Public Service

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.

In December, Amy Feinberg ’18 became the second Federal Tax Clinic student to argue an appeal in a federal circuit court since the Clinic opened at Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School in 2015.

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.

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.

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.

Managing Director of the Cyberlaw Clinic Professor Chris Bavitz discusses some of the concerns and opportunities of risk assessment tools for criminal justice reform efforts, and the Berkman Klein Center's work on Ethics and Governance of AI initiative in partnership with the MIT Media Lab.

Mentorships between Harvard Law School professors and the students who followed them into academia have taken many forms over the course of two centuries.

John Manning ’85 on getting advice, giving it and “doing disagreement right.”

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.

This year, in honor of the law school's bicentennial, the Hon. John G. Roberts Jr. '79, Chief Justice of the United States, presided over the final round of Harvard Law School’s 2017 Ames Moot Court Competition, on Nov. 14.

The tradition of HLS graduates in the House of Representatives goes back to the mid-19th century. On Oct. 27, during Harvard Law School's bicentennial summit, the panel “HLS in the House’” gathered five graduates currently or formerly in the House.

Panelists at an HLS in the World seminar called “No Justice for Most: Brainstorming New and Old Ideas for Government, Professional, and Technological Solutions,” discussed the disparity in legal services available in urban and rural areas and other barriers to access to justice.

In honor of the Harvard Law School bicentennial, and in celebration of the long tradition of the Ames Moot Court Competition at Harvard Law School, here is a look back on Ames featuring historical footage and photographs spanning the competition's more than 100-year history.

In 2017, more than 100 Harvard Law School students pursued summer work abroad; 19 of those students traveled to 16 countries through the Chayes International Public Service Fellowship Program.

Since 2001, a select group of Harvard Law School students have undertaken public service internships under the auspices of the Chayes International Public Service Fellowship, dedicated to the memory of HLS Professor Abram Chayes ’49. This past summer, 19 students traveled to 16 countries—the following are snapshots of several of their experiences.

As part of Harvard Law School's bicentennial summit, a panel, “Special Prosecutors and Independent Counsels: Investigating the White House and the President of the United States,” gathered six Harvard alumni and faculty members who’ve been involved with nearly every high-profile investigation, from Watergate to Whitewater, to the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity.

Each year, as we honor military veterans nationwide for their service, Harvard Law Today profiles students in the incoming class who have held positions in the Armed Forces. The Class of 2020 includes the largest number of former or current service members in Harvard Law's recent history.

As a JAG officer in the U.S. Marine Corps for more than six years, Jenna E. Reed LL.M. ’18 prosecuted and defended some of the most serious cases in that branch of the military, focusing on violent and special victims crimes, including shaken-baby cases and others involving children.

In becoming a Marine and then a lawyer, Nathan Garrett Jester ’20 is interested in someday going into local or state politics in his home state of Georgia, to serve the community where he was born and raised.

Steven Kerns ’20 was a high school dropout, a self-described ‘rebel without a cause’ from Long Beach, Calif., when he joined the U.S. Army as a teenager looking for adventure, with vague notions of changing the world.