Today Posts

Twenty senior federal officials – both Republicans and Democrats – met in Washington in July to hone their negotiation and consensus building skills with members of the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program (HNMCP) at Harvard Law School.

In an HLS panel discussion titled “Life of the Law, Life of the Mind,” Dean Martha Minow and Professors of Law Jeannie Suk and Noah Feldman stressed the importance of recognizing and embracing the differences between legal training and academic experience.

Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith wrote an op-ed for the Oct. 21, 2010 edition of the Washington Post titled “Our nation’s secrets, stuck in a broken system.” The piece addresses Bob Woodward’s book, “Obama Wars,” in which ostensibly classified information – presumably obtained from senior White House officials – is disclosed regardless of the “grave damage” that could result from its release.  

Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Second Circuit in support of a petition for rehearing en banc in a major corporate Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) case, Kiobel, et al. v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., et al.

The efforts of students in the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau and the WilmerHale Legal Services Center to keep Boston residents in their homes after foreclosure were featured in a major story last night on the PBS NewsHour.

Reverend Professor Ian Ker of Oxford University gave a lecture on John Henry Newman’s “The Idea of a University” at Harvard Law School in September, arguing that careful attention is needed to understand Newman’s perspective on the goals of a university in light of modern day assumptions about education.

Louis Henkin ’40, who pioneered the field of human rights law and was a prolific scholar and teacher in the fields of constitutional and international law, died Oct. 14, 2010. He was 92.

Professor John Manning delivered a chair lecture, “The Separation of Powers as Ordinary Interpretation,” in October to mark his appointment as the Bruce Bromley Professor of Law. Manning addressed a full Caspersen Room, with a broad representation of the Harvard Law School community in attendance.

Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, directed by Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig, has received a gift of $12.3 million from Lily Safra, given in memory of her late husband, Edmond J. Safra, a prominent philanthropist who was the founder of the Republic National Bank of New York.

On October 15 and 16, 2010, the Harvard Law School Program on the Legal Profession hosted FutureEd 2: Making Lawyers for the 21st Century. Legal scholars, practitioners and regulators from around the world gathered in Cambridge to discuss the evolution and future of legal education, and to present proposals for change.

The continuing debate over Brown v. Board of Education's effects was forcefully illustrated on Tuesday, Sept. 28, by a panel discussion of Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow’s new book, “In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Educational Landmark,” the first in a series of events on faculty-authored books sponsored by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice and HLS.

Harvard University announced today (Oct. 19) that Mark Johnson, the Director of Major Capital Projects and Physical Planning at Harvard Law School, has been named vice president for capital planning and project management.

In an Oct. 8 op-ed in the New York Times, Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith argues that the trial of suspected terrorists – whether in criminal, civilian, or military court – is the “wrong approach.” 

On Oct. 12, Judge Virginia A. Phillips of Federal District Court for the Central District of California issued an injunction barring enforcement of don’t ask, don’t tell, the law that prohibits openly gay men and women from serving in the military.

In a public lecture sponsored by the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Thomas Scanlon, Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Morality, and Civil Policy at Harvard, discussed individual morality and the morality of institutions.  

When she was 19, Rebecca Onie ’03 created a program that takes a holistic approach to treating low-income patients; one “genius grant” later, she’s determined to change the health care system.

Professor Philip Heymann ’60 and Associate Professor Gabriella Blum LL.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’03 received the 2010 Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize for their recently published book “Laws, Outlaws, and Terrorists” (MIT Press, 2010).

Professor Philip Heymann ’60 and Associate Professor Gabriella Blum LL.M. ’01 S.J.D. ’03 received the 2010 Chicago-Kent College of Law/Roy C. Palmer Civil Liberties Prize for their recently published book “Laws, Outlaws, and Terrorists” (MIT Press, 2010).

The American government should display more transparency and give clearer legal guidelines for targeted killings and the use of drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Philip Alston, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, during a lecture last week.

In a recent interview with the Harvard Gazette, Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow and Professor Noah Feldman surveyed the future of the Supreme Court in light of the succession of retired associate justice John Paul Stevens by former HLS Dean Elena Kagan ’86.

I. Glenn Cohen, co-director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health and Law Policy and assistant professor of Harvard Law School, was a guest on the radio program “The Takeaway,” a national morning news program produced in partnership with The New York Times, the BBC World Service, WNYC, Public Radio International and WGBH Boston.