Legal History

Many scholars argue that the Magna Carta’s importance through the centuries has been greatly exaggerated. Yet for others, its status as a symbol of freedom and a check on absolute power is undeniable. Elizabeth Papp Kamali ’07, sees merit in both arguments.

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg received the Radcliffe Medal on Friday, May 29. Since the 1970s, Ginsburg has constantly sought to break down traditional male/female stereotypes “that held women back from doing what their talents would allow them to do.”

Daniel J. Meltzer '75, a renowned legal scholar and expert on federal courts and criminal procedure, and a valued legal advisor to President Barack Obama ’91, died on May 24, after a courageous battle with cancer. Meltzer was the Story Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he served on the faculty since 1982.

800 years later, the ‘great charter’ still fascinates

Located on the first and second floors of Wasserstein Hall—the heart of social and academic activity on the HLS campus—Harvard Law School's historic collection of faculty portraits provide a backdrop for the daily routines and informal interactions of students and faculty members.

Noah Feldman, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, and an expert in constitutional studies, international law, and the history of legal theory, has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, joining some of the world’s most accomplished leaders from academia, business, public affairs, humanities, and the arts.

Fifty years after the Supreme Court kicked off its line of “right to privacy” cases with Griswold v. Connecticut, which declared unconstitutional a state statute prohibiting couples from using contraceptives, a panel of three Harvard Law professors met to discuss the impact and legacy of the landmark case.

In a recent interview in the Harvard Gazette, Harvard Law School Professor Noah Feldman, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Nicholas Burns, and Wall Street Journalist Farnaz Fassihi offer their analyses of the recent conflicts in the Middle East and the historic political, social, and military transformation taking place in the region.

Elizabeth Papp Kamali ’07, a scholar specializing in medieval legal history, will join the Harvard Law School faculty as an assistant professor in July.

Harvard Law School Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 is the co-editor of a new online review of books, The New Rambler. Co-edited by Vermeule, Stanford University Professor Blakey Vermeule and University of Chicago Law Professor Eric Posner, The New Rambler publishes reviews of books about ideas, including literary fiction.

On March 6, Harvard Law School’s Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice hosted Dying While Black and Brown, a dance performance focused on capital punishment and the disproportionate numbers of incarcerated people of color. The performance was first commissioned by the San Francisco Equal Justice Society as part of the society’s campaign to restore 14th Amendment protections for victims of discrimination, including those on death row.

It’s been just a year since Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” turned the respected French economist from the University of Paris into an academic and publishing rock star. Piketty’s status showed little sign of fading during his March 6 visit to Harvard to speak about the book before an overflow crowd inside Austin Hall at Harvard Law School.

Last week, the nine justices of the Supreme Court peppered Tom Goldstein, veteran of 35 oral arguments before the Court and a cofounder of SCOTUSblog, with nearly 75 questions in 30 minutes – questions he was able to answer with the help of seven Harvard Law students who spent their January term working around the clock to research, write and edit the entire respondents’ brief in City of Los Angeles v. Patel.

On Nov. 24, the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard hosted “Too Big to Fail or Too Hard to Remember: Lessons from the New Deal and the Triumph, Tragedy, and Lost Legacy of James M. Landis,” a discussion of the legacy of scholar, administrator, advocate and political adviser known for his seminal contribution to the creation of the modern system of market regulation in the United States.

On the second floor of the City-County Building in Madison, Wisconsin, there now hangs the portrait of a man named Nathan Dane. The same steady gaze examines visitors 1,100 miles away as they step off the elevator on the fourth floor in Langdell Hall at Harvard Law School.

Third-year Harvard Law School students clashed in the high drama of the venerable Ames Moot Court Competition on Tuesday under the jurisdiction of visiting federal judges, including…

The final round of Harvard Law School's annual Ames Moot Court competition was held this year on November 18, and was presided over by the Hon. Antonin Scalia ’60, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; the Hon. Adalberto Jordan, U.S. Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit; and the Hon. Patricia Millett ’88, U.S. Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Benjamin B. Ferencz ’43, known for his role as chief prosecutor in the Nuremburg Trials and for his work promoting an international rule of law and the creation of an International Criminal Court, has been awarded Harvard Law School’s highest honor: the Medal of Freedom.

In a move that caught many observers off guard, the U.S. Supreme Court last week announced it would review one of four cases currently challenging provisions…

Exhibit spanning centuries of law combines detailed scholarship with a touch of scandal The Harvard Law School Library is a launching point for well-trained modern…

'History by degrees,' a gallery published by the Harvard Gazette in 2014, tells the story of the early history of the Harvard diplomas through images from the 17th and 18th centuries.