Law and Economics

These are trying times for the World Trade Organization, Deputy Director-General Alan Wolff admitted when he spoke at Harvard Law School on March 12. Yet in his speech he offered reason for optimism.

Harvard Law Professor Jesse Fried ’92 first became interested in the use and misuse of repurchases as an Olin Fellow at HLS in the mid-1990s. He has recently co-written several articles on the topic, including “Are Buybacks Really Shortchanging Investment?” with Charles C.Y. Wang in the Harvard Business Review. Here, Fried offers perspective on a complex, and increasingly political, topic.

Speaking at Harvard Law School, U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III '09 (D., Mass.) called Monday for a new national economic agenda based on “moral capitalism” that addresses the needs of embattled workers.

Statistics released by the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) indicate that, as of the end of 2018, Harvard Law School faculty members have continued to feature prominently on SSRN’s list of the 100 most-cited law professors.

Christine Desan, the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, organized the conference, “Money as a Democratic Medium,” a two-day event that challenged its participants to re-examine the history of money in America, and to redefine its future.

Mark Wu, a leading expert on international trade and international economic law, was promoted to full professor, effective July 1. He was named the Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law.

A student delegation from the Harvard Association for Law and Business (HALB) visited business, legal, and government leaders in London and Brussels, Belgium, in late August, as part of HALB’s second-annual International Trek.

The Harvard Law School Library hosted a series of book talks by HLS authors, with topics including Authoritarianism in America, the Supreme Court of India, and Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict. As part of this ongoing series, faculty authors from various disciplines shared their research and discussed their recently published books with a panel of colleagues and the Harvard Law community.

Caitlin Long ’94 left Wyoming for Harvard Law School and the career on Wall Street that followed, but she’s never forgotten her home state or its only university.

HLS Professor Mnookin, who for many years chaired the school’s Program on Negotiation, joins two other Harvard-affiliated professors in a study of the former secretary of state’s public and private deal-making, based on extensive interviews with Henry Kissinger on negotiation strategy and tactics.

A team of Harvard Law students won the North American regional competition at the European Law Students Association (ELSA) Moot Court Competition on WTO Law. The team will advance to the final round at the WTO Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland later this spring.

Kicking of the Harvard Association for Law & Business' seventh annual symposium on Feb. 26, a panel of top-level executives in the financial world explored the possibilities of crossing over from a legal to a financial career.

The Holberg Prize—one of the largest international prizes awarded annually to an outstanding researcher in the arts and humanities, the social sciences, law or theology—named U.S. legal scholar Cass Robert Sunstein as its 2018 Laureate. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University.

In early December, the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession (CLP) hosted two major events in India to celebrate the publication of 'The Indian Legal Profession in the Age of Globalization: The Rise of the Corporate Legal Sector and its Impact on Lawyers and Society.'

Prof. David Wilkins, vice dean for Global Initiatives on the Legal Profession and faculty director of Harvard Law School's Center on the Legal Profession (CLP), recently sat down to discuss CLP's project on Globalization Lawyers and Emerging Economies (GLEE) and what lies ahead for the innovative program.

Last month, the Program on International Financial Systems at Harvard Law School held its 20th annual U.S.-Japan symposium, along with a special anniversary gala to celebrate the milestone and look ahead to the future of the program as PIFS director Hal S. Scott transitions to a new role as emeritus professor at Harvard.

In becoming a Marine and then a lawyer, Nathan Garrett Jester ’20 is interested in someday going into local or state politics in his home state of Georgia, to serve the community where he was born and raised.

On January 3, 2018, the world will change, according to Professor Howell Jackson. That is the day that the second iteration of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive — a set of European Union financial regulations that emerged in the wake of 2008, known colloquially as MiFID II — will go into effect.

Niamh Moloney LL.M. ’93, professor of Financial Markets Law and incoming Head of the Law Department (2018-2019) at the London School of Economics, spoke at Harvard Law School on Sept. 27 on the complex question of the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union and its implications for the U.K.’s financial services industry.

On Aug. 28, a student delegation from the Harvard Association of Law and Business (HALB) embarked on a week-long trip through Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Beijing, China, on the first-ever HALB China Trek, organized to expose students to the unique lessons from the rapid development of China's global economy.

Legal scholars from across the globe gathered at HLS in July for a two-day conference on law and development, the latest iteration of a series of conferences held periodically by a loose consortium of schools including Harvard Law School, the University of Geneva, Renmin University of China, and the University of Sydney, Australia.