Health Law & Policy

Harvard has announced the creation of a new, interdisciplinary project called the Behavioral Insights Health Project—a partnership between faculty members at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, and other schools at Harvard that will explore how behavioral science and behavioral economics can help improve health outcomes for patients, and decisions made by doctors.

Maayan Sudai, an S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School, has been awarded a prestigious scholarship from Israel’s Dan David Foundation to support her work examining health activism from a legal perspective.

Visiting Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability Michael Ashley Stein ’88 tackled the global issue of equal access to information in his book “Disability, Human Rights, and Information Technology,” co-edited by Jonathan Lazar, professor of Computer and Information Sciences and Director of the Undergraduate Program in Information Systems at Towson University.

Last week, the Animal Law & Policy Program (ALPP) at Harvard Law School partnered with the HLS Student Animal Legal Defense Fund (SALDF) to organize the third annual “Student Animal Law Trip to Washington D.C.”

After Hurricane Maria roared over Puerto Rico in 2017, Puerto Rican native Natalie Trigo Reyes ’19 felt “completely overwhelmed.” Within days, however, she raised $40,000 for relief efforts, collected truckloads of emergency goods, and helped plan the school’s response to the disaster.

In 2018, ten Harvard Law School students were selected as Cravath International Fellows. During Winter Term, they traveled to nine countries to pursue clinical placements or independent research with an international, transnational, or comparative law focus. Here, four of them describe their experiences.

Animal law advocates from a variety of disciplines and perspectives came together at Harvard Law School  for the fourth annual Animal Law Week, an event co-hosted by the Harvard Animal Law & Policy Program and Harvard Law School's Student Animal Legal Defense Fund . 

On Jan. 23, the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School and the Center for Advanced Studies in Biomedical Innovation Law (CeBIL) at the University of Copenhagen launched a new collaboration, the Project on Precision Medicine, Artificial Intelligence, and the Law (PMAIL).

In this three-part lecture, Professor Randall Kennedy draws on a course he teaches in Race Relations Law to discuss the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This year, Jon Hanson challenged his torts students to create short documentaries about how tort law might apply to social issues and problems on the edge of the law’s reach. This challenge culminated in the inaugural Torty Awards--a screening and ceremony celebrating their inventive films on climate change, driverless cars, and the Flint water crisis.

Julian SpearChief-Morris ’17 is the first indigenous student to lead the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, marking his place in the storied history of the bureau which was founded in 1913 to provide legal services to low-income clients in the Boston area.

“The Remarkable Evolution of American Environmental Law from Nixon to Trump and Beyond” panel during Harvard Law School's bicentennial summit focused on the uncertain future of the Environmental Protection Agency in the current administration. Panelists A. James Barnes ’67, Richard J. Lazarus ‘79, William Reilly ’65 and Gina McCarthy looked at the EPA’s distinguished history.

On Thursday, Nov. 2, Dr. David Shulkin, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, will deliver the 2017 Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Distinguished Lecture at Harvard Law School. In advance of his visit to the law school, Secretary Shulkin answered a few questions about the Department of Veterans Affairs and its service to veterans.

From the Supreme Court, to the SEC, to an unidentified city under siege: legal analysis, memoir, a documentary and more works from HLS alumni.

The subject of Konstantin Tretyakov’s doctoral thesis, the “right to die” and how it is handled in different countries, would be a fascinating one under any circumstances. But as a Russian student who has also studied Chinese law, Tretyakov brings a unique perspective to the topic.

In Alan Stone's classes, his delight in teaching is palpable, and the topics can be startling.

While the NFL’s player health policies and practices are robust in some areas, there are opportunities for improvement in others, according to the findings of a new report by researchers at Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center -- the first comprehensive comparative analysis of health policies and practices across professional sports leagues.

On March 23, William B. Schultz, former general counsel of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2011-2016), discussed the complicated politics surrounding the Affordable Care Act and possible policy options for the next phase of the law’s evolution.

More than 350 students raced through the halls of Harvard Law School solving clues, answering trivia questions, and taking selfies with professors as part of the school's first ever Public Interest Scavenger Hunt, which had students competing for prizes as the community came together to show support for students working in public interest law.

Harvard Law Today recently spoke with three of the 11 Harvard Law School students who were selected as Cravath International Fellows this year, who traveled during winter term to Bogotá, Colombia, Paris, France and Singapore to pursue clinical placements and independent research.

Disability rights advocates Steve Holmes and Chester Finn spoke to students at Harvard Law School on March 8, in a workshop presented by the Harvard Project on Disability, part of a series of HPOD trainings and advocacy projects supported by a three-year grant from the law firm Jones Day.