Today Posts

The Federal Trade Commission is not just an agency, said its Chairman Jon Leibowitz at a talk on Thursday, Oct.11 at Harvard Law School, but it is an agency of superheroes, working to protect American consumers. “Like Superman, we fight for truth and justice and the American way—but of course we don’t wear capes,” Leibowitz said.

The intersection of medical tourism and ethical and legal questions are at the heart of I. Glenn Cohen's new book, “Patients with Passports: Medical Tourism, Law, and Ethics,” the focus of his year as a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

On Oct. 3, former United States Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky came to Harvard Law School to share her experiences with students in the Advanced Negotiation Workshop taught by Clinical Professor Robert Bordone ’97 and Lecturer Rory Van Loo ’07.

The Morality of the Free Market was the topic of a Sept. 27 address at Harvard Law School by Arthur Brooks, the president of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research organization in Washington, D.C. The event was sponsored by the Harvard Law Federalist Society.

Is the International Criminal Court succeeding? According to Assistant Clinical Professor Alex Whiting, the answer is a tentative yes. Nevertheless, Whiting—who serves as the prosecution coordinator in the Office of the Prosecutor at the ICC—provided a candid portrait of the court’s strengths and weaknesses at a talk on Wednesday, Oct. 10, sponsored by the Harvard Law School Human Rights Program.

One of the highlights of the Second Celebration of Latino Alumni, held Sept. 27 to 30 at Harvard Law School, was a gala dinner Saturday night that featured a presentation of the Harvard Law School Association (HLSA) Award to Joaquin Avila ’73, a nationally recognized expert on Latino voting rights, and a keynote address by Mario L. Baeza ’74. (see video below)

On Oct. 4, Harvard Law School Professor Lani Guinier participated in a panel discussion on race and college admissions. The discussion, broadcast on C-SPAN, was hosted by The Century Foundation, a nonprofit, non-partisan research foundation that focuses on issues of equity and opportunity in the United States.

At a Harvard Law School Graduate Program reception in August, students Erum Khalid Sattar and Rebecca Zaman shook hands and said hello. “If we hadn’t been wearing nametags, what happened next might never have happened,” said Zaman.

The second Celebration of Latino Alumni, held at Harvard Law School from Sept. 27 to 30, drew about 200 alumni and guests to the school to share their experiences and reflect on the path of social change.

Robert H. Sitkoff, the John L. Gray Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, has been appointed to two new Uniform Law Commission committees—the study committee on trust protectors, and the drafting committee on Series of Unincorporated Business Entities.

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.”

Officially launched on Sept. 25, the Harvard Law School Public Service Venture Fund will award $1 million in grants each year to Harvard Law graduates pursuing careers in public service. The Fund supports two kinds of post-graduate fellowships: “seed grants” for startup public interest ventures, and, through “existing organization-based fellowships,” salary support to graduating HLS students to work at nonprofits or government agencies in the U.S. and abroad.

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.

As two HLS graduates are vying to lead the United States, we asked six legal historians on the faculty to reflect on the connections between legal education and leadership.

Barry Volpert J.D./M.B.A. ’85 is chief executive officer of Crestview Partners, a private equity firm he co-founded in 2004 after retiring from Goldman Sachs, where he was head of the Merchant Banking Division in Europe. Based in New York City, Crestview has about $4 billion in assets under management. "We like to focus on complex and difficult situations," he says, "that many other private equity firms tend to avoid."