Public Service

Can President Donald J. Trump pardon himself before his term ends in January? This hotly debated legal question was given new urgency by the president’s recent decision to pardon Michael T. Flynn, his first national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his contacts with Russia.

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society researchers Yochai Benkler and Robert Faris document how polarized media in the United States shape political discourse and the 2020 election.

In the history of HLS' Ames Moot Court Finals, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’56-’58 presided over four competitions. Former Ames advocates reflect on the unique experience of arguing before RBG.

In recent court victory, students from the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program help safeguard the lives of countless asylum seekers by preventing more stringent federal immigration rules from going into effect.

Jack Goldsmith speaks with the Bulletin about the most effective approach to regulating the executive branch, “the absolute low point” of presidential relations with the press, and the one issue on which he, an independent, and his co-author, a Democrat, could not agree.

In a recent Harvard Gazette roundup, Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Phil Torrey and other university scholars, analysts, and affiliates took a look at what the election tells us about the prospects for greater unity and progress, and offered suggestions and predictions about where the new administration will, and should, go.

In an “Election 2020 Debrief” event, a panel of Harvard Law School professors agree that the essential divisions of the American electorate remain unresolved, but find cause for some highly cautious optimism.

After training as a military police officer in the U.S. Marines, Mtume Sangiewa ’23 found himself with an extraordinary assignment: he was headed to Washington, D.C. to guard President Barack Obama ’91.

When she was pursuing her J.D., Lieutenant Commander Elizabeth Hutton LL.M. ’21 knew that she wanted to enter public service, but wasn’t sure exactly how she would do so.

Given the strong possibility that Tuesday night’s presidential election will not go off without a hitch, a group of Harvard Law School students have launched a website that explores every other possible election scenario.

As HLS celebrates National Pro Bono Week, students speak on their commitment to pro bono legal work, and the challenges and opportunities of doing that work remotely.

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Chief Justice Ralph D. Gants ’80 wasn’t just a legal giant, a pride to Harvard Law School and a tireless advocate for social and racial justice. He was also, as former Governor Deval Patrick ’82 put it, “a mensch.”

Despite the pandemic, the 2020 Chayes International Public Service Fellows pursued projects around the world.

On Nov. 3, voters in Massachusetts and Alaska will have the opportunity to adopt ranked-choice voting (RCV) statewide. HLS Lecturer Peter Brann argues that Maine has led the nation in adopting the system that better ensures that the most popular candidate in any election wins.

In an effort to combat multiple potential vectors of attack on the 2020 U.S. election, two Berkman Klein Center affiliates have published a package of “tabletop exercises,” freely available to decisionmakers and the public to simulate realistic scenarios in which disinformation threatens to disrupt the 2020 election.

In an interview with Harvard Law Today, Carmel Shachar, executive director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, says that political interference in the FDA’s process for ensuring that a vaccine is both safe and effective “opens the door to a public health disaster.”

A new report from the HLS International Human Rights Clinic and the Conflict and Environment Observatory establishes a new framework for addressing human harm resulting from the environmental consequences of conflict.

Harvard Law Today spoke Monday with tax experts Keith Fogg and Thomas Brennan about the New York Times' report on President Donald J. Trump’s taxes.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s influence on Harvard Law School runs deep. On Thursday, September 24, a star team of Harvard deans and HLS professors remembered Ginsburg as a teacher, boss, colleague, inspiration and friend.

The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was enrolled at HLS from 1956 to 1958. In the years since, Ginsburg returned to Harvard Law School many times.

In the first of a seven-part series about policing in America, experts discuss how this moment may be an inflection point.