“Best Lawyers,” a peer review legal publication, has named HLS Professor Laurence H. Tribe ’66 “Lawyer of the Year” in the category of Boston Appellate Practitioners. Only one lawyer in each specialty in each community is honored as the “Lawyer of the Year.”
Honorees are selected based on exhaustive peer-review surveys in which thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. The current, 18th edition of “The Best Lawyers in America” is based on more than 3.9 million detailed evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers.
A much sought-after appellate advocate, Tribe has prevailed in three-fifths of the many appellate cases he has argued (including 35 in the U.S. Supreme Court).
“Larry’s breathtaking mastery of constitutional law has been an inspiration at the law school and beyond for decades,” said Dean Martha Minow. “This latest recognition by his fellow lawyers is richly deserved.”
In February 2010, Tribe was appointed by President Obama as the first senior counselor for Access to Justice in the Department of Justice, a position he held until November 2010. He has written a combined total of 115 books and articles, including his treatise, “American Constitutional Law.”
Since 2004, Tribe has held the of “University Professor,” the highest academic honor that Harvard University bestows upon a faculty member, reserved for just a handful of professors throughout the university. He has taught at HLS since 1968 and was voted best professor by the class of 2000.
Tribe is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He helped write the constitutions of South Africa, the Czech Republic, and the Marshall Islands, and has received ten honorary degrees. In March 2011, he received a degree honoris causa from the Government of Mexico, the first time the award has been given to someone from the United States.