Jurisprudence and Legal Theory

In remarks made as part of the biennial Vaughan Academic Program, Harvard Law Professor Adrian Vermeule argued that the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia began his judicial career as a champion of the administrative state.

What are the real differences between common and civil law systems? Probably not the ones lawyers typically think about, said Harvard Law School Professor Holger Spamann S.J.D. ’09 in a lecture commemorating his appointment as Lawrence R. Grove Professor of Law.

Legal scholar, thought leader, and equal rights champion Catharine A. MacKinnon, 2022 recipient of the American Philosophical Society’s Henry M. Phillips Prize in Jurisprudence, discusses her teaching and the changes she has spent her career fighting for.

Ketanji Brown Jackson ’96 becomes the first Black woman to serve on the Court

In his book “The Authority of the Court and the Peril of Politics,” Justice Stephen Breyer explored how the Court can continue to maintain its vital role as a check on the rest of the government.

The Harvard Law School Library has announced the public release of the first batch of papers and other items from the Antonin Scalia Collection. His papers were donated by the Scalia family following the influential justice's death in 2016.

One new book by Lawrence Lessig explains a core virtue of the Supreme Court; a second explores America’s perilous politics—which put that virtue at serious risk

Benjamin Eidelson, a scholar of constitutional law and legal theory, has joined the Harvard Law School faculty as an assistant professor, effective July 1. Trained in both law and philosophy, Eidelson specializes in questions at the intersection of the two disciplines.