Today Posts

Can a veteran prosecutor whip the Department of Homeland Security into shape? Michael Chertoff '78 has already started.

After her people were slaughtered by neighbors, Geraldine Umugwaneza LL.M. '05 knows that forgiveness is elusive, but she is determined to help Rwanda move forward.

On Jan. 12, 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the strict and sometimes unforgiving sentencing guidelines that have tied the hands of federal judges for nearly 20 years would no longer bind them.

The evidence suggests that Dershowitz is not overstating the case. "Rights from Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights" (Basic Books), published in November 2004, was his ninth book since the beginning of 2000--and his 19th since 1982, when Random House published his first popular book about law, "The Best Defense."

“Excessive pay isn’t the only cost of flawed compensation arrangements. Executives’ influence over their boards has produced pay arrangements that dilute and sometimes pervert incentives.

A sampling from this year's crop of 3L papers.

Professor Heather Gerken says it can.

For 19th century printers, crime was good business. Brutal murders and other horrific crimes translated into profit when they became the subjects of single-page printings. Today close to 400 of these broadsides, most printed in England from 1820 to 1860, are preserved in an HLS library collection. They highlight acts of wrongdoing, purported confessions from the accused (often set in verse), and accounts of trials and public executions. Many are illustrated with woodcuts.

Two new human rights reports from international groups Human Rights Watch and Front Line draw on research and writing from students in the Clinical Advocacy Project of Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program.

Harvard Law School's historic Langdell South classroom has been renamed Kirkland and Ellis Hall in recognition of a $3 million gift made by the Chicago-based international law firm. The gift will support preservation and upkeep of this important 162-seat teaching space and -- as part of the Harvard Law School endowment -- support the law school's general educational and research activities.

Last week the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a family is a protected and recognized social group for purposes of refugee protection and asylum eligibility—a ruling praised a group of Harvard Law School students. The students, working with the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic and the Harvard Human Rights Program, had filed an amicus brief in the case of Thomas v. Gonzales urging the court to reach the conclusion reflected in the ruling.

The following op-ed by Professor Charles Fried appeared in The Boston Globe on Thursday, May 19, 2005: The Republican leadership may change Senate procedures so that a minority of 41 of the 100 senators could no longer permanently block a floor vote for judicial nominees. This is really a political, not a constitutional fight, and in figuring which side to support, the public should at least not be confused by bogus claims of constitutional principle.

Harvard Law School's Federalist Society and American Constitution Society will join forces next fall to host provocative, off-the-record moot court sessions previewing Supreme Court cases. The Supreme Court Advocacy Project, sponsored by the two organizations and Dean Elena Kagan, will invite litigants of upcoming cases to present their arguments before a panel of experts, discuss case strategy and receive critiques.

In November 2003, at age 33, Jeffrey Fisher appeared twice before the Supreme Court. After finishing arguments for one criminal law case -- a field which was not his specialty -- he returned to the Court 15 days later to argue a second criminal case. Even more remarkably, he won both. A partner at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP in Seattle, Wash., Fisher was chosen by the 2005 Class Marshals as this year's Class Day speaker. The address will take place on Wednesday, June 8 at 2 p.m.