Legal History

The American Bar Association’s House of Delegates passed a resolution on Tuesday, Aug. 9, urging Congress to amend and strengthen federal lobbying rules. HLS Professor Charles Fried co-chaired the bi-partisan ABA Administrative Law Section task force, which proposed the recommendations in its January 2011 report.

In an August 8 op-ed written for Project Syndicate, HLS Professor Mark Roe looks at the current U.S. debt crisis through the lens of what he calls ‘America’s first debt crisis:’ the one following the Revolutionary War.

In his July 10 op-ed for George Mason University’s History News Network, Harvard Law School Professor Kenneth W. Mack ’91 assesses the presidency of Barack Obama ’91, comparing it to that of Abraham Lincoln in terms of each president’s respective policy decisions.

The Harvard Law School Library has announced the expansion of the Nuremberg Trials Project, a digital collection of documents relating to the trials of military and political leaders of Nazi Germany by the International Military Tribunal and also the trials of other accused war criminals by the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals.

Part of the American Presidents Series, this volume, excerpted below, examines the life and political career of Andrew Johnson, possibly the nation’s worst president, according to Gordon-Reed.

Abolitionist Wendell Phillips, who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1833, was a nationally know celebrity during his lifetime. On the bicentennial of his birth, a symposium held at HLS June 2-4, cosponsored by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, focused on the life and legacy of the social reformer, and the questions they raise for those working for social justice today.

Giving the biennial Vaughan Lecture at Harvard Law School, former federal appeals court judge Michael McConnell contemplated the question "What would Hamilton do?"

Where should the line be drawn on executive power? Harvard Law School Professor Adrian Vermeule ’93 and University of Chicago Law Professor Eric A. Posner ’91 examine the current state and the future of the U.S. presidency and Constitution through the context of historical authorities in their new book, “The Executive Unbound: After the Madisonian Republic” (Oxford University Press, 2011).

A bi-partisan ABA Administrative Law Section task force, co-chaired by HLS Professor Charles Fried, issued a report recommending significant changes to federal lobbying laws. The proposed changes would broaden disclosure required by those involved in lobbying campaigns, address fundraising participation by lobbyists and strengthen enforcement of current law.

Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow was named in the Green Bag’s “Exemplary Legal Writing 2010” list for her book “In Brown’s Wake: Legacies of America's Educational Landmark” (Oxford University Press 2010). The Green Bag is a quarterly journal devoted to readable, concise and entertaining legal scholarship. Along with Minow, a number of HLS alums were also recognized for their legal writing.

Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Second Circuit in support of a petition for rehearing en banc in a major corporate Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) case, Kiobel, et al. v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., et al.

Harvard Law School Professor Michael Klarman gave a talk discussing “Racial Equality in American History” to mark his appointment as the Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law. The wide-ranging talk, given on April 12, touched upon civil rights history, legal history, and cultural history in order to uncover, as Klarman said, “the racial attitudes and practices in American history, and how and why they change over time.”

As Elena Kagan becomes the 112th Supreme Court justice, she adds to an impressive list of 22 justices who have one thing in common: Not only have they shaped the law in influential and historical ways — they all hail from Harvard.

In Ruthenberg v. Michigan, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis LL.B. 1877 first formulated the principles surrounding the exercise of free speech that would appear in his later opinion in Whitney v. California (1927). The Louis D. Brandeis Papers held by the Harvard Law School Library include seven folders of drafts written by Brandeis for Ruthenberg, which have now been digitized and are available on the law school website.

Krzysztof Skubiszewski, who died earlier this year at age 83, lived a life shadowed and shaped by World War II and communism.

HLS Professor John Palfrey was appointed vice dean for library and information resources in 2008. A cyberspace visionary, his task is to meld the old, the new and the emerging digital-era library.

In an address to the Harvard Law School community, HLS Dean Martha Minow offered a survey of "The Past, Present, and Future of Legal Education: HLS and Beyond.” After discussing the historical evolution of legal education up to the present "time of innovation and renewal,” she offered a preview of future trends and developments.

"A measure of history," an op-ed by Professor Kenneth Mack '91, appeared in the Mar. 25 issue of the Boston Globe.

The symposium "The NAACP: Reflections on the First 100 Years," explored both the history of the NAACP, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2009, and its future. The Feb. 26 event was held at the library’s Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C.

Charles Hamilton Houston ’22 S.J.D. ’23, Raymond Pace Alexander ’23, Ben Davis ’29 and William Hastie ’30 S.J.D. ’33—all of these black civil rights attorneys graduated from Harvard Law School within a 10-year period.