The National Law Journal released this week the names of attorneys they’ve identified as “The Decade’s Most Influential Lawyers.” Ten of the 40 attorneys selected for the list hail from HLS.

Three faculty members and seven alumni were recognized by the journal as lawyers who “defined the decade.” The list, which spans law firms, academia, government and advocacy groups, focuses on a dozen specialty areas within the legal profession: antitrust; appellate; bankruptcy; civil rights; corporate; energy & environmental; in-house; intellectual property; labor & employment; legal education; litigation; and regulatory.

HLS Professors Elizabeth Warren and Lawrence Lessig were honored in the category of Legal Education. HLS Lecturer on Law Thomas Goldstein, a partner with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, was recognized in the Appellate category.

Warren, the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law, is currently chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel Troubled Asset Relief Program that monitors the $700 billion set up by the U.S. Treasury Department to help stabilize the U.S. financial system.

Lessig is an expert on constitutional law, cyberlaw, and intellectual property. He is also the director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, where he is researching issues of institutional corruption.

Additionally, seven HLS graduates have been recognized for their work in their fields:

Civil Rights
–John Payton ’77, NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Corporate
–H. Rodgin Cohen ’68, Sullivan & Cromwell
-Jeffrey Rosen ’78, Debevoise & Plimpton

Intellectual Property
–Morgan Chu ’76, Irell & Manella

Litigation
–Patrick Fitzgerald ’85, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Illinois
–Ted Wells, Jr. ’76, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison

Regulatory
–Giovanni Prezioso ’82, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton

The attorneys will be honored at The National Law Journal’s annual dinner in June in New York City. Over the course of the next several weeks, the journal will publish video profiles of some of the selected attorneys on its website, NLJ.com.

– Jenny Lackey