Seven hundred and sixty-one members of the Class of 2010 celebrated the end of their HLS journey at Commencement Exercises on May 27. As they are about to start their next journeys, five students from the graduating class take a look back at their time at HLS and share their plans for the future.

Laura Openshaw

An Evangelical Christian since her time at Harvard College, Laura Openshaw ’10 came to law school determined to start observing the Sabbath. From Saturday evening until Sunday evening, she didn’t work or study. Instead, she went to religious services, and tried to focus on things other than herself and her education. At the beginning of law school she found putting everything else aside “incredibly hard. At first it felt like a burden,” she says, “but it’s been a blessing to put away the books, rest, refuel and enjoy the things I might not have time for.”

Openshaw’s faith has infused all aspects of her time at HLS—from her strong focus on clinical experience to her extracurricular activities to her choice of what path to take after graduation. Last year, as president of the pro-life group Society for Law, Life and Religion, she worked to increase connections and community among socially conservative law students. In classes, she’s found, “it’s often helpful for people to know who their colleagues are.” And during the past two summers, she worked for Greater Boston Legal Services, learning the intricacies of housing law and helping indigent clients defend against eviction.

A highlight of Openshaw’s time in law school was her two years of clinical work for the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, which provides free legal assistance to people in the Boston area. Openshaw spent 30 to 40 hours a week representing victims of domestic violence in divorce cases, child custody cases and in other areas of family law. She calls the experience “formative in terms of helping me realize what I want to do as a lawyer and figuring out how law works on the ground.” She will be staying with the bureau next year as a clinical fellow, mentoring students and running her own cases. She is committed to remaining in this field in Boston for the long term: “My pro-life values and service values both grow from my faith. I see so much need in our society; there are tons of people who need assistance and support.”

Hagan Scotten

Much has changed for Hagan Scotten ’10 as he leaves Harvard Law School—just as when he left the U.S. Army in Iraq to come to HLS three years ago. But his habit of leaving highly decorated is intact.

A winner of two Bronze Stars as a troop commander in the Fifth Special Forces Group, Scotten was awarded the prestigious Fay Diploma at this year’s Commencement, reserved for the J.D. graduate with the highest grades of his or her class. Similarly, last year he was awarded the Sears Prize, given to the three students with the highest grades in the 2L year. He was also on the Harvard Law Review.

But Scotten’s legacy at HLS reaches far beyond the classroom: Last fall he was named best oralist at the Ames Moot Court Competition and was a member of the winning Charles Sumner Memorial Team. “The Ames Competition was a highlight for me when I think back to my time at Harvard.” said Scotten, whose team’s victory is even more impressive given that this year’s competition had one of the largest number of groups signed up (50) in recent history.

As he proved in uniform, Scotten’s commitment to excellence goes well beyond academia, illustrated by his 1L summer at the Counterterrorism Section of the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, an area of government work to which he hopes to return. First, Scotten has two clerkships ahead of him—with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and then with U.S. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. ’79. He believes HLS has prepared him well for these posts: “I think Harvard has a reputation for being more pragmatic than the other law schools … Learning how to interact with other very bright people who have their own set of formed opinions, and discuss ideas with them is useful.”

Looking ahead, Scotten sees his next few years as a time when he can “learn first hand how judges shape the law” and “what is actually driving their thinking.” The competitive nature of the work that lies ahead is one of the things that excites him the most, “I like environments where you are competing with each other to do the best job possible, I am a competitive person, and it’s great when you can have your natural competitive energy being focused on what is a good end.”

Darrell Bennett

In west Baltimore, where Darrell Bennett ’10 grew up, “We had a shortage of a lot of things,” he says, “but not negativity.” His mother made sure he didn’t listen to the chorus of “can’ts” around him. “She always gave me the sense that I didn’t have to end up where I’d started,” he says. She took him to church every Sunday, and during the week they’d go to the library to read about the likes of Lena Horne, Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela.

After Bennett’s freshman year at Morehouse College, he applied for a number of internships, but was rejected. So that summer he wrote a book. Titled “Daring to be Different: 25 Tips for A Life of Success,” the book is aimed at pushing youth to pursue their goals. “I think, unfortunately, in a lot of minority communities there’s a push either to be mediocre or like everyone else. You can’t be successful doing that. The key to your success is in your uniqueness; it might be the very thing people tease you for,” he says.
Bennett believes the same message holds true for his HLS classmates. He sees some as hesitant to follow their dreams down unconventional paths, and counsels them “not to be afraid to step out a bit. Take the same tenacity and defiance that got you to HLS, and use it to push yourself forward.” It’s a theme Bennett, a class marshal, touched on in a speech at Class Day.

Bennett started at HLS right after college, and while he suspected law school would be a great experience, he says it has opened up a bigger network and more opportunities than he could have imagined. While at Harvard, he started work on another book, this one targeted at an older audience, about how “people can be a product of their imagination, not their environment.”

After graduation, Bennett plans to move to New York City, take the bar and continue sharing his message—through speeches, books, and his business helping young people come up with concrete plans for getting into and paying for college and graduate school. See darrellbennett.com. “Since I was a child, I’ve always been picked out for my ability to communicate. I knew this was where I felt most comfortable and where I could do the most good. I want people to hear my message and my story and say, ‘Hey, if he can do it, I can too.’”

Talhia Tuck

Talhia Tuck ’10 is one of those rare people who follows her own advice.

The first thing she says she’d tell an incoming 1L is this: “It’s very important to be open to any academic or professional interest you might not have anticipated.” Tuck has worked as a Wall Street financial analyst; has been a television journalist with stints at MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” NBC’s “NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw,” and “The Chris Matthews Show,” and ABC’s “20/20”; and was once a Harvard admissions officer. But this native of the law-saturated world of Washington, D.C., always had law in the back of her mind. After graduation, she plans to augment her legal education by participating in the Ropes & Gray New Alternatives Program, in which she will pursue public interest work for one year and then return to Ropes & Gray as an associate in 2011. While she does not rule out returning to journalism one day, she says that law school helped to broaden her career outlook. “It’s intellectually stimulating to see how much is out there for us to do,” she says.

Tuck also advises, “It’s important to get to know people. Discussions that take place outside the classroom are just as important as discussions in the classroom.” Along with the historic presidential election of HLS alumnus Barack Obama ’91, Tuck counts getting to know the 80 students in her first-year law section as a highlight of her law school experience. In addition to spending an entire year being together in almost every course, these students also socialized outside of class, convened regular study groups, shared notes and resources, attended each other’s events and performances, and raised funds for each other’s causes. Tuck feels that her life was immeasurably enriched by these interesting people of diverse talents and bright futures. “I value those friendships very much,” she says. “Many will be lifelong friendships.”

Finally, Tuck says, “There are so many resources at our school. Take advantage of them!” Besides seeking guidance from her fellow students and her professors, she fully used the Office of Career Services and the Office of Public Interest Advising, attending their speakers series and discussion groups, and consulting individually with advisers.

Tuck continues heeding her own counsel—particularly the admonition to be open to new interests. “I’ll always be open to learning about different ideas and subject matter,” she says—like the journalist/lawyer she now is.

Neha Sheth

Before she could even read, Neha Sheth ’10 was absorbed with the world. “I’d make my parents read me the National Geographic ‘Our World’ books over and over,” she recalls. She grew up speaking Gujarati in the home she shared with her parents and grandparents from the Indian state of Gujarat. She won her elementary school’s geography bee. By high school, her childhood passion had bloomed into a serious interest in international affairs, and she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison sporting three majors—Political Science, International Studies and French—and having had an internship experience at the House of Commons researching the issue of forced marriage in the U.K. After college, she spent a summer with the State Department at the U.S. mission to UNESCO in Paris, where she did research and drafted memos for a State Department attorney-adviser. Under his mentoring, she decided to apply to law school.
While awaiting her acceptance letters, Sheth, who also speaks fluent French and proficient Spanish, traveled. She spent two months in Mumbai, India, teaching English and math to indigent children, and two months in Cartago, Costa Rica, leading daily activities and exercises for elderly people.

Law school brought Sheth more opportunities for carrying her talents overseas. The summer after her first year, she joined Asociación por los Derechos Civiles, a human rights organization in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and wrote a 30-page article, entirely in Spanish, on the role of courts in promoting the right to education. Her clinical work took her all over Nepal, as she studied compensation programs for civilian victims of the Nepalese civil war (1996-2006), and to The Hague, where she witnessed part of the first trial held by the International Criminal Court.

After her second year, Sheth landed a highly competitive summer position with the U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser. There, she wrote the U.S. response to a Human Rights Council complaint and reviewed treaty provisions while working for the Office of International Claims and Investment Disputes and the Office of Human Rights and Refugees. She so impressed her supervisors that she’s been hired back as an attorney-adviser. After graduating this spring, Sheth will be working in Washington, D.C.—she is waiting for OFA to notify her of her specific assignment. “I think I’ll be pretty happy wherever I end up,” she says. ø