Family, Gender & Children

In September, two Harvard Law School clinics and their community partner organizations were recognized by the Boston Bar Association for their collaborative efforts to fight housing displacement in Boston.

Ambassador Samantha Power ’99 expressed both skepticism and hope for the current state of international affairs during a panel discussion of her new memoir "The Education of an Idealist."

With the start of the academic year, four new scholars have joined the ranks of the Harvard Law School faculty and two have been promoted to professor of law.

The British-trained French attorney who chose Harvard Law School for its human rights training plans to continue working on international human rights and international humanitarian law litigation.

Calls are growing for the U.S. to lift a ban on mitochondrial replacement therapy, or MRT, a procedure developed to enable women who are at risk of passing on rare but devastating diseases to have healthy, biologically related children.

Four Harvard Law School clinicians—Esme Caramello, Patricia Whiting and Nicole Summers from the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB) and Shelley Barron from the Tenant Advocacy Project (TAP)—presented testimony before the Massachusetts Joint Committee on the Judiciary on a series of housing bills aimed at tenants facing eviction.

Constitutional lawyer Menaka Guruswamy LL.M. ’01 successfully argued against a colonial-era law that criminalized gay sex in India. The ruling by India's Supreme Court last year went beyond decriminalizing gay sex to acknowledge the individual rights of LGBTQ people and apologize for past mistreatment.

A recent Massachusetts court case spearheaded by clinical students and teachers at the WilmerHale Legal Services Center (LSC) has created important new protections for survivors of domestic violence.

In her Class Day address to the Harvard Law School Class of 2019, Roberta “Robbie” Kaplan drew on experience from her own 25-year career and encouraged students to seek opportunities to make the world a better place.

Asseret Frausto ’19 is the winner of the Outstanding Clinical Student Award from the Clinical Legal Education Association (CLEA). The award is presented annually to one student from each law school for outstanding clinical coursework and contributions to the clinical community.

Emanuel Powell ’19 is the winner of this year’s Gary Bellow Public Service Award, established in 2001 to honor Professor Gary Bellow ’60, his commitment to public service, and his innovative approach to the analysis and practice of law.

Radhika Kapoor LL.M. ’19 came to HLS to take advantage of Harvard’s institutional expertise in international law, humanitarian law and post-conflict stability—and to foster her love of reading.

Lindsay Bailey’19, Lisandra Novo’19 and Elisa Quiroz ’19 are the winners of the team 2019 David Grossman Exemplary Clinical Student Award.

Richard Barbecho ’19 is this year’s winner of the Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award, granted each year in honor of Professor Andrew Kaufman, who spearheaded the pro bono requirement at Harvard Law School.

Having developed a focus on social justice growing up in Philadelphia, Liz Soltan is now using law as a means to help people who need it most.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Special Olympics, HLS presented an inspiring conversation with Olympic medalist Michelle Kwan and Special Olympics medalist Melissa Joy Reilly.

Professor of Practice Naz Modirzadeh ’02, founding director of the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict, spoke before the United Nations Security Council in New York City on April 1 on safeguarding humanitarian assistance in counterterrorism contexts.

Roberta "Robbie" Kaplan will be the speaker for the Class Day ceremonies at Harvard Law School on Wednesday, May 29, 2019. Kaplan was chosen by representatives of this year’s graduating class.

Andrew Patterson '20 shares a reflection on his time spent working as an advocate for Legal Permanent Residents throughout the naturalization process with the local organization Project Citizenship.

A recent event at Harvard Law School brought together scientists and lawyers to start a dialogue on neuroscience, trauma, and justice as part of the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience, a collaboration between the Petrie-Flom Center at HLS and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Alan Jenkins ’89, president and co-founder of The Opportunity Agenda, a social justice communications organization, will join the Harvard Law School faculty as a professor of practice in July.

During Winter Term, 12 Harvard Law School students traveled to 12 countries as Cravath International Fellows to pursue clinical placements or independent research with an international, transnational, or comparative law focus. Four of them share their experiences.

Last spring, Thomas Wolfe '19 shared his experience working on issues of water contamination in the Mississsippi Delta with the Mississippi Delta Project, an HLS Student Practice Organization that provides policy and legal services to clients in one of the poorest regions in the poorest state in the U.S.

Speaking at Harvard Law School, U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III '09 (D., Mass.) called Monday for a new national economic agenda based on “moral capitalism” that addresses the needs of embattled workers.

“Access to Justice,” the Winter 2019 issue of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences journal Dædalus, features twenty-four essays by leading experts in the field, including Harvard Law School alumni and faculty. It is the first open access issue of the publication.

The notice came in a white envelope, hand-delivered by a staffer at the project-based Section 8 development that my elderly grandparents lived in. From the outside, it looked like it could be a notice that they received on a weekly basis. However, this was a “Notice to Cease.” From what my immigrant Chinese family could tell, it meant eviction.

Christine Desan, the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, organized the conference, “Money as a Democratic Medium,” a two-day event that challenged its participants to re-examine the history of money in America, and to redefine its future.

In a ruling issued on December 21, 2018, the Massachusetts Superior Court found in favor of three Massachusetts veterans represented by the Veterans Legal Clinic in their challenge to the state government’s denying them the Welcome Home Bonus, which these veterans earned by serving overseas in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

On Nov. 15, Harvard Law School's Harvard Defenders hosted the 7th annual Litman Symposium. This year's event, titled "Defining Justice: Building a more equitable criminal legal system," featured a Q&A with keynote speakers Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Sarah Boyette ’10 and Simmi Kaur ’17, an attorney with the Bronx Defenders.

A six-year-long study by Harvard Law School's Access to Justice Lab (A2J Lab) evaluated and analyzed the effectiveness of pro bono representation in divorce cases in Philadelphia County. The recently released study found that people who received legal representation were 87% more likely to achieve a divorce than people without it.

A plan designed by a team of Harvard University students to create a reliable source of renewable, affordable electricity for a Puerto Rican community hammered in 2017 by Hurricane Maria has moved a step closer to reality. The students are enrolled in Professor Wendy Jacobs' Harvard’s “Climate Solutions Living Lab” course.

Monika Bickert, head of global policy management at Facebook, joined Harvard Law Professor Jonathan Zittrain for a wide-ranging conversation hosted by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, about the social media giant’s policies and its evolution--including some tough questions from audience members on the company’s recent headline-making controversies.

It was Thursday night and the Ames Courtroom was decked out for a Hollywood-style awards ceremony--1Ls and their dates arrived in tuxes and ball gowns while a jazz combo played, and anticipation was in the air. The winter’s first snow was falling outside, but in Austin Hall, the Tortys had come to town.

Andrew Leon Hanna ’19 recently won the 2018 Bracken Bower Prize from the Financial Times and McKinsey & Company for the best book proposal about emerging businesses from someone 35 or under. Hanna’s book proposal, “25 Million Sparks”, aims to celebrate refugee entrepreneurs.

In October, David J. Harris, managing director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School, received the Massachusetts Governor's Award in the Humanities. Harris was one of four leaders recognized for their "public actions, grounded in an appreciation of the humanities, to enhance civic life in the Commonwealth."

Virginia Eubanks recently joined the Berkman Klein Center for a discussion of her book, “Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor,” and the impact algorithms can have on different segments of society.

The service and unique perspective of the veterans currently enrolled at Harvard Law School enrich the entire HLS community, elevating awareness about the legal and policy issues affecting veterans and the significance of law in contemporary warfare; three military veterans in this year’s entering class shared their experiences in the military and at HLS.

Eve L. Howe ’21 is an expert in nuclear submarines -- specifically, the fluid systems that cool the nuclear reactors in military submarines. Drawn to military service because she wanted to use her engineering skills for public service, Howe spent five years as an officer in the U.S. Navy, where she solved complex technical problems to ensure the submarines would be able to accomplish their missions.

With no other members of the military in the extended family, the parents of U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Sara Plesser Neugroschel LL.M. ’19 were “very, very surprised” when she decided to commission in the Navy after her 2L year at the University of Miami Law School, from which she graduated in 2009.

Students and faculty from the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program spent a week in Texas volunteering at the Karnes Detention Center, where they met with fathers and sons who had been forcibly separated from each other under President Trump’s zero-tolerance policy. They offer their thoughts on this powerful and eye-opening experience.

“Tough Cases,” a new book in which 13 trial judges from criminal, civil, probate, and family courts write candid and poignant firsthand accounts of the trials they can’t forget, was the subject of a lively discussion at a panel sponsored by the Harvard Law School Library, which drew a packed house at Wasserstein Hall in October.

On Oct. 22, Lee Gelernt, the ACLU lawyer who spearheaded a national class action lawsuit against the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy on immigrants and asylum seekers attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, spoke to HLS staff and students about the litigation’s claims and the ongoing efforts to reunite families.

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.

This year, 13 Harvard Law School students were selected as Chayes International Public Service Fellows, part of a program honoring HLS Professor Abram Chayes ’49 that provides students with the opportunity to spend eight weeks during the summer working with governmental or non-governmental organizations concerned with issues international in scope or relevant to countries in transition.

Last week, Harvard commemorated the centennial of the 1918 influenza pandemic that killed more than 50 million people worldwide with Outbreak Week, a series of events across the university.

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.

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program’s Crimmigration Clinic and the Immigrant Defense Project issued two new resources for advocates and attorneys defending the rights of immigrants fighting removal to countries where they will be persecuted.

AI-based tools are increasingly being used by people and organizations in positions of authority to make important, often life-altering decisions. A new report from the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society addresses this issue and weighs the positive and negative impacts of AI on human rights.