Public Service

For the past year, Harvard Law students in the Education Law Clinic have travelled back and forth to the Massachusetts State House to lobby state legislators to pass an Act Relative to Safe and Supportive Schools. On August 13, all that work paid off, when Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed the Safe and Supportive Schools provisions into law.

Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe and HLS alumni Edward M. Ginsburg ’58 and Alan Howard ’87 were honored by the American Bar Association during the association’s annual meeting in Boston in August.

Margaret H. Marshall, Harvard Law School senior research fellow and lecturer on law, will receive the American Bar Association’s 2014 Thurgood Marshall Award. A retired chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Marshall is being recognized for her long-term contributions to advancing civil rights, civil liberties and human rights in the United States.

Harvard has been entwined with the American military since its start. In 1775, Gen. George Washington quartered the first Continental Army in Harvard Yard. On…

Until last month, scores of destitute people—virtually all of them African Americans— languished in the city jail of Montgomery, Ala., for unpaid traffic tickets they…

A number of Harvard Law students received special awards this year during the 2014 Class Day ceremony on May 28. The honored students were recognized for their outstanding leadership, citizenship, compassion and dedication to their studies and the profession.

In a transition from corporate law, an attorney focuses on increasing opportunities for women.

Two Harvard Law School students and a Suffolk Law student were the winners of the “Memo to the Mayor” writing competition. The three winners had the opportunity to present their winning proposals to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh at City Hall on April 18.

Three graduating Harvard Law School students, Samuel Weiss ’14, Catherine B. Cooper ’14, and David Baake ’14, recently received Ford Foundation Law School Public Interest…

From March 15-23, many Harvard Law students used their spring break to learn about the law outside the classroom.

In an April 16th ceremony, Harvard Law School student Jessica Frisina ’14 and alumnus David Singleton ’91 were honored with the Gary Bellow Public Service Award.

Just days after the Supreme Court decided McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, which struck down aggregate limits on individual campaign contributions, U.S. Rep. John Sarbanes ’88 (D-Md.) delivered a keynote address at a Harvard Law School symposium on proposed legislation to reform campaign finance and dilute the influence of major donors.

The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down aggregate campaign contribution limits, in a ruling that frees individuals to donate to as many candidates as they wish. Harvard Law School’s Noah Feldman, Bemis Professor of International Law, spoke with the Harvard Gazette about the ruling, and what it means for elections and for the future of campaign-finance reform.

On Tuesday, Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein, a member of a five-person advisory panel created by President Obama to make a sweeping review of U.S. surveillance activities, discussed the group’s efforts and the 46 recommendations it released last month, including major reforms to the way the intelligence community does business.

How best to assist people in financial trouble is the focus of the Consumer Financial Distress Project, a groundbreaking new study designed and led by Harvard Law School Professor Jim Greiner, Professor Dalié Jiménez at the University of Connecticut School of Law, and Professor Lois Lupica at the University of Maine School of Law.

Sumner M. Redstone, one of the nation’s pre-eminent media entrepreneurs and philanthropists, has announced a gift of $10 million to Harvard Law School to endow the Sumner M. Redstone Fellowships in Public Service. The gift from the Sumner M. Redstone Charitable Foundation -- the largest ever made to Harvard Law School in support of public service -- will provide funding for HLS students who wish to work in the public interest after graduation.

This fall, more than 600 alumnae from around the country and the world came back to Harvard Law School for “Celebration 60: Leaders for Change—Women Transforming our Communities and the World.” We interview four participants on their experiences effecting change.

Shortly after graduating from HLS, David Satterthwaite Wertime ’07 and Rachel Lu ’07 launched Tea Leaf Nation, an e-magazine focusing on Chinese social media. The site had become a go-to destination for Western journalists, academics and decision-makers seeking insights into what average Chinese people are thinking.

Arnold Mytelka ’61 can no longer remember just how he met Amanuel Andemicael LL.M. ’60. But, as Mytelka recalls now, something always stood out about the man who would become his lifelong friend.