Today Posts

Professor Lucian Bebchuk, director of the HLS Program on Corporate Governance, recently delivered the John R. Raben Fellowship Lecture at Yale University. The lecture was based on a working paper titled "The Myth of the Shareholder Franchise," in which Bebchuk argues that shareholders rarely, if ever, successfully vote to replace the board of a public company.

Amar Mehta and Sabastian Niles, both third-year law students, won the American Bar Association Northeast Regional Negotiation Championship. Coached by Robert C. Bordone, the Thaddeus R. Beal Lecturer on Law at the Law School, Amar and Sabastian bested teams from 20 other law schools to win first place.

The International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg are widely regarded to have changed the course of history. The legacy of the trials for courts, social institutions and broader society was the focus of the two-day conference, "Pursuing Human Dignity: The Legacies of Nuremberg for International Law, Human Rights, and Education."

On Wednesday, November 9, a panel of experts tackled the subject of executive power and the war on terrorism as part of Harvard Law School's latest Dean's Forum event moderated by Dean Elena Kagan.

Professor Mary Ann Glendon has been named a recipient of the National Humanities Medal. She will be presented with the award tomorrow at an Oval Office ceremony with President Bush. Glendon is among a small number of Americans to receive the humanities medal this year, which was revealed yesterday in conjunction with the announcement of the National Medal of Arts recipients.

Betty Murungi, a fellow at the HLS Human Rights Program and an advocate for human rights in Africa, has been named this year's International Advocate for Peace by the Cardozo School of Law. The award honors contributions to justice, peace and conflict resolution. Previous recipients include former President Bill Clinton, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

On Friday, Novemeber 4, The Program on Corporate Governance at HLS will host a panel discussion to debate personal liability for corporate directors. This question became a central one in the recent WorldCom and Enron cases, in which directors paid settlement fees out of their own pockets. Panelists will consider whether personal liability makes directors accountable, or whether it could deter directors from serving and make serving directors excessively defensive.

Ben W. Heineman, Jr., GE's Senior Vice President for Law and Public Affairs, will become the first Distinguished Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School's Program on the Legal Profession, beginning in the spring semester. At the same time, he will become a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Professor Elizabeth Warren writes: Is there celebration in the halls of Citibank this week? Is MBNA uncorking the Champagne while Ford Motor Credit serves cake? Eleven years ago, these and other creditors pushed hard to re-elect sympathetic members of Congress who would enact a tougher bankruptcy law. Last Monday, the law they lobbied for went into effect.

Professor Charles Fried writes: What is indispensable is that [Miers] be able to think lucidly and deeply about legal questions and express her thoughts in clear, pointed, understandable prose. A justice without those capabilities -- however generally intelligent, decent, and hardworking -- risks being a calamity for the court, the law, and the country.

Following the announcement on October 6 that the former United Nations high commissioner for refugees, Sadako Ogata, is the winner of the 2005 Great Negotiator Award, this week Ogata came to Harvard Law School to receive the award and speak to the HLS community.

A new book co-edited by Harvard Law School lecturer Robert C. Bordone has received the top book award from the National Institute for Advanced Conflict Resolution.

The clinical casework of students in Harvard Law School's Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative is the foundation of a landmark new report called Helping Traumatized Children Learn.

On Wednesday, October 5, Newt Minow spoke at Harvard Law School as the first in the "Great Lawyers" speakers series. Minow's career has included practice in both small and large law firms, government service and business. The conversation was moderated by Dean Elena Kagan and Professor Martha Minow, his daughter. An archived webcast of the event is now available.

The Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School today announced that the recipient of its 2005 Great Negotiator award is Sadako Ogata, the former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the 1990s.

The following essay, The Truman Show: In choosing Miers, Bush pulled a Truman, by Professor William Stuntz originally appeared in The New Republic Online on October 4, 2005: What kind of president picks both John Roberts and Harriet Miers? They look like the ultimate odd couple. Roberts is not a Bush crony, he has a résumé to die for, and everyone who knows him says he's unbelievably smart. Miers is more than a crony but certainly not less.

On the same day that President Bush nominated his second Supreme Court justice, members of the Harvard Law School faculty assembled in Langdell Hall to examine recent trends on the high Court and speculate about upcoming cases and the beginning of John Robert's tenure as chief justice.

From the September 2005 issue of Harvard Law Today: Fifteen ambassadors took their seats at the round Security Council table. Two rows behind U.S. Ambassador Gerald Scott sat Alex Wong ’07, summer intern at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

On Wednesday, September 28, Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia were joined by their British counterparts for a wide-ranging panel discussion on the similarities and differences between the judicial systems in the U.S. and U.K.