Public Service

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program has been addressing the legal concerns of Harvard students, faculty, staff, and individuals affected in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by recent executive action on immigration.

Since being selected last spring, Harvard Law School's 2016 Public Service Venture Fund seed grant recipients have begun work on projects ranging from environmental litigation and advocacy to transgender healthcare and identity issues.

As Harvard Law School's Public Service Venture Fund enters its fourth year, HLS is looking back on all that its awardees have accomplished since the first awards were conferred in 2013.

In the Harvard Law class “Spanish for Public Interest Lawyers,” Harvard Law School graduate Joey Michalakes teaches a Spanish course for HLS students who need legal Spanish concepts and terminology to deal with their clients, most of whom speak only Spanish.

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).

Science journalist and author Gary Taubes ’77 made his case that sugar consumption — which has risen dramatically over the last century — drives metabolic dysfunction that makes people sick. The hour-long talk was sponsored by Harvard Law School's Food Law and Policy Clinic and drawn from Taubes’ new book, “The Case Against Sugar.”

With just under two weeks left in the presidency of Barack Obama ’91, Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates spoke at Harvard Law School about recent strides in criminal justice reform and why she is optimistic that progress will continue in the new presidential administration.

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.

A look back at 2016, highlights of the people who visited, events that took place and everyday life at Harvard Law School.

In November, the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program celebrated its 10th anniversary, marking its evolution into a robust program of global clinical work in dispute systems design, innovative pedagogy around teamwork, and expanded course offerings in multiparty negotiation, group decision-making, teams and facilitation.

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.

On November 9, 2016, the Honorable Robert Russell, founder of the nation’s first Veterans Treatment Court delivered the 2016 DAV Distinguished Speaker Lecture at Harvard Law School.

Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow was recently named a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (AAPSS), one of the nation’s oldest learned societies. Minow was one of five distinguished scholars elected as fellows of the Academy in 2017.

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.

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.

In October, Kristin Fleschner ’14 returned to the Harvard Law campus to share with current students her work in disability rights and her experiences as a blind lawyer. Her talk was followed by a showing of “Blind Ambition,” a documentary that she produced as a 2L with the support of the Dean of Students Office.

HLS students Tony Garofano LL.M. ’17 and Sarah Grant ’19 spoke with writers for Harvard Law Today about their experiences serving in the military and studying at Harvard Law.

Tim Kaine ’83 will continue serving in the U.S. Senate after losing his bid to become the first Harvard Law School graduate elected vice president and he’ll be joined by several other alumni on Capitol Hill.

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."

Janet Reno ’63, the longest serving U.S. attorney general of the 20th century and the first woman to have ever held the post, died on Monday at age 78. Reno was nominated to the post of U.S. Attorney General by President Clinton in 1993 and she served for eight years, before stepping down in 2001.