Today Posts

On Fri. and Sat., Feb. 21 and 22, the Harvard chapter of the American Constitution Society will present its first annual spring conference, entitled "What is Liberalism?: A Multiplicity of Voices." The conference will feature a keynote address from U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Guido Calabresi and a keynote conversation on rights and liberalism between Jack Balkin of Yale Law School and Frank Michelman of Harvard Law School.

The Harvard Law Review has announced that second-year student Daniel B. Kirschner has been chosen as its 117th President. Kirschner was elected from a slate of eight candidates after eleven hours of debate.

On Thurs., Feb. 13, Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Margaret Marshall will give a talk titled, "Reflections of South Africa: Now and Then." Marshall, a native of South Africa, graduated from Witwaterstrand University in Johannesburg and served as president of the national union of South African students from 1966 to 1968.

Professor Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago has been named the 2003 Harvard Law School Oliver Wendell Holmes Lecturer. Sunstein will deliver his two-part remarks, entitled "The Naked Emperor: Why Societies Need Dissent," beginning on Monday, Feb. 10. Sunstein will also be awarded the law school's Henderson Prize at the conclusion of the second part of his remarks on Feb. 11.

Beginning this Thursday, Feb. 6, Harvard Law School Professors Janet Halley and Duncan Kennedy will hold a series of workshops to reexamine notable--and often controversial--books. Entitled "Book Trouble 2003," these discussions will explore the role specific books play in the development of people's professional roles, historical crises, social alliances and social movements. The first book to be discussed will feature Professor Charles Fried on John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty". The discussion will begin at 4 p.m. in Pound 102.

Harvard Law School has announced the establishment of The Oneida Indian Nation Professorship of Law. This chair--the first endowed chair in American Indian studies at Harvard University and the only professorship of its kind east of the Mississippi River--will allow Harvard Law School to continue its leadership role in the development of emerging legal fields.

Staggered boards, which a majority of public companies now have, hurt shareholders by enabling managers to fend off value-increasing offers from hostile bidders, according to new empirical research by three Harvard Law professors. Staggered boards hurt shareholders of hostile bid targets even when a majority of the board is made of independent directors, and they do not appear to benefit shareholders of targets that are acquired in a negotiated acquisition. The new study--conducted by Harvard Law School professors Lucian Bebchuk, John Coates, and Guhan Subramanian--will appear in an upcoming Stanford Law Review symposium focusing on the researchers' work.

A study by two Harvard Law School researchers provides evidence that the vigorous competition among states over corporate charters--the engine that many believe pushes toward rules that benefit shareholders--is largely a myth. This evidence leads the researchers to call for federal law to provide a federal incorporation option, as well as to enable shareholders to initiate and vote to approve corporate reincorporation to a different jurisdiction. The study, "Vigorous Race or Leisurely Walk: Reconsidering the Competition over Corporate Charters," by Professor Lucian Bebchuk and Olin Fellow Assaf Hamdani, will soon appear in the Yale Law Journal.

Harvard Law School is currently hosting an exhibit on the relationship between the African-American community and the Massachusetts courts from the colonial period to the present day. Long Road to Justice, assembled by the Justice George Lewis Ruffin Society, combines historical artifacts, court records, text and images to depict the compelling cases and courageous individuals who led the struggle to achieve racial justice in the Massachusetts courts.

A new study by Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society reveals the extensiveness of China's web filtering policies. Beginning in May 2002 and concluding in Nov. 2002, Berkman Center researchers attempted to access approximately 200,000 web sites through telephone dial-up links and proxy servers in China. The authors of the study tracked 19,032 web sites that were inaccesssible from China on multiple occasions while remaining available in the United States. These sites contained information about news, politics, health, commerce and entertainment.

On Wednesday, Nov. 20, the Program on Negotation at Harvard Law School will host a panel discussion on the role that negotiation might play in the current Iraqi situation. Panelists will include Harvard Law School Professors Roger Fisher and Robert Mnookin, and Harvard Business School Associate Professor Michael Watkins.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will be among the three judges evaluating the student arguments in the finals of Harvard Law School's 91st annual Ames Moot Court Competition. The event will be held today, November 19, 2002, and will be webcast live from the Ames Courtroom at 7:30 p.m.

On Friday, Nov. 15, Harvard Law School will host a panel discussion on this summer's baseball negotiations. Speakers will include Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball's chief negotiator; Larry Lucchino, president and CEO of the Boston Red Sox; Mike Weiner, associate general counsel of the Major League Baseball Players Association; Peter Gammons, ESPN baseball analyst, and Professor Andrew Zimbalist of Smith College. The discussion will be moderated by Harvard Law Professor Paul Weiler.

On Monday, Nov. 11, the Harvard Law Review will hold its annual Supreme Court Forum, a discussion by prominent constitutional law scholars that coincides with the release of the Review's Supreme Court issue, published each November. This year's Forum will feature President Aharon Barak, the chief justice of the Israel Supreme Court, who will discuss his foreword to the November issue, entitled "A Judge on Judging: The Role of A Supreme Court in a Democracy."

Last week, the Harvard Law School International Tax Program hosted a three-day conference on tax treaties and the taxation of business profits. The program, attended by government officials as well as academics and private sector representatives from 18 nations, sought to identify problems with the current treatment of business profits under tax treaties and explore alternative solutions to these problems.

Harvard Law School Visiting Professor Robert Pozen, a former vice chairman of Fidelity Investments, says Social Security accounting makes "the Enron debacle look like a minor bookkeeping error." Writing in the November 2002 Harvard Business Review, Pozen goes on to say that if a U.S. company tried similar accounting for its pension liabilities, "surely someone would go to jail for securities or accounting fraud."

Harvard Law School Dean Robert Clark has announced the establishment of the Hale and Dorr Professorship of Intellectual Property Law. A reception in honor of this professorship will be held this afternoon at the Law School.