Today Posts

A recent study, “The Wages of Failure: Executive Compensation at Bear Stearns and Lehman 2000-2008,” by Professor Lucian A. Bebchuk LL.M. ’80 S.J.D. ’84, Visiting Professor Alma Cohen and Lecturer on Law Holger Spamann S.J.D. ’09 refutes the widespread assumption that the wealth of the top executives at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers was largely wiped out when their companies collapsed. According to the authors, many have used this account to dismiss the view that pay structures caused excessive risk-taking, but, they say, that standard narrative turns out to be incorrect.

Harvard University was recognized as one of the world’s top three open-access institutions of the year by BioMed Central, an international publisher of journals in science, technology, and medicine and a pioneer in open-access publishing. Harvard Law School was given special recognition for being one of four schools at Harvard to introduce its own open-access mandates.

In a debate broadcast from Washington, D.C., HLS Professor Jonathan Zittrain ’95 argued that the “Cyber War Threat” is a real and present danger. Zittrain was teamed with former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, against Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and Bruce Schneier, an internationally renowned security technologist.

Environmental law expert Richard Lazarus ’79 has been appointed the executive director of a new bipartisan commission created by President Barack Obama ’91 to examine the causes of the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Several HLS Professors testified on behalf of former Dean Elena Kagan ’86 on July 1 during confirmation hearings for her nomination to become an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

As Elena Kagan becomes the 112th Supreme Court justice, she adds to an impressive list of 22 justices who have one thing in common: Not only have they shaped the law in influential and historical ways — they all hail from Harvard.

In Ruthenberg v. Michigan, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis LL.B. 1877 first formulated the principles surrounding the exercise of free speech that would appear in his later opinion in Whitney v. California (1927). The Louis D. Brandeis Papers held by the Harvard Law School Library include seven folders of drafts written by Brandeis for Ruthenberg, which have now been digitized and are available on the law school website.

The Senate confirmed former Harvard Law School Dean and Solicitor General Elena Kagan ’86 to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens on the United States Supreme Court today by a vote of 63-37. Kagan becomes the 112th Justice and the first former Dean of the Law School to serve on the Court.

“The Triumphant Decline of the WASP” by HLS Professor Noah Feldman appeared in the June 28, 2010, edition of the New York Times. Feldman is the author of the forthcoming book “Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of F.D.R.’s Great Supreme Court Justices.”

"The Good Driller Award,” an op-ed by Professor Jody Freeman LL.M. ’91 S.J.D. ’95, appeared in the July 1, 2010 edition of the New York Times.

Within hours of the catastrophic earthquake that hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Jan. 12, when so many felt helpless to intervene, a website powered by volunteers helped to inform humanitarian aid groups and even the U.S. State Department about the developing disaster.

“Late Justice is not Justice, but manifest injustice,” wrote Ruy Barbosa de Oliveira (1849-1923), perhaps the most prominent jurist and statesman in the history of Brazil. I was struck by these words during my first year of law school in São Paulo.

Raj Kumar LL.M. ’00 wants to reform India’s legal system—one law student at a time.

Former prosecutor Paul Butler ’86 now argues for jury nullification in cases of nonviolent offenders—even if they are guilty.

Bruce Ramer ’58 divides his time between entertainment giants and pro bono causes.

An online investigative journalist, working on a shoestring budget, is sued for libel. Where can he turn for legal help?

From filing an emergency guardianship petition in probate court ensuring that the children of a dying mother are raised by the person she chooses, to appealing the denial of a disability claim in federal court for a critically ill client, the Harvard Law School Health Law and Policy Clinic prides itself on taking the toughest cases and working to shape policy to protect some of society’s most vulnerable people.

When, in February, Internet law expert Professor John G. Palfrey ’01 spoke at a gathering of the Harvard Law School American Constitution Society, he asked his audience to consider this trio of circumstances.

The title of Professor Mark Tushnet’s “Why the Constitution Matters” is something of a misnomer.

LL.M. students recall their work in Afghanistan and share their hopes for the nation’s future.