Teaching & Learning

Many readers and viewers wonder if John Osborn Jr. had someone special in mind when he created the imperious professor in his 1971 hit novel “The Paper Chase,” based on his Harvard Law School years. With a careful reply, the author told HLS Dean Martha Minow and a crowd gathered at Austin Hall Thursday for a discussion about his book that the character was actually a composite of several people. But, he added, “It wasn’t like it was hard to find role models.”

A Harvard program immerses students in legal and business training.

In a Supreme Court case, the International Human Rights Clinic argues that the Alien Tort Statute applies to corporations.

In October 1962, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Harvard Law School on “The Future of Integration.” It was six months before he would be imprisoned in a Birmingham jail, 10 months before the March on Washington, almost two years before the signing of the Civil Rights Act and almost six years before his assassination. “It may be that the law cannot make a man love me,” he said, “but it can keep him from lynching me.”

Digitized materials give new perspective on a storied figure Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story not only became Dane Professor at Harvard Law School while serving…

It is the spring of 1997 and I am sitting in Pound 107 while Roger Fisher ’48, Williston Professor of Law, Emeritus, is telling a story about his serving as a weather reconnaissance pilot in World War II. As a teaching assistant for the Negotiation Workshop, I have heard the story at least a dozen times by now and feel my mind wandering. And yet, against my will, as the story reaches its crescendo and the combination punch line/negotiation lesson flows from Roger’s lips, I find myself involuntarily leaning forward and, a second later, helplessly bursting into laughter. The note I jot down to myself is: “All of life is about who tells better stories.”

At a Sept. 19 event commemorating the signing of the U.S. Constitution, Harvard Law School Professor Michael Klarman, an expert on constitutional law and constitutional history, gave a lecture entitled "Why the Tea Party Has It Wrong: The Story of a Multifaceted Founding."

On Sept. 5, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan ’86 joined Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow for a conversation on life as a Supreme Court Justice. The former and current deans spoke before an overflow audience in the Wasserstein Hall, Caspersen Student Center, Clinical Wing building.

Young-Joon Mok LL.M. ’89, a Justice of the Constitutional Court of Korea, spoke at Harvard Law School on “Constitutional Adjudication in the Republic of Korea,” on Tuesday, Sept. 11 at an event sponsored by East Asian Legal Studies, International Legal Studies and the Korea Institute.

The Harvard Law School Library has curated a collection of original documents and images from the life, legacy and world of Joseph Story, a lawyer, beloved teacher, prolific author and Supreme Court justice. The new exhibit, “A Storied Legacy: Correspondence and Early Writings of Joseph Story,” is on view in the Caspersen Room, Harvard Law School Library, through December 7, 2012. Complementing and expanding upon the exhibit is a new Joseph Story Digital Suite.

Roger Fisher ‘48, a pioneer in the field of international law and negotiation and the co-founder of the Harvard Negotiation Project, died on August 25, 2012. A professor at Harvard Law School for more than four decades, Fisher established negotiation and conflict resolution as a single field deserving academic study and devoted his career to challenging students and colleagues alike to explore alternative methods of dispute resolution.

One afternoon in late July, a 39-year-old African man we will call Jean-Paul took the elevator to the third floor of Harvard Law School’s (HLS) Wasserstein Hall. He walked into the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and was greeted like a hero.

Abandoned weapons that were once part of Muammar Qaddafi’s vast arsenal threaten civilian lives in Libya, according to a report released Aug 2 by Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), in partnership with CIVIC and the Center for American Progress.

Cass Sunstein ’78, administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), will return to the Harvard Law School faculty as Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law following his planned departure in August from the Obama Administration, Dean Martha Minow announced today.

Under the leadership of Harvard Law School Clinical Instructor Deborah Popowski, HLS’s International Human Rights Clinic is participating in the Protest and Assembly Rights Project, formed in January 2012. On July 25, the first report in the Protest and Assembly Rights Project series was released, calling on New York City authorities to stop the pattern of abusive policing of Occupy Wall Street protests.