Constitutional

A panel of legal and theological authorities recently gathered at Harvard Law School to discuss “Christianity and the Common Good” at a conference presented by Harvard with the Thomistic Institute, an organization that aims to promote intellectual Christian thought at universities. Conference guests included Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch ’91, who delivered the keynote.

At an award ceremony on Oct. 18, Clinical Professor Esme Caramello ’99, faculty director of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, was honored as one of the 2018 Top Women of Law by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

As part of national Pro Bono Week, from Oct. 22 to Oct. 27, Harvard Law School's Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs is highlighting the work of outstanding attorneys engaged in critical pro bono legal work in the areas of immigration, civil rights, economic justice and climate change.

Haben Girma ’13, the first deaf-blind student to graduate from HLS, discusses her advocacy on behalf of individuals with disabilities and her work at the intersection of law, education and civil rights.

Sixty-five years ago, Frederica Brenneman ’53 graduated from Harvard Law School as member of the first HLS class to admit women. A retired Connecticut Superior Court judge, Brenneman was the second woman appointed to the bench in Connecticut history. In this segment, she shares her HLS experience and discusses her career as a juvenile court judge.

Former Attorney General of the United States Loretta Lynch ’84, the first African-American woman attorney general, shares her HLS experience and discusses her career as the country’s chief law enforcement officer. Lynch will be one of hundreds of Harvard Law alumnae gathered on campus on Sept 14-15 to commemorate Celebration 65. 

On Sept. 17, the Harvard Law School Project on Disability (HPOD) will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Special Olympics with Timothy Shriver, Special Olympics International Board Chairman.

At Harvard Law School on Aug. 27, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and former Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan ’86 sat down for a conversation with John Manning ’85, dean and Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

With the Supreme Court divided ideologically along partisan lines for the first time in history, the Solicitor General—no matter the administration—has become more political. How did this post, long regarded as the keel keeping the government balanced, come to contribute to forceful tacks one way or the other, to the Court’s seeming indifference?

The Trump administration’s recent “zero tolerance” policies on immigration resulted in the separation of several thousand children from their families at the U.S. border. Harvard Law alumni from dozens of law firms have pulled together to help reunite children who had been forcibly separated from their families.

Many HLS alumni and students are engaged in legal and advocacy work related to immigration, including the situations of refugees and asylum seekers. For some of these lawyers, this interest predates their time at HLS, but has dovetailed with their coursework and hands-on learning during their time as law students.

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.

The founder and director of Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinic Deborah Anker LL.M. ’84 received the Federal Bar Association’s NGO Lawyer of the Year Joint Award on May 18. She was honored alongside Karen Musalo, director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at Hastings College of the Law.

U.S. Circuit Court Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, who has taught courses at Harvard Law School each year since 2008, has been nominated by President Donald J. Trump to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy ’61.

Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy ’61 announced today that he will retire from the Supreme Court, on which he has served since 1988.

Japanese international law professor Yuji Iwasawa LL.M. ’78 was elected a judge of the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s principal judicial body. He will join 14 other judges at the International Court of Justice, including Nawaf Salam LL.M. ’91.

A new book by Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz examines the real and threatened power of impeachment.

Summer reading: From a queer critical legal studies approach to law reform, to a memoir about growing up bi-racial, to a biography of Chief Justice Marshall.

Cass Sunstein ’78, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University and renowned legal scholar and behavioral economist, received the prestigious Holberg Prize at the University of Bergen, Norway, on June 6.

"It Can't Happen Here," the novel by Sinclair Lewis written in the 1930s as fascism was rising in Europe, imagines an America overtaken by an authoritarian regime. The new book edited by Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein ’78, "Can It Happen Here?: Authoritarianism in America" (Dey Street Books), does not predict the same fate. Yet the contributors—several also affiliated with Harvard Law—take seriously the possibility that it could happen here, despite the safeguards built into the American system of government.

Professor Noah Feldman is the first to admit that James Madison will probably never merit a hip-hop Broadway musical like his partner in Constitution drafting turned bitter political foe.