Teaching & Learning

During this year’s spring semester, Mark Tushnet, the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, is teaching a novel seminar called “Diversity and Social Justice in First Year Classes.” It combines classroom teaching with an eight-part public lecture series examining how issues of diversity and social justice can be integrated into the core 1L classes.

Growing up in Mexico City as a self-proclaimed geek, Berkman Klein Center Fellow and self-taught computer programmer Paola Villarreal has been developing open source data tools, including interactive maps, to explore inequality in Boston-area justice, health, education, housing, and transportation.

The Harvard Law Review has elected ImeIme Umana ’18 as its 131st president. Umana succeeds Michael Zuckerman ’17.

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program has been addressing the legal concerns of Harvard students, faculty, staff, and individuals affected in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by recent executive action on immigration.

Neil M. Gorsuch, a 1991 graduate of Harvard Law School, is President Donald Trump’s pick as the next justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Gorsuch currently serves as judge on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. President George W. Bush nominated him to that court in 2006.

Last month, the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University hosted outgoing FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler to discuss his tenure with Harvard Law School Clinical Professor Susan Crawford, outlining some of the most important successes and failures of his administration, and looking at what may lie ahead under new leadership.

As Harvard Law School's Public Service Venture Fund enters its fourth year, HLS is looking back on all that its awardees have accomplished since the first awards were conferred in 2013.

Co-taught by HLS Professor Jeannie Suk Gersen and Nana Sarian, general counsel of Stella McCartney, “Fashion Law Lab,” a nine-day course offered at Harvard Law School during the January term, gave students the opportunity to role-play simulations of scenarios faced by general counsel working in the fashion industry.

In the Harvard Law class “Spanish for Public Interest Lawyers,” Harvard Law School graduate Joey Michalakes teaches a Spanish course for HLS students who need legal Spanish concepts and terminology to deal with their clients, most of whom speak only Spanish.

Science journalist and author Gary Taubes ’77 made his case that sugar consumption — which has risen dramatically over the last century — drives metabolic dysfunction that makes people sick. The hour-long talk was sponsored by Harvard Law School's Food Law and Policy Clinic and drawn from Taubes’ new book, “The Case Against Sugar.”

On Jan. 3, Harvard Law School's Project on Predatory Student Lending filed a 7.3 billion dollar class action lawsuit in the bankruptcy proceedings of ITT Tech -- one of the country’s largest for-profit college chains -- on behalf of a proposed class of hundreds of thousands of former students.

With just under two weeks left in the presidency of Barack Obama ’91, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates spoke at Harvard Law School about recent strides in criminal justice reform and why she is optimistic that progress will continue in the new presidential administration.

The Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence Fund will support interdisciplinary research to ensure that AI develops in a way that is ethical, accountable, and advances the public interest.

Harvard Law Review President Michael Zuckerman ’17 recently penned a reflection for Medium on the experience of publishing The President's Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform, an article by President Barack Obama -- the first Law Review article by a sitting president -- and his personal take on law and criminal justice reform.

Martha Minow — the legal scholar and human rights expert who has served as dean of Harvard Law School since 2009 and has led the diversification of its faculty, staff, and student body, significant growth in its clinics and research programs, and record fundraising — announced today that she will step down as dean at the end of the 2016-17 academic year. She will remain on the faculty and return to active participation in public dialogue and legal policy.

A look back at 2016, highlights of the people who visited, events that took place and everyday life at Harvard Law School.

Professor Emeritus Henry J. Steiner recently spoke to a standing room only crowd at Harvard Law School about his new book 'Eyeing the World,' which features photos taken by Steiner, a human rights scholar and the founder of the law school’s Human Rights Program, over the last 50 years during his travels around the world.

Helena Alviar first came to Harvard Law School from Bogotá, Colombia on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1996, and developed a particular interest in understanding the historical, economic, and sociological circumstances in which law develops. When she returned five years later with her S.J.D. degree, it was with a renewed sense of responsibility.

In November, the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program celebrated its 10th anniversary, marking its evolution into a robust program of global clinical work in dispute systems design, innovative pedagogy around teamwork, and expanded course offerings in multiparty negotiation, group decision-making, teams and facilitation.

This fall at a symposium presented by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, representatives from academia, government and civil liberties organizations came together to examine the present state of play with respect to government transparency and freedom of information.

During the fall 2016 semester, a group of leading scholars came together at Harvard Law School for the lecture series, "Diversity and US Legal History," which was sponsored by Dean Martha Minow and organized by Professor Mark Tushnet, who also designed a reading group to complement the lectures.