Today Posts

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor of the U.S. Supreme Court presided over the oral argument in the final round of the 2011 Ames Moot Court Competition on Thursday, November 17th, 2011.The competition was held in the historic Ames Courtroom of Harvard Law School.

Harvard Law School Professor Charles Ogletree delivered the Nathan I. Huggins Lecture on November 15th, 16th, and 17th at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. The lecture series, “Understanding Obama,” is divided into three parts: “From Barry to Barack,” “The Emergence of Race” and “The Conundrum of Race.” 

Siddhartha Yog, M.B.A. ’04, founder and managing partner of The Xander Group Inc., an India-focused, emerging-markets investment firm, has given the University $11,000,001 to establish two new professorships, fellowships and financial aid, and an intellectual entrepreneurship fund.

On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear challenges to the constitutionality of the Health Care Law. In an op-ed and a debate this past week, two HLS faculty members (Professors Einer Elhauge '86 and Laurence Tribe '66) and a prominent alumnus (former Solicitor General Paul Clement '92) shared their opinions on the mandate's constitutionality.

Eight Harvard Law School students in the HLS Education Law Clinic of the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI) recently spent a full day at the Massachusetts State House, testifying before the Joint Committee on Education and lobbying legislators to garner support for legislation proposed by the Clinic to create safe and supportive school environments.

At an event about the national implications of state-led immigration reform, sponsored by Harvard Immigration Project, Advocates for Human Rights, and ACLU-HLS, Lucas Guttentag, senior counsel and former founding national director of the ACLU's Immigrants’ Rights Project, discussed Alabama's new immigration law, its significance for state efforts to regulate immigration, and where immigration advocates go from here.

John G. Palfrey ’01, Harvard Law School’s Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law and vice-dean of Library and Information Resources, has been appointed the 15th Head of School at the Phillips Academy Andover, the academy announced Nov. 14. He will leave HLS and officially begin at Phillips Academy in July 2012.

Among this year’s entering class at Harvard Law School are 10 U.S. Marines and Army soldiers, all of whom served in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan – or both. Of the 10 members of this year’s class, one is an LLM candidate; the others are in the J.D. program. Five are part of HLS’s Yellow Ribbon Program, through which the U.S. Veteran’s Administration matches the amount a law school offers to pay for a veteran’s tuition and expenses. Four of these veterans share their experiences in the military and at HLS.

Law students interested in a law firm career can attend firm-sponsored meet-and-greets to speak with associates. Students interested in public interest careers can meet one-on-one with visiting alumni advisors. But HLS students interested in military careers have fewer chances to mingle with those who have pursued that path. To provide that opportunity, OPIA welcomed to HLS five alumni who have served in the armed forces, to provide guidance and answer student questions.

The moving truck, empty and waiting, is parked around the corner from the house, because between the protestors and the police cars, there is no longer any room for it in front of 197 Normandy Street.

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.

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.

At HLS Reunion Weekend last weekend, Justices Breyer and Souter (who retired from the court in 2009) exchanged good-humored banter and insights about their service on the nation’s highest court, in an event, “A Conversation with the Justices,” moderated by HLS Dean Martha Minow.

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.  

Harvard Law School Professor Annette Gordon-Reed ’84 was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as the academy’s Class IV speaker at the 2011 induction ceremony, held Oct. 1.