Public Service

From helping to prosecute Saddam Hussein to targeting enemy combatants to prosecuting or defending other members of the service, seven active duty or military veterans served in the war efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both, and have matriculated at HLS this year.

Harvard Law School welcomed Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the Prime Minster of Trinidad and Tobago this month for a lecture on leadership and cooperation. Persad-Bissessar became the first female prime minister of the Caribbean nation in May, and was named one of the top 10 female world leaders by TIME Magazine in August.

Beginning in 2013, Harvard Law School’s new Public Service Venture Fund will provide $1 million per year in grants to support new and recent graduates who will be working for public service employers, and also to support those who want to start their own organizations. With this commitment, the School is enhancing its focus on entrepreneurship in general and social entrepreneurship specifically—to encourage current students to pursue their own ideas and to prepare students who might want to apply for support from the fund and other sources of assistance for public service enterprises.

More than 100 law students, lawyers, and community activists from around the country gathered at Harvard Law School November 15-16 to learn about Project No One Leaves, the HLS student initiative that has had remarkable success in keeping Boston neighborhoods intact despite the foreclosure crisis.

When she was 19, Rebecca Onie ’03 created a program that takes a holistic approach to treating low-income patients; one “genius grant” later, she’s determined to change the health care system.

President Barack Obama ’91 today announced that Harvard Law School Professor Elizabeth Warren will serve as an Assistant to the President and as a Special Adviser to the Treasury Secretary on the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

A Boston University graduate student who is being  represented pro bono by Harvard Law School Professor Charles R. Nesson ’63 in a much-publicized copyright dispute will face a drastically reduced penalty for his illegal file-sharing activity, a federal judge has ruled.

President Barack Obama ’91 nominated Amy Berman Jackson ’79 to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Jackson was one of three nominations Obama announced on June 17, also including Judge James E. Boasberg and Justice Sue E. Myerscough.

Bruce Ramer ’58 divides his time between entertainment giants and pro bono causes.

From filing an emergency guardianship petition in probate court ensuring that the children of a dying mother are raised by the person she chooses, to appealing the denial of a disability claim in federal court for a critically ill client, the Harvard Law School Health Law and Policy Clinic prides itself on taking the toughest cases and working to shape policy to protect some of society’s most vulnerable people.

Two Harvard Law School professors have been appointed to faculty chair positions: Jody Freeman LL.M. ’91 S.J.D. ’95 is the Archibald Cox Professor of Law, and Henry Smith is the Fessenden Professor of Law. Freeman and Smith took their new chairs on July 1.

Today, President Barack Obama ’91 nominated former Harvard Law School Dean and current Solicitor General Elena Kagan ’86 to the seat vacated by retiring Justice John Paul Stevens on the United States Supreme Court.

Sumner M. Redstone '47 has donated $1 million to be used by Harvard College and Harvard Law School to establish scholarships for 30 students committed to public service. 

Harvard Law School students Michael Admirand ’10, Cori Crider ’06, and Jacob Howard ’09 each received the Gary Bellow Public Service Award for their commitment to public interest and social justice work at an award ceremony on April 9.

Harvard Law School today announced the creation of the Public Service Venture Fund, which will start by awarding $1 million in grants every year to help graduating J.D. students pursue careers in public service.

The canvassing effort, dubbed Project No One Leaves, was launched in 2008 by two HLAB students, Nick Hartigan ’09 and David Haller ’09, along with WilmerHale Legal Services Center clinical student Tony Borich ’09.

HLS Professor Elizabeth Warren was named the “Bostonian of the Year” for 2009 by the Boston Globe. The annual award, which recognizes people who have made the greatest impact on the region, was awarded to Warren for her role as chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).