Ethics

Steve Eisman ’88, an investor famed for predicting the 2008 financial crisis, spoke to HLS students in early March about why the economy crashed and whether the administration of President Donald Trump will undo the financial regulations enacted afterward.

When Sen. Ben Cardin (D.-MD.) spoke on foreign affairs at Harvard Law School this week, he began by identifying the greatest threat to global security in the world today: Russia, and, by extension, President Donald Trump’s cozy relationship with that country.

On the morning of Jan. 9, Dayne Lee ’17, a student practitioner with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, slipped into a suit after three sleepless nights leading up to his major argument before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, in a case pitting federally controlled mortgage giant Fannie Mae against homeowner Elvitria Marroquin – a Lynn, Mass. homeowner who has been fighting foreclosure since 2008.

In a recent appearance at HLS, Ayelet Waldman ’91 -- a former criminal defense lawyer and federal public defender -- discussed her book “A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage, and My Life,” using it as a backdrop to delve into the social and racial dimensions of the war on drugs.

Harvard Law School Professor Glenn Cohen co-authored an article for the journal Science Translational Medicine on the legal and ethical considerations regarding in vitro gametogenesis (IVG), a new, experimental technique that allows scientists to grow embryos in a lab by reprograming adult cells to become sperm and egg cells.

Harvard Law Review President Michael Zuckerman ’17 recently penned a reflection for Medium on the experience of publishing The President's Role in Advancing Criminal Justice Reform, an article by President Barack Obama -- the first Law Review article by a sitting president -- and his personal take on law and criminal justice reform.

This fall at a symposium presented by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, representatives from academia, government and civil liberties organizations came together to examine the present state of play with respect to government transparency and freedom of information.

On Dec. 7, Professor Lawrence Lessig participated in a debate hosted by Intelligence Squared U.S. on whether or not states should call a convention to amend the Constitution.

This fall, Harvard Law School lecturer Nancy Gertner, Harvard sociologist Bruce Western and Vincent Schiraldi, senior research fellow and director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, are teaching a new Harvard course that will help students become part of the effort to reform the nation’s criminal justice system.

It’s been eight years since Massachusetts voters decriminalized the possession of one ounce or less of marijuana. On Tuesday, they’ll decide whether to tax and regulate the sale and adult consumption of it. The initiative, known as Question 4, would legalize and create a commission to regulate marijuana in Massachusetts.

Hours before the first presidential debate Tuesday, a different kind of discussion took place at Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall. Dubbed the debate before the debate, the Faneuil Forum drew hundreds of people to take part in a lively civic dialogue led by prominent Harvard Professor Michael Sandel on the future of democracy.

Professor Glenn Cohen breaks down complex topic for Ed Portal and online audience.

With the U.S. presidential election weeks away, Harvard Law Today offers a look back at what scholars from campus and beyond had to say in recent months about democracy's challenges in a series of talks on Election Law.

Accepting the Daniel P.S. Paul Constitutional Law chair, Tomiko Brown-Nagin delivered a lecture titled, "On Being First: Judge Constance Baker Motley and Social Activism in the American Century," which focused on 20th century social reform through the life of the civil rights advocate who became the first female African American federal judge in 1966.

The Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC), a non-profit organization with a vision of improving advanced illness care for all Americans, and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School co-hosted the inaugural event for their new collaboration: The Project on Advanced Care and Health Policy.

In a Q&A with the Harvard Gazette, Professor Ron Sullivan discusses the shooting deaths last week of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota at the hands of police, and the subsequent killing of five Dallas officers by a retaliating sniper, events that shocked the nation and left many feeling like the country is unraveling.

Early in the spring, first-year Harvard Law School students Chloe Goodwin, Nora Ellingsen, and Josh Looney jumped at the opportunity to volunteer with a national organization to help felons get a second shot at life: Clemency Project 2014, a coalition that supports petitions by nonviolent drug offenders for executive clemency.

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program has received a generous grant from the Howard and Abby Milstein Foundation to launch the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Project.

On April 12, students in Professor of Practice Urs Gasser’s Spring 2016 Comparative Online Privacy Seminar at Harvard Law School hosted a student-led mini-symposium on data privacy in the U.S. and the EU with experts from private companies, law firms, and academia.

Harvard Law School students Phil Caruso '18 and Pamela Nwaoko '16 are among 12 law students selected by FASPE (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics) to participate in a two-week program in Europe this summer, which uses the conduct of lawyers and judges in Nazi Germany as a launching point for an intensive course of study on ethics in the legal profession today.

In a report issued last week, the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic and Human Rights Watch call for countries to retain meaningful human control over weapons systems and ban fully autonomous weapons, also known as 'killer robots.'