Legal History

U.S. Circuit Court Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, who has taught courses at Harvard Law School each year since 2008, has been nominated by President Donald J. Trump to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy ’61.

A new book by Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz examines the real and threatened power of impeachment.

"It Can't Happen Here," the novel by Sinclair Lewis written in the 1930s as fascism was rising in Europe, imagines an America overtaken by an authoritarian regime. The new book edited by Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein ’78, "Can It Happen Here?: Authoritarianism in America" (Dey Street Books), does not predict the same fate. Yet the contributors—several also affiliated with Harvard Law—take seriously the possibility that it could happen here, despite the safeguards built into the American system of government.

Professor Noah Feldman is the first to admit that James Madison will probably never merit a hip-hop Broadway musical like his partner in Constitution drafting turned bitter political foe.

On the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the Harvard Gazette sat down with Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School and faculty director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice, to discuss Houston’s role and influence in the Civil Rights Movement.

Around the world, Harvard Law School alumni, students, faculty, and staff are using their skills and talents to transform communities. On April 20, hundreds of them gathered at HLS to take a closer look at the school’s local and global contributions of service during HLS in the Community, the final installment in the series of events in celebration of the school’s bicentennial.

Tomiko Brown-Nagin, a leading historian on law and society as well as an authority on constitutional and education law and policy, has been named dean of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard President Drew Faust announced today.

Stephen Gageler AC, LL.M. ’87, a justice of the High Court of Australia, returned to Harvard Law School in March to meet with faculty members, participate in classes, and speak on 'Alternative Facts in the Courts.'

Antonio Oposa Jr. LL.M. ’97 reflects on his legacy and efforts to bring environmental sustainability to his home country, the Philippines.

Over the past 200 years, Harvard Law School has built a collection of primary and secondary law unsurpassed by any other academic law library in the world. The library has served as a repository for the papers, photographs and community ephemera that document the school’s history and traditions. In an exhibit at Langdell Hall’s Caspersen Room that runs until June, the library highlights a selection of material that emphasizes the connection between the library’s impressive collection and its community of users.

The Holberg Prize—one of the largest international prizes awarded annually to an outstanding researcher in the arts and humanities, the social sciences, law or theology—named U.S. legal scholar Cass Robert Sunstein as its 2018 Laureate. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University.

To commemorate International Women's Day, the Harvard Women's Law Association hosted the  "Women Inspiring Change" portrait exhibit, which features portraits of inspiring women working in the fields of law and policy. Honorees were chosen by the International Women's Day Exhibit Committee from nominations by HLS students, staff and faculty. The exhibit, held annually at HLS since 2014, will be on display this year through March 9.

The #MeToo movement’s roots and its present and future impact were the focus of a discussion with Harvard scholars on Feb. 26 at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, featuring HLS Prof. Jeannie Suk Gersen, Harvard Profs. Jill Lepore and Evelynn Hammonds, and Ann Marie Lipinski, curator of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism, as moderator.

In January, Ben Sachs, the Kestnbaum Professor of Labor and Industry, filed an amicus brief in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, urging the Supreme Court to reject Janus's challenge on the ground that it does not raise a valid First Amendment claim.

The Harvard Law School trial team of Rahul Garabadu ’19 and Marilyn Robb ’18 won first place at the Northeast Regional Qualifiers of the National Trial Competition, sponsored annually by the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Texas Young Lawyers Association.

The Harvard Law Review has elected Michael Thomas ’19 as its 132nd president. Thomas succeeds ImeIme Umana ’18.

Harvard Law professor Jack Goldsmith shares his perspective on American institutions and the Trump presidency in a recent interview with Weekly Standard editor-at-large Bill Kristol.

Nikolas Bowie, a scholar of constitutional law, local government law, and legal history, will join the Harvard Law School faculty as an assistant professor in July.

Bryan Stevenson has battled through the courts, defending the wrongly convicted and children prosecuted as adults, while condemning mass incarceration and racial bias in the criminal justice system; now, he is embarking on a fight to start a national conversation about the painful legacy of slavery, which he says “continues to haunt us today.”

This fall, the Harvard Law School Library hosted a series of book talks by HLS authors, with topics ranging from Justice and Leadership in Early Islamic Courts to a Citizen's Guide to Impeachment. As part of this ongoing series, faculty authors from various disciplines shared their research and discussed their recently published books.

In honor of Harvard Law School’s bicentennial, in October the Harvard Law Review published a collection of six articles exploring Harvard’s contribution to the development of the law, and how that history will shape the future of the law in theory and practice.