Teaching & Learning

At a recent event at Harvard Law School, HLS Professor Lawrence Lessig and Harvard Kennedy School Professor David Gergen discussed Lessig’s new book, “Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress—and a Plan to Stop It.” The event was co-hosted by the Harvard Law School Library, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership, and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

In a lecture sponsored by the Human Rights Program and International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, Andrew Cayley, co-prosecutor of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge Tribunal, discussed his role as counsel on both sides of the aisle in international law.

On Nov. 4-6, Harvard Law School’s Program on International Financial Systems (PIFS) co-hosted the 14th annual “Symposium on Building the Financial System of the 21st Century: An Agenda for Japan and the United States,” with the International House of Japan. The event, held this year in Cambridge, Mass., brought together more than 100 hundred senior executives and government officials from the financial industry, policymaking, law and academic arenas.

What must lawyers know about litigation and public affairs communications in the global marketplace? Richard S. Levick, lawyer, president and CEO of Levick Strategic Communications, addressed this question in an event organized by the Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School on Oct. 13.

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society has partnered with Grammy awarding-winning artist Lady Gaga, the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the California Endowment to launch the Born This Way Foundation (BTWF), a non-profit charitable organization that will support programs and initiatives aimed at empowering youth.

Universal Jurisdiction, the universal right to prosecute a perpetrator of heinous crimes anywhere in the world despite local amnesty laws, was the topic of discussion at Harvard Law School on September 26. In a talk hosted by the Human Rights Program, Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon spoke about universal jurisdiction in today’s international criminal arena.

Gene Sharp, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, is widely credited as one of the principal initiators of the Arab Spring. His 1993 book, “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” which promotes the principle of nonviolent struggle, is created with inspiring the revolution in Egypt, as well as in other countries all over the world.  

In a panel discussion sponsored by HLS Lecturer on Law Peter Carfagna ’79 and Harvard Law School's Committee on Sports and Entertainment Law, “Negotiating with The League: Representing the NFLPA,” Peter Kendall, a retired NFL player who was involved in the league’s summer contract renegotiations offered an insider’s account of the collective bargaining victory that preserved this fall's season.

At an event sponsored by the Harvard Law School American Constitution Society on October 18, Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) ’77 spoke about proposed legislation that would end the federal ban on marijuana, as well as the need for drug policy reform at the federal level and why marijuana policy is an issue better handled by the states.

It was hard to see him though the cheering crowd when he first walked in, a small, amiable-looking man. By the end of the session, he had gotten his message across about the importance of global leadership and youth empowerment. He was even able to get a room full of people to recite poetry with him. He is Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the 11th president of India.

Zeynep Tufekci, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, argued that social media have the power to "upset the erstwhile stable dynamics of repression under durable authoritarian regimes" at a luncheon talk sponsored by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Tufekci, who is also a fellow at the Berkman Center, studies the interaction between technology and social, cultural and political dynamics.

At “Challenging and Litigating DOMA's Constitutionality”— an event that was co-sponsored by the Harvard Law School American Constitution Society, Lambda, and the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Journal—Mary Bonauto, the Civil Rights Project Director at Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), spoke about litigating the Defense of Marriage Act in federal courts in the wake of the Department of Justice's recent decision to stop defending the law.

According to attorney and author Grover E. Cleveland, young lawyers should be reassured by assignments that require all-nighters. “If a senior lawyer left work on your desk and went to sleep, that means that you’ve successfully earned her trust,” he said. Cleveland offered this and other nuggets of wisdom at “Swimming Lessons for Baby Sharks: Thriving in the First Two Years of Law Practice,” an event jointly sponsored by the Harvard Law School Program on the Legal Profession and Office of Career Services on October 4.

On Sept. 19, Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow gave a lecture at Howard Law School in Washington, D.C., in commemoration of Constitution Day – an annual, national celebration of the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787.

In response to a widely perceived dysfunctional political environment in Washington, D.C., attendees at a conference at Harvard Law School evaluated the potential and pitfalls of a possible remedy—a first-ever Article V convention to propose amendments to the Constitution.

On September 28, the Harvard Law School Environmental Law Program and Environmental Law Institute hosted a Supreme Court Review and Preview to discuss the implications of recent Supreme Court decisions on the field of environmental law. Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow introduced the event, and emphasized the Supreme Court’s role in the formation of environmental policy in the United States.

Eugene Volokh, professor at UCLA School of Law, well known to some law students for his blog, The Volokh Conspiracy, gave a lecture on slippery slope arguments at an event sponsored by the Harvard Law School Federalist Society on September 20th.  He was joined by Noah Feldman, Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School, who provided a response.

In the first lecture of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics series, Paul Thacker, an investigative journalist and former U.S. Senate Finance Committee staffer, said that big pharmaceutical dollars not only own physicians but also many prominent medical school faculty who are paid to lobby for drugs.