Today Posts

In her address to the Class of 2011, Dean Martha Minow praised the students’ accomplishments at HLS and their vast array of skills and achievements. But as they prepared to receive their diplomas, she emphasized the importance of one skill in particular, urging them to “cherish your talent for asking good questions.”

Alec Baldwin never intended to become an actor – he wanted to be a lawyer. From the age of 10, he bonded with his father by watching the evening news, absorbing great moments in American history; watching political leaders write the narrative of the 20th century. “It was right about then that I decided I wanted to be a lawyer, at 10 years old,” he told the Harvard Law School graduating class, as the student-selected 2011 Class Day speaker.

Professor Jon Hanson, the Alfred Smart 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.

Elizabeth “Libby” Benton ’11 is the winner of the 2011 Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award, after performing over 2,300 hours of free legal services while at HLS.  The Class of 2011 surpassed the HLS record for pro bono hours, performing a total of 366,204 hours, an average of 628 hours per student.

During Class Day exercises on May 25, Sarah Min ’11 received the inaugural William J. Stuntz Memorial Award for Justice, Human Dignity and Compassion, which recognizes a graduating student who has demonstrated an exemplary commitment to these principles while at Harvard Law School.

William Howell, student programs manager in the Dean of Students Office at Harvard Law School, received the Suzanne L. Richardson Staff Appreciation Award during Class Day exercises on May 25.

Harvard Law School graduation festivities began on Class Day, Wednesday, May 25, and continued through Commencement Day on Thursday, May 26. This year, the Law School conferred a total of 790 degrees—585 J.D.s, 195 LL.M.s, and 10 S.J.D.s.

Kirkland and Ellis Professor of Law Michael J. Klarman has published an essay titled “Has the Supreme Court Been More a Friend or Foe to African Americans?” in a recent volume of Daedalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

The American Bar Association has selected HLS Professor Noah Feldman’s “Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices” (Twelve, 2010) to receive its 2011 Silver Gavel Award for Books. The group biography of Felix Frankfurter LL.B. 1906, Robert Jackson, Hugo Black and William O. Douglas explores the justices’ contentious relationship and their effect on 20th century constitutional law.

Army Brigadier General Mark Martins ’90 accepted the Medal of Freedom, the highest honor conferred by Harvard Law School, and gave the inaugural Dean’s Distinguished Lecture on April 18 at HLS.

The Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard helped shape the agenda of Rethink Music, a recent conference that brought together legal, business, and academic experts to discuss new business models for creating and distributing music.

Harvard Law School Distinguished Senior Fellow Ben W. Heineman, Jr., Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Elena Kagan ’86 and Princeton University Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter '85 are among the new class of members elected to the American Philosophical Society this year.

The United States cannot afford to allow ongoing legal ambiguities to compromise the vast potential of stem-cell research, yet the struggle over federal funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells may well be waged for years to come, write Harvard Law School Assistant Professor I. Glenn Cohen and Dr. Eli Y. Adashi in an article published by the New England Journal of Medicine on May 18.

Adrienne Bradley ’12 was named one of Latham & Watkins' 2011 Diversity Scholars in April. The Diversity Scholars initiative awards $10,000 scholarships to four second-year law students in the United States who intend to practice law in a global firm. The program is one of several firm initiatives designed to promote diversity and equal opportunity in the legal profession.

Mihir A. Desai, who currently serves as the Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance, the Senior Associate Dean for Planning and University Affairs, and the Chair of Doctoral Programs at Harvard Business School, has accepted a joint appointment to the faculty of Harvard Law School as a tenured Professor of Law.

In April, Harvard Law School participated in festivities commemorating Earth Month at Harvard, an inaugural initiative featuring university-wide events and activities to celebrate and raise awareness about environmental issues.  

On an early morning in January, eight upper-year Harvard Law School students landed on the lone runway at the sleepy international airport in Lesotho where they were warmly welcomed by officials from the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (“MCC”), an innovative U.S. government foreign assistance agency.

At an event hosted by the Harvard Women’s Law Association on April 19, 2011, Joseph M. Sellers, head of the Civil Rights and Employment practice group at Cohen Milstein, shared his experience working on Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, the largest civil rights class action suit in the United States.

In light of the recent controversy over President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, Harvard Law School Professor Randall Kennedy espouses his views on the subject in the May 12 edition of The New Republic online.