Today Posts

For more than seven years, John Carlin ’99 has been at the center of the most sensitive counterterrorism cases, which have often involved tricky technological questions—first as an adviser to FBI Director Robert Mueller and then at the National Security Division.

Now in its 14th year, a compact on policing in Cincinnati, Ohio, focused on building strong police-community relationships is a lauded model nationwide. John Cranley ’99, now the city’s mayor, was there from the start of the landmark agreement known as the Collaborative.

Gene Park has found that his greatest challenge this year has been making the transition from decisive cop mode to contemplative student.

On March 14, the Harvard Corporation voted to retire the Harvard Law School shield, following the recommendation of an HLS committee. The shield is modeled on the family crest of Isaac Royall, whose bequest endowed the first professorship of law at Harvard. Royall was the son of an Antiguan slaveholder.

With the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia ’60 of the U.S. Supreme Court on February 13 has come an outpouring of remembrances and testaments to his transformative presence during his 30 years on the Court. On February 24, Dean Martha Minow and a panel of seven Harvard Law School professors, each of whom had a personal or professional connection to the justice, gathered to remember his life and work.

The Internet of Things may be about to change our lives as radically as the Internet itself did 20 years ago. The implications for privacy, national security, human rights, cyberespionage and the economy are staggering.

HLS Professor Richard Parker ’70, a constitutional law scholar and a populist, reflects on a life-changing event seven years out—what it has altered and what it has not.

Harvard Law students provide legal referrals to outside agencies and other services at Y2Y—the new shelter in Harvard Square for homeless youth aged 18-24 staffed by young people about the same age.

In just one decade, Everett, Massachusetts, once a predominantly white city, has become the most racially and ethnically diverse in the commonwealth. Building communication between police officers and local youth is a priority for Chief of the Everett Police Department Steven A. Mazzie, who is white, as are 86 percent of his officers. Last fall he invited a team of HLS students from the Harvard Negotiation & Mediation Clinical Program to Everett for an impartial assessment.

Raheemah Abdulaleem ’01 was standing on a Washington, D.C., street corner in 2009 on her way to work at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division when a man yelled at her from his car to “go back to your country.” An African-American who grew up in Philadelphia in a family whose roots in the United States are nearly as old as the country, Abdulaleem was wearing a hijab, the traditional headscarf worn by some Muslim women.

In last year’s Academy Award-nominated film “Bridge of Spies,” Tom Hanks plays a lawyer who defends an accused Soviet spy in the U.S. The Hanks character appears to be dumbfounded that he has been asked to take on such an assignment. “I’m an insurance lawyer,” he says. The real lawyer whom Hanks portrays, James B. Donovan ’40, was that—and much more.

For more than half a century, Phil Heymann has served the nation— and Harvard Law School—with distinction.

Bert Rein '64 came to Supreme Court advocacy later in life and has ­focused on litigation challenging race-based protections.

When he was a student at HLS, a friend made Geoff Shepard ’69 a campaign button that said “Nixon Shepard,” representing Shepard’s enthusiasm for the presidential candidacy of Richard Nixon and his hope that he would join Nixon in the White House. Shepard still has the button today and is still advocating for the president he served and defended.

From sex work to satire to being second-in-command.

Therese Rohrbeck Meers on how she became an entrepreneur

A judicial temperament involves many qualities. For Merrick Garland, patience is one of them.

Harvard Law School is becoming a “laboratory”—or, more accurately, a collection of laboratories—where theory meets practice. For example, we now have the Food Law Lab,…

Last fall, the Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, produced a report for Amnesty International on the legal issues surrounding encryption. While the encryption debate is most often painted as a two-sided battle between law enforcement and technology companies, there are many other stakeholders around the world that are deeply concerned about the widespread implications of regulating encryption in iPhones and other telecommunications devices.

When Wendy Sherman, former under secretary of state for political affairs, was in the midst of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, she often felt that her team was playing “several games of multidimensional chess at the same time.” On April 20, Sherman delivered a guest lecture to the Harvard Law School Negotiation Workshop.