounts of the unfolding devastation while beginning fall classes. The law school had posted links for the university's matching donations program and announced plans to host 25 law students from Tulane and Loyola tuition-free. But HLS students sought their own ways to donate their time and talents.

Few students admitted to Harvard Law School question whether they should build roads instead. But when Rebecca Hamilton '07 spent the summer of 2004 in Sudan trying to help thousands of displaced people get home, she found herself longing for such concrete solutions for the war-torn country.