Today Posts

This January, twenty-five Harvard Law School students volunteered a week of their winter break to provide free legal and humanitarian assistance to area residents and community organizations in Southeast Louisiana.

It has been only a few minutes since Pranvera Recica LL.M. 2006 finished her corporations exam, and she suddenly realizes she is exhausted. Collapsing onto a chair at the Hark on a December afternoon, she explains that she's had no more than two to three hours of sleep each of the past few nights, and she is looking forward to getting back to her dorm room for a nap.

Assistant Professor Kenneth Mack is challenging conventional wisdom in his new article, "Rethinking Civil Rights Lawyering and Politics in the Era Before Brown," published in a recent issue of The Yale Law Journal.

John Palfrey '01, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, was recently appointed clinical professor of law, a new position that recognizes his leadership in developing programs that give students real-world experience in cyberlaw litigation, client counseling, research and related issues. Here, Palfrey speaks with contributor Elaine McArdle about his work.

Arthur Taylor von Mehren, the Story Professor of Law Emeritus, died on January 16th at the age of 84. In addition to educating thousands of Harvard Law students over the course of a 50-year teaching career, von Mehren was a pioneer in comparative and international law. He helped to develop new thinking on a range of legal issues including international jurisdictions, commercial arbitration and comparative constitutional law.

Lucian Bebchuk, director of HLS's Program on Corporate Governance, was named as one of this year's "100 most influential people in finance" by Treasury and Risk Management magazine. The list recognizes leaders in corporate finance, ranging from CEOs to regulators to academics.

This morning, Harvard Law Professors Charles Fried and Laurence Tribe appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee as part of a panel of legal experts testifying on the nomination of Samuel Alito for the Supreme Court.

The following op-ed by Professor Philip Heymann, Bush must honor the rule of law, originally appeared in The Boston Globe on January 12, 2006: Based on his constitutional powers and the authorization for the use of military force granted by congressional resolution after the events of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush has declared himself free to ignore any law that he thinks limits his ability to fight terrorism.

When Justices William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O’Connor left the bench last year, conservatives were in an anxious mood: though pleased at the prospect of shifting the Supreme Court to the right, they were worried by the record of past Republican appointments. The refrain in conservative commentary, repeated with special intensity during the Harriet Miers affair, was: Not another Souter. Not another Kennedy. Not another O’Connor.

Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s opponents have seized upon two memorandums he wrote when he was a junior lawyer in the office of the solicitor general: one on the Thornburgh case, which dealt with Roe v. Wade, and the other on Mitchell v. Forsyth, which addressed the attorney general's personal liability for wiretaps found to violate the Constitution.

Professor Charles Fried writes: I am convinced of the urgent necessity of such a surveillance program. I suppose but do not know -- the revelations have been understandably and deliberately vague -- that included in what is done is a constant computerized scan of all international electronic communications.

On February 1, Harvard Law School will host a broadcast of the popular CNBC investment program "Mad Money," which features well-known market analyst Jim Cramer, a 1984 Harvard Law graduate. The show will be taped in the Ames Courtroom in Austin Hall before a crowd of approximately 300 Harvard students. The event is the first in a series of "Mad Money" broadcasts on university campuses around the country.

When it comes to Supreme Court nominees, conservatives are in agreement: Situation matters. Pundits on the right shouted down Harriet E. Miers over concerns that her evangelical backbone would whither under Washington winds. Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. stepped into her spot seeming of far more stalwart vertebrae, but as his backers have stressed recently, he is a creature of situation as well.

David Westfall, who held the John L. Gray and Carl F. Schipper, Jr. professorships at Harvard Law School, died earlier today, surrounded by his family. He was 78.

On November 30, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San José, Costa Rica, dismissed Brazil’s preliminary objections to a case involving the death of a man in custody of a Brazilian mental health institution. James Cavallaro, clinical director of the Human Rights Program at HLS, served as lead counsel to the victim's family, and a team of HLS students – Jonathan Kaufman, Fernando Delgado, Deborah Popowski, and Jane Hopwood assisted with the litigation in Costa Rica.

Harvard Law students won nine out of 27 Skadden fellowships for 2005. The Skadden program provides funding to graduating students and recent alumni to pursue public interest legal work. This year's achievement is the most in the history of the fellowship program awarded to students from a single school.

On December 6, an international panel of experts will gather to discuss the current state of corporate governance in the global marketplace. The discussion will focus on particular hypothetical situations related to recent problems involving investor trust and corporate scandals.

On Saturday, December 3, Harvard Law School will host a seminar to address international disability rights. As the United Nations proceeds with a three-year planning process to develop a new human rights treaty regarding the disabled, this seminar will offer a public forum for discussing the treaty and its implementation.