Legal History

The Harvard Law Review has elected ImeIme Umana ’18 as its 131st president. Umana succeeds Michael Zuckerman ’17.

On Jan. 5 President Barack Obama ’91 announced several key administration posts, including Jonathan Zittrain ’95 as appointee for member of the National Museum and Library Services Board (NMLSB).

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.

During the fall 2016 semester, a group of leading scholars came together at Harvard Law School for the lecture series, "Diversity and US Legal History," which was sponsored by Dean Martha Minow and organized by Professor Mark Tushnet, who also designed a reading group to complement the lectures.

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.

This fall, Harvard Law School held a conference in celebration of the career of legal historian and HLS Professor Charles Donahue. Scholars came from around the country and around the world and spoke on topics related to medieval and early modern history.

The American Law Institute has elected HLS Professors Kenneth Mack ‘91 and William Rubenstein ’86 as members.

Noah Feldman, director of the newly-established Julis-Rabinowitz Program in Jewish and Israeli Law recently spoke with Harvard Law Today about the scope of Jewish law, his aspirations for the program, and his own background in the subject.

A photo exhibit featuring portraits of legal scholars who represent traditionally marginalized voices will be displayed in Harvard Law School’s Wasserstein Hall from Nov. 17-22.

Constitutional Law expert Sanford Levinson focused on the political implications of the Electoral College at HLS on Oct. 21. He emphasized that the U.S. Electoral College system is unique among the election processes of major countries, which tend towards popular vote models, and he connected it to what he terms “the Constitution of settlement."

At 96 years old, the Hon. John Paul Stevens, Associate Justice (Ret.) Supreme Court of the United States, returned to the bench to preside over the final round of Harvard Law School’s 2016 Ames Moot Court Competition.

During Harvard Law School's Fall Reunion weekend, David R. Gergen '67, professor of public service and co-director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and senior political analyst for CNN, delivered a keynote address on the 2016 presidential election, sharing his thoughts about Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, and the state of the presidential election.

In 1949, four years after the Nuremberg war crime trials began, the Harvard Law Library received the most complete set of documents from the Nazi prosecutions outside that of the National Archives; now, a small team is working on analyzing and digitizing the documents--often, a difficult and haunting task--for the HLS Nuremberg Trials Project.

Even when he was 5, Joel Motley '78 knew his late mother was doing important work; now, he has co-produced "The Trials of Constance Baker Motley," a short film about the woman who became the first black female Manhattan borough president, New York state senator, and federal judge.

HLS hosted the fourth Celebration of Black Alumni in September, featuring the theme “Turning Vision into Action.” The actions of alumni who attended have resonated in courtrooms and classrooms, in elected office and the corner office, in communities and in the culture. The Bulletin spoke with five CBA participants about where their vision has led them and where they hope to yet go.

Earlier this month, Harvard Law School’s Royall Professor of Law, Janet Halley, took first-year HLS students in her Reading Group on the Law School’s connection to New England’s slavery heritage to visit the Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford, Massachusetts.

In October, on the occasion of her appointment as the Touoff-Glueck Professor of Law, Professor Adriaan Lanni delivered a lecture titled, “Why Study Athenian Law? Adventures in Institutional Design.”

Historian Annette Gordon-Reed would like to make clear that she likes “Hamilton,” the Broadway hip-hop musical phenomenon about Alexander Hamilton. But she would like to make clearer that she found the show problematic in its portrayals of Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, the Founding Fathers, and the issue of slavery.

To commemorate the signing of the U.S. Constitution, Professor Noah Feldman, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at HLS and one of the nation’s leading public intellectuals, gave a lecture on Friday, Sept. 16 titled “Madison, Slavery and the 3/5 Compromise.”

Robert L. Wilkins '89, a U.S. circuit court judge, discussed his recent book, “Long Road to Hard Truth,” which focused on his efforts to build the National Museum of African American History & Culture on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. He discussed his book during a talk at Harvard Law School on Sept. 19.