Today Posts

In the wake of September 11, there was a lively debate about the optimal mix of "hard" versus "soft" power--guns versus diplomacy, military force versus foreign aid. Thursday's foiled plot to blow up commercial jets shows that a similar divide informs the world of police work. Scotland Yard and the FBI sometimes stop terrorists by shooting them, just as the criminal justice system sometimes stops attempted murders by incarcerating the would-be killers.

The following op-ed by Professor Lucian Bebchuk, Investors must have power, not just figures on pay, was published in The Financial Times on July 28, 2006: The US Securities and Exchange Commission's vote this week to expand disclosure requirements for executive pay is a major step forward.

The mainstream U.S. media have covered this worldwide uprising; it is, after all, a glimpse into the sentiments of our enemy and its allies. And yet it has refused, with but a few exceptions, to show the cartoons that purportedly caused all the outrage.

As a former curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum stands trial in Italy for criminal conspiracy to receive stolen goods, curators all over America are nervously rethinking their antiquity collections.

David Shapiro represents the true Renaissance man of legal academia. He has been a scholar, reformer, advocate, public servant and teacher, and at every turn, he has been a leader and model of excellence. There is much in his brilliant career to celebrate.

Imagine for a moment a lawsuit involving, as so many of them do, a dispute over accounting practices. Now add some complex questions of federal jurisdiction and procedure. Then assume that the parties decide—wisely—to settle. As the saying goes, “Who you gonna call?”

The influence of a great teacher like Dave Herwitz brings him nearer to immortality than most of us get. In my own nearly 50 years of professional life, I have met numerous wonderful individuals and benefited from the wisdom and character of many.

Scholars have long been fascinated by the democracy of classical Athens and the ways it is mirrored in democratic governments of today. Athenian law, on the other hand, has received little attention, since no modern legal system is descended from it.

The Bulletin asks Professor William P. Alford ’77 about the development of the legal system amidst the historic changes taking place in China.

Can law keep up with technology? Some Harvard lawyers are finding out.

Annette Lu LL.M. ’78 was wary of Ma Ying-jeou S.J.D. ’81 when they were students at HLS. Today she is vice president of Taiwan, and he is a leader of the opposition. Their intertwined stories may foretell Taiwan’s future.

Once known for producing more engineers than lawyers, Japan is embarking on a journey of legal expansion.

It’s no coincidence that Japan’s new three-year graduate law schools look a lot like the model of legal education Harvard Law School helped craft over the last century.

In Nepal, lawyers helped restore the rule of law. But not without paying a price.

The Honorable Richard Owen ’50 once penned an order for a “cursed Quaker” woman to be tied to a cart and driven through several towns where she was to be whipped “10 stripes.”

Diana Daniels ’74 was a Cravath, Swaine & Moore associate doing project finance in 1978 when she heard The Washington Post needed a lawyer.

After 20 years as Harvard Law School’s associate dean for development, Scott Nichols concluded his service on April 30 to become vice president for development and alumni relations at Boston University.

The following op-ed by Professor Alan Dershowitz, Arithmetic of Pain, was published in The Wall Street Journal on July 19, 2006: There is no democracy in the world that should tolerate missiles being fired at its cities without taking every reasonable step to stop the attacks. The big question raised by Israel's military actions in Lebanon is what is "reasonable."