Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow was named in the Green Bag’s “Exemplary Legal Writing 2010” list for her book “In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America’s Educational Landmark” (Oxford University Press 2010). The Green Bag is a quarterly journal devoted to readable, concise and entertaining legal scholarship.
The list recognizes outstanding legal writing in the categories of opinions for the court, concurrences and dissents, books, short articles, long articles, news and editorials, and miscellany. Winners are selected by the journal’s Board of Advisors, which include distinguished members from state and federal judiciaries, private law firms, the news media and academia.
Minow’s “In Brown’s Wake” examines the reverberations of Brown v. Board of Education in American schools, including efforts to promote equal opportunities for all kinds of students. School choice, once a strategy for avoiding Brown, has emerged as a tool to promote integration and opportunities, even as charter schools and private school voucher programs enable new forms of self-separation by language, gender, disability, and ethnicity. Minow argues that the criteria placed on such initiatives carry serious consequences for both the character of American education and civil society itself.
A number of HLS alums were also recognized for their legal writing.
John H. Langbein ’68 was cited for the book he authored with Renee Lettow Lerner and Bruce P. Smith, “History of the Common Law: The Development of Anglo-American Legal Institutions” (Wolters Kluwer Law & Business 2009).
Albert W. Alschuler ’65 was named to the long articles category for his article “Two Ways to Think About the Punishment of Corporations,” 46 American Criminal L. Rev. 1359 (2009). In the short articles category, the Green Bag named Justin Driver ’04 for “Why Law Should Lead,” The New Republic, April 2, 2010, and Mary Whisner ’82 for “Enact Locally,” 102 Law Libr. J. 497 (2010).
Jeffrey Toobin ’86 was named on the news and editorial list for the second year in a row. This year, he was recognized for “Without a Paddle,” The New Yorker, Sept. 27, 2010.