Today Posts

Anthony Scaramucci '89—author of "Goodbye Gordon Gekko: How to Find Your Fortune Without Losing Your Soul" and adviser to the movie Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps—shared career advice with Harvard Law School students at an event cosponsored by the Traphagen Distinguished Alumni Speaker Series and the Office of Career Services on September 29.

In an opinion piece in the Room for Debate section of The New York Times, Harvard Law School Professor John Palfrey discusses whether the death of Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers student, calls for tougher laws against malicious acts online.

In a recent panel discussion at Harvard Law School, professors William Alford, Grainne de Burca, and Gerald Neuman extolled the benefits of studying, interning, and working abroad in a legal context, and offered practical advice to internationally-minded students about how to get started.

On Sept. 13, John B. Bellinger III '86, chief legal adviser to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the Bush Administration, gave a talk to students on how to launch and develop careers in international and public-interest law. The talk was sponsored by HLS's Office of Public Interest Advising.

The Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, an independent and nonpartisan research organization dedicated to improving the regulation and enhancing the competitiveness of U.S. capital markets, released data confirming that the competitiveness of U.S. public equity markets in global markets has resumed its deterioration throughout this year’s first half.  

In an op-ed for Project Syndicate, Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk raises questions about the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which grants corporations greater leeway in political spending.

Philosophy must engage the issues of its day, says Suffolk University Professor Gregory Fried, co-author with his father, Harvard Law Professor Charles Fried, of the new book “Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy, and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror “(Norton 2010).

“Because It Is Wrong: Torture, Privacy and Presidential Power in the Age of Terror” (Norton, 2010) by father-and-son authors Charles Fried and Gregory Fried, explores three issues presented by Bush administration policies, primarily from ethical but also from historical and legal perspectives: torture; eavesdropping, surveillance and the right to privacy; and executive prerogative.

Over the past decade, the U.S. Supreme Court has overruled the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 148 of 182 cases—a “strikingly poor record” for the circuit court, said Ninth Circuit Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain ’63 in a talk at Harvard Law School on September 17.  The event was sponsored by the Federalist Society.

Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith recently spoke on NPR about the potential consequences of the ambiguity surrounding legal and ethical limits of state behavior in cyberspace.

In a Harvard Law School lecture sponsored by the American Constitution Society, Linda Greenhouse, former Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times, discussed “the Roberts Court at Five.”

“Historically, American presidents have rarely gotten far ahead of public opinion on civil rights issues, and the few times they have, they’ve paid a substantial price for doing so,” writes HLS Professor Michael Klarman in an L.A. Times op-ed, entitled “The political risks of supporting gay rights.”

On Monday, September 27, Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation will honor the former President of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, with the 2010 Great Negotiator Award.

Annette Gordon-Reed ’84, an award-winning historian, is one of 23 recipients of the 2010 MacArthur Fellowship, more commonly known as the MacArthur “Genius Award.” Gordon-Reed—the recipient of the National Humanities Medal, the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award—was recognized for dramatically changing the course of Jeffersonian scholarship.

In early September, Timothy Endicott, dean of the faculty of law at Oxford University and a professor of legal philosophy, spoke to an overflow audience in Pound Hall on how judges in Europe and the United States have ruled on the territorial extent of human rights.  

President Barack Obama ’91 today announced that Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren will serve as an Assistant to the President and as a Special Adviser to the Treasury Secretary on the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The Commodities Future Trading Commission and the Securities Exchange Commission should closely consult the Federal Reserve on conflicts of interests affecting the nation's over-the-counter derivatives clearinghouses, wrote HLS Professor Hal Scott, director of the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, in a letter to the chairman of the CFTC. 

In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the Supreme Court ruled 5-to-4 last June that a public law school did not violate the First Amendment by withdrawing recognition from a Christian student group that excluded gay students. On Sept. 8, the Harvard Federalist Society sponsored a discussion of Martinez and its implications for religious freedom.

Here is a roundup of fellowships and scholarships awarded this year to Harvard Law School students and recent graduates to pursue domestic and international work or educational opportunities. The list includes the names of the recipients, their grants, and the places where they will be working.

Nine years after Sept. 11 and 20 months into the Obama presidency, our nation is still flummoxed about what to do with captured terrorists, writes HLS Professor Jack Goldsmith in an op-ed in today's Washington Post. In his op-ed, "A way past the terrorist detention gridlock," Goldsmith says that while there is no "silver bullet" for this problem, there are several steps the administration could take toward resolution.