Today Posts

While in college, Clara Long '12 spent a spring semester in Belém, Brazil. “That totally changed the trajectory of my life,” she said, and turned a passion for tending the environment into “something that was much more about people.” Now graduating from Harvard Law School, Long is interested in human rights, and views her education at Harvard as a way of acquiring “tools for dealing with injustice.”

Last fall the Harvard Law School opened its newest building, 250,000 square feet aimed at bringing faculty and students closer. Its design, developed in close collaboration with HLS community residents and neighbors and realized by the architectural firm Robert A.M. Stern Architects, grew out of a strategic plan crafted in 2000, with the primary goal of improving the overall student experience.

A number of Harvard Law students received special awards this year during the 2012 Class Day exercises on May 23. The honored students were recognized for their outstanding leadership, citizenship, compassion and dedication to their studies and the profession.

Professor William Rubenstein ’86, the Sidley Austin Professor of Law, is this year's winner of the prestigious Albert M. Sacks-Paul A. Freund Award for Teaching Excellence, an honor bestowed each spring by the Harvard Law School graduating class. The award recognizes teaching ability, attentiveness to student concerns and general contributions to student life at the law school.

The 82nd Attorney General of the United States, Eric H. Holder Jr., addressed the 2012 graduating class at Harvard Law School, urging the newly-minted lawyers to continue the tradition of service encouraged at Harvard Law School and to use their skills to define the country’s future.

This year, Harvard’s time-honored tradition of Class Day included an interesting twist: For the first time in years, two speakers—actor, writer, and comedian Andy Samberg, and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank ’61, J.D. ’77—took turns at the outdoor dais to offer the seniors parting words of wit and wisdom.

Rajan Sonik ’12 is the winner of this year’s Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award, recognized for performing the highest number of pro bono service hours in the Class of 2012. During his time at Harvard Law School, Sonik provided over 2,500 hours of free legal services.

Meg DeMarco, director of Student Affairs in the Harvard Law School Dean of Students Office, received the Suzanne L. Richardson Staff Appreciation Award during Class Day exercises on May 23. She was selected by the Class of 2012 for her work overseeing and supporting student organizations, journals, housing and the 1L Program.

Harvard Law School graduation festivities began on Class Day, Wednesday, May 23, and continued through Commencement Day on Thursday, May 24.

On May 22, the City of Cambridge awarded Harvard Law School a 2012 GoGreen Award for Recycling and Waste Reduction for a Large Institution. Starting in 1998, the annual GoGreen Awards have recognized the environmental sustainability initiatives of Cambridge businesses and organizations in the areas of transportation, waste reduction/recycling, energy, storm water management, climate protection, and initiatives by community organizations.

Where can you pick up a lunch with Larry Summers, a fashion-forward shopping spree with a Harvard Law School professor or a Justice David Souter bobblehead? The HLS annual Public Interest Auction, of course.

There she stood, in northern Libya, a spread of explosive weapons before her: mortars and rockets and surface-to-air missiles almost 20 feet long. For all her work in post-conflict zones, senior clinical instructor Bonnie Docherty ’01 had never seen anything like it. The weapons stretched on for miles. It was March, five months after the revolution had ended, and Docherty was supervising a team from the International Human Rights Clinic on a trip to assess the humanitarian risks of abandoned weapons. As the team traveled from city to city, the scale of the problem was startling.

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University has selected Harvard Law School Assistant Professor I. Glenn Cohen '03 to be a Radcliffe Institute fellow for the 2012–2013 academic year. Cohen is among the 51 women and men who will pursue independent projects in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences within the rich, multidisciplinary community.

The World Trade Organization has appointed Harvard Law School alumnus and former HLS Visiting Professor of Law Seung Wha Chang LL.M. ’92 S.J.D. ’94 to serve on its seven-member Appellate Body. Chang will settle international trade disputes alongside distinguished trade experts from the U.S., the E.U., China, India, Mexico and South Africa.

Harvard Law School S.J.D. candidate Claire Houston has been named a recipient of the Julius B. Richmond Fellowship from the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. She will receive a dissertation grant totaling $10,000 from the Center to fund independent research during the 2012-13 academic year. Houston is the first student from HLS to be awarded this honor.

On April 27, Harvard University honored a group of 10 students chosen as 2012 Presidential Fellows for their commitment to public service initiatives, only the second group to be awarded grants from the Presidential Public Service Fellowship Program at Harvard. Current Harvard Law School students Crystal Redd '13 and Angela Chuang '13 were among those selected as fellows.

In 1932, in a Philadelphia courtroom, a defense attorney representing a man accused of murder cross-examined a police officer. There was nothing unusual about this scene, except that the defense attorney, Raymond Pace Alexander ’23, was black, and the officer he was aggressively questioning was white. This scene is one of many dramatic moments in the new book by HLS Professor Kenneth Mack ’91, “Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer.”

William Bratton, former Los Angeles police chief and police commissioner of New York, discussed his new book, “Collaborate or Perish! Reaching across Boundaries in a Networked World” (New York: Crown Business, 2012), at the 13th annual Police Union Leadership Seminar hosted by the Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School.

Kate Konschnik, Chief Environmental Counsel to U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), will join Harvard Law School on Aug. 1 as Policy Director for the Environmental Law and Policy Program.

At an April 9 ceremony at Harvard Law School, HLS student Sam Levine ‘12 and alumnus Bill Beardall ’78 received the Gary Bellow Public Service Award, given annually by the HLS student body, for their commitment to public interest and social justice work.

Harvard Law School alumnus Richard A. Meserve ‘75, president of the Carnegie Institution for Science and former head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was elected president of Harvard’s Board of Overseers for the 2012-2013 academic year. Lucy Fisher, president of the independent film production company Red Wagon Entertainment will serve as vice-chair of the committee.