Science & Technology

With Evisort, a powerful new search engine that harnesses cloud storage and artificial intelligence, four HLS students hope to revolutionize the costly and labor-intensive way that lawyers currently handle contracts and other transactional work, liberating them for more creative and interesting tasks.

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.

The trajectory of state intelligence gathering and invasions of privacy made possible by a digital environment were the focus of a session titled “National Security: National Security, Privacy, and the Rule of Law,” part of the HLS in the World bicentennial summit which took place at Harvard Law School on Friday, October 27, 2017.

Led by Professor Wendy Jacobs, director of the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School, the Climate Solutions Living Lab course launched last spring to help push forward the transition to a carbon-free future that supports planetary and human health.

On Sept. 19, the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society hosted a public lunch talk with Monika Bickert, the Head of Global Policy Management at Facebook.

Experts gathered at Harvard Law School on Oct. 10 to examine the potential for bias as our decision-making intelligence becomes ever more artificial at an event titled “Programing the Future of AI: Ethics, Governance, and Justice,” held at Wasserstein Hall as part of HUBweek, an annual citywide celebration of art, science, and technology.

Adrian Perkins ’18, student body president and a former U.S. military captain and company commander, reflects on his longtime interest in tech law.

Many arguments have been made about the media’s influence in the last Presidential election, but Harvard Law Professor Yochai Benkler ’94 has undertaken what may be the most scientific study on the topic to date, “Partisanship, Propaganda and Disinformation: Online Media and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election."

In an interview with the Harvard Gazette, cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier, a fellow with the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, talked about government and corporate surveillance, and about what concerned users can do to protect their privacy.

It takes a lot of preparation to rev up a new case. That’s true in all law offices, including Harvard’s legal clinics. As a clinical law student who was cross-enrolled in an undergraduate computer science course, Jeffrey Roderick ’17 wondered whether he could streamline the process through technology.

From the Supreme Court, to the SEC, to an unidentified city under siege: legal analysis, memoir, a documentary and more works from HLS alumni.

Cass Sunstein urges people to consume more diverse information for the good of our democracy

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University today announced the incoming and returning fellows, faculty associates, affiliates, and directors who together will form the core of the Center’s networked community in the 2017-2018 academic year.

A sharp increase in web encryption and a worldwide shift away from standalone websites in favor of social media and online publishing platforms has altered the practice of state-level internet censorship and in some cases led to broader crackdowns, a new study by the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University finds.

The subject of Konstantin Tretyakov’s doctoral thesis, the “right to die” and how it is handled in different countries, would be a fascinating one under any circumstances. But as a Russian student who has also studied Chinese law, Tretyakov brings a unique perspective to the topic.

While the NFL’s player health policies and practices are robust in some areas, there are opportunities for improvement in others, according to the findings of a new report by researchers at Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center -- the first comprehensive comparative analysis of health policies and practices across professional sports leagues.

Since its founding nine months ago, Harvard Law School’s Access to Justice Lab has aimed to revolutionize thinking about access to legal help. Often misunderstood and sometimes controversial, the lab sponsored a five-hour symposium in April that drew scholars from across the country to Harvard Law School.

HLS student Bradley Pough ’18 and Qian Wan, a mechanical engineering Ph.D. candidate at Harvard's Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, have co-written “Digital Analytics and the Fight Against Blight: A Guide for Local Leaders,” a paper that provides data-driven recommendations city officials can use to battle urban housing blight.

Ellora Thadaney Israni ’19 was among 30 recipients selected to receive the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, the premier graduate school fellowship for immigrants and children of immigrants.

When David Webb ’17 was approached with the opportunity to become a part-owner of Hiatus—an app that can scan users’ accounts to uncover auto-renewing charges that they may be unaware of—lessons from classes such as Consumer Contracts and Law, Economics, and Psychology, taught by Harvard Law Professor Oren Bar-Gill, immediately sprang to mind.

In a new book, “#Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media,” Harvard Law School’s Cass R. Sunstein argues that social media curation dramatically limits exposure to views and information that don’t align with already-established beliefs, which makes it harder and harder to find an essential component of democracy — common ground.