Teaching & Learning

Looking back and ahead with Dean Martha Minow

Since its founding nine months ago, Harvard Law School’s Access to Justice Lab has aimed to revolutionize thinking about access to legal help. Often misunderstood and sometimes controversial, the lab sponsored a five-hour symposium in April that drew scholars from across the country to Harvard Law School.

The Harvard Law Review has announced the creation of a public interest fellowship, which will enable one recent Harvard Law graduate to spend a year following law school working in public service.

Starting this fall, Harvard Law School will allow any college junior to apply for admission through its Junior Deferral Program, under which college juniors can be admitted to HLS on the condition that they successfully finish college and then take a minimum of two years to work, study, or pursue research or fellowship opportunities.

On April 5, the Harvard Association for Law and Business (HALB) hosted Stephen Schwarzman, chairman, CEO and co-founder of the Blackstone Group -- the largest alternative asset management firm in the world -- to discuss lessons from his long career in business, and his many years of work as a philanthropist.

Harvard Law School student William Ahee ’17 and alumnus Lam Nguyen Ho ’08 have received the Gary Bellow Public Service Award, established in 2001 to honor HLS Professor Gary Bellow ’60, his commitment to public service, and his innovative approach to the analysis and practice of law.

Several members of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Commission on Countering Violent Extremism gathered at HLS in March to discuss findings from the commission's November 2016 report, which outlines a strategy for the United States to diminish the appeal of extremist ideologies and narratives.

More than 60 Harvard Law students and 27 HLS faculty members took over the typically quiet tables of the library reading room for the first “Notes and Comment” event.

In March, University of San Diego Law School Professor Lawrence Alexander visited HLS to deliver a talk titled "Law and Politics: What is their relation?" as part the Herbert W. Vaughan Lecture Series and Academic Panel, co-sponsored by the HLS Federalist Society.

Samantha Power, who served as the 28th United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2013 until 2017, has been named to a joint faculty appointment at Harvard Law School and Harvard Kennedy School.

On March 31, the Harvard Law School Library’s Nuremberg Trials Project announced its selection as a recipient of a Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

During a Library Book Talk at Harvard Law School, writer Gish Jen discussed her latest book, “The Girl at the Baggage Claim: Explaining the East-West Culture Gap,” making the case for the sociological and cultural patterns that influence many aspects of identity.

Sally Yates, former Deputy Attorney General of the United States, will be this year’s speaker for the Class Day ceremonies at Harvard Law School.

Ruth Okediji, a leading scholar in international intellectual property law and global economic regulation, will join the faculty of Harvard Law School as a tenured professor in July.

In her Corporate Boards and Governance course at HLS, Hillary Sale ’93, Sullivan and Cromwell Visiting Professor of Law, invites a range of high-profile guest speakers to share their experiences with students and explore complex issues that decision-makers at the highest levels are faced with daily.

How best to respond to the "fake news" phenomenon was the subject of a panel discussion sponsored by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, titled “Fake News, Concrete Responses: At the Nexus of Law, Technology, and Social Narratives,” held Thursday at Harvard Law School's Wasserstein Hall.

In March, speakers at the Harvard Journal on Legislation’s 2017 Symposium, “Legislating on the World Stage,” explored the unique challenges of lawmaking in a context where domestic and international concerns frequently overlap and come into tension with one another.

Disability rights advocates Steve Holmes and Chester Finn spoke to students at Harvard Law School on March 8, in a workshop presented by the Harvard Project on Disability, part of a series of HPOD trainings and advocacy projects supported by a three-year grant from the law firm Jones Day.

On March 9, the Food Law and Policy Clinic of Harvard Law School and the Natural Resources Defense Council, released “Don’t Waste, Donate: Enhancing Food Donations through Federal Policy,” presenting actions the federal government should take to better align federal laws and policies with the goal of increasing the donation of safe surplus food.

Grande Lum ’91, former director of the U.S. Justice Department’s Community Relations Service (CRS), was on the Harvard Law campus in February to deliver the keynote address of the Harvard Negotiation Law Review’s 22nd Annual Symposium, “Reflections on the Intersection of Alternative Dispute Resolution and Activism.”

Starting in the fall of 2017, Harvard Law School will allow applicants to submit either the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) to be considered for admission to its three-year J.D. program.