International Legal Studies hosts author and journalist Sarah Chayes

In a talk sponsored by International Legal Studies on February 11, former NPR correspondent Sarah Chayes, currently senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment, spoke to HLS students about the links, historical and current, between corruption and global security.

Berkman fellow Kate Krontiris on what motivates everyday people do ‘civic’ things

What motivates everyday people to do things that are civic is the subject of some new research by Kate Krontiris, a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and the Google Civic Innovation team.

Dehlia Umunna appointed Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law

Dehlia Umunna has been appointed Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. She has been a lecturer at HLS since 2007, and is Deputy Director and Clinical Instructor at HLS’s Criminal Justice Institute (CJI).

Chamberlain When We Need Churchill: The Rot Spreads To The Virginia State Bar

When I woke up Saturday morning, March 28, I found the following email in my inbox: March 27, 2015 Dear Fellow Members of the Virginia State Bar, Certain members of the Virginia State Bar and other individuals have expressed objections to the VSB’s plan to take the Midyear Legal Seminar trip [...]

Chamberlain When We Need Churchill: The Rot Spreads to the Virginia State Bar

When I woke up Saturday morning, March 28, I found the following email in my inbox: March 27, 2015 Dear Fellow Members of the Virginia State Bar, Certain members of the Virginia State Bar and other individuals have expressed objections to the VSB’s plan to take the Midyear Legal Seminar trip [...]

A rebuttal from Tribe

In previous exchanges with my colleagues Jody Freeman and Richard Lazarus, I have explained why EPA’s Clean Power Plan lacks statutory authority and raises serious constitutional questions that would in fact eliminate any claim by EPA to deference for its revisionist reading of the Clean Air Act. In their most recent post, Freeman and Lazarus […]

New Mexico Nixes Civil Asset Forfeiture: Leviathan Can Be Defeated

Civil asset forfeiture has been a "growth industry" for many police departments, allowing them to pad their budgets at the expense of hapless individuals. That is about to come to a screeching halt in New Mexico, and other states have similar bills pending.

The Supreme Court Should Not Abandon 'Stare Decisis' in 'Kimble' Case Given Reliance Interest

The Supreme Court’s 1964 decision in Brulotte v. Thys Co. has been among the Court’s more heavily criticized patent law decisions. A number of academics and appeals court judges have complained that Brulotte, which establishes a rule governing construction of patent licensing agreements, is based on a misunderstanding of the [...]

Obama: The (Real) Cowboy President

Obama: The (Real) Cowboy President The White House press secretary has acknowledged that President Obama is indeed interested in using executive orders to raise taxes. The long national nightmare that is the Obama presidency gets worse. No one should have been surprised when Press Secretary Josh Earnest told the White House [...]

Supreme Court Observations: Interpreting 'Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Assoc.'

In its 1997 decision, Paralyzed Veterans of Am. v. Arena, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit created an important bulwark against federal administrative agency evasion of notice-and-comment rulemaking. Under the “Paralyzed Veterans” doctrine, an agency had to comply with formal (and time-consuming) administrative procedures even when it [...]

Why Offensive Speech Is Valuable

Even if offensive speech could be easily defined, it should not be prohibited. In an ideal world, offensive speech would roam freely.

Laurence Tribe’s Reply to Professors Jody Freeman and Richard Lazarus

I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the rebuttal of my colleagues Jody Freeman and Richard Lazarus, who continue to take issue with my legal objections to EPA’s “Clean Power Plan.” I was tempted just to let them have the last word, because I don’t think their rebuttal effectively answers my original post, but I […]

Freeman and Lazarus: A rebuttal to Tribe’s reply

Our colleague Larry Tribe’s response to our initial posting serves as a reminder of why he is widely celebrated as one of the nation’s most effective advocates. On the merits, though, we are no more persuaded. We will keep our rebuttal short.     The Right to Say No and the Tenth Amendment  To review […]

Why EPA’s Climate Plan Is Unconstitutional

When my friends Jody Freeman and Richard Lazarus defend the legality of the EPA’s power plant rule by saying that no one would take the constitutional arguments against the rule seriously were my “name not attached to them,” they no doubt mean to be complimentary. But I take my arguments very seriously indeed and hope, […]

FDA's Next Gift To The Litigation Industry: A Veritable Ban On Partially Hydrogenated Oils?

In a recent post, we lampooned the "high trans fat intake consumer" the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) invented to advance its de facto ban of partially hydrogenated oils (PHOs) as being a cross between Augustus Gloop and Homer Simpson. The ramifications of such a PHO ban for many processed food makers [...]

The DEA Is Seizing Cash Without Warrants In Its Version Of Stop-and-Frisk

Federal drug agents may be racially profiling and unjustly seizing cash from travelers in the nation’s airports, bus stations and train stations.

Preet Bharara Serious About Fighting Fraud

Over-criminalization and the ease with which prosecutors—particularly at the federal level—can obtain indictments is a troubling legal trend in America right now.  At the same time, public corruption and waste may be an even more formidable concern.  The recent indictment of New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the likely [...]

Today on the Hill: Tribe on Clean Power Plan; Shay on international tax system; and Desai and Fogg on tax complexity

On Tuesday, March 17, two professors from Harvard Law School, Laurence Tribe ’66 and Stephen Shay, will testify before Senate committees. Last week, Harvard Law School Professor Mihir Desai and Visiting Clinical Professor T. Keith Fogg testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. Laurence Tribe ’66 will testify on March 17 before the Energy […]

The Structure Of Climate Change Revolutions: It's The Sun

EPA's Clean Power Plan is the last gasp of a dying scientific paradigm, one fated to join the museum of oddities of science, . . . Bleeding industrial civilization to death in the name of CO2 is scientific quackery, worthy of Steve Martin’s Theodoric of York, Medieval Barber.

Abuse-Deterrent Opioids Are Worth The Cost

By Wayne Winegarden, Ph.D. States across the country are considering legislation concerning abuse-deterrent opioids. And, for good reason. Opioid abuse has, arguably, become the largest drug problem in the country. Often, the abuse of pain medications results from family members abusing medicine that was legally prescribed to another family member. It imposed [...]

Supreme Court citing: Clinic students work on City of Los Angeles v. Patel

Last week, the nine justices of the Supreme Court peppered Tom Goldstein, veteran of 35 oral arguments before the Court and a cofounder of SCOTUSblog, with nearly 75 questions in 30 minutes – questions he was able to answer with the help of seven Harvard Law students who spent their January term working around the clock to research, write and edit the entire respondents’ brief in City of Los Angeles v. Patel.

Indiana, Michigan, Now Wisconsin: What The Right-To-Work Momentum Means

In short, the union movement is in the same condition as Humpty Dumpty after falling off the wall.

Do Psychedelics Drive You Crazy Or Keep You Sane?

Psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin (found in "magic mushrooms"), and mescaline (the active ingredient in peyote) were once called “psychotomimetic" because they were said to simulate the symptoms of schizophrenia. At first that purported quality inspired hope that psychedelics would help scientists understand the roots of mental illness. But after these drugs escaped from [...]

Biden joins event at Harvard Law honoring Inspiring Women

In celebration of International Women’s Day, the Harvard Law and International Development Society and the Harvard Women’s Law Association honored 50 women in their International Women’s Portrait Exhibit. More than a dozen of the honorees attended a luncheon as part of the event, on Tuesday, March 10. Four of the honorees addressed the packed room, […]

The Yukos settlement: an insider’s view into the largest arbitration award in history

In a Feb. 6 talk sponsored by International Legal Studies, the Harvard International Arbitration Law Students Association, and the International Law Journal, Emmanuel Gaillard and Yas Banifatemi LL.M. ’97, head of international arbitration and head of public international law, respectively, at Shearman & Sterling, detailed the intricate story behind securing the historic $50 billion award for the Yukos Oil Cooperative against the Russian Federation.

Legal Education: What's Wrong With It, And How Do We Fix It?

I have been a law professor at George Mason for 27 years. When I arrived, we were an upstart law school housed in a decrepit former department store (complete with escalators). As we rose in the rankings, our state school status made us a relative bargain, and when we became a [...]

Legal Education: What's Wrong With It, and How Do We Fix It?

I have been a law professor at George Mason for 27 years.  When I arrived, we were an upstart law school housed in a decrepit former department store (complete with escalators).  As we rose in the rankings, our state school status made us a relative bargain, and when we became a [...]

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Drawing on community and social justice: Art exhibition at Legal Services Center

This month, the Harvard Law School Legal Services Center in Jamaica Plain held an art opening: the theme was community and social justice.  The artists and guests of honor at the March 5 event were more than 50 sixth-graders from the Helen Y. David Leadership Academy in Dorchester, along with their teachers and the school’s […]

Drawing on community and social justice: Art exhibition at Legal Services

This month, the Harvard Law School Legal Services Center in Jamaica Plain held an art opening: the theme was community and social justice.  The artists and guests of honor at the March 5 event were more than 50 sixth-graders from the Helen Y. David Leadership Academy in Dorchester, along with their teachers and the school’s […]

Public Service Venture Fund announces two ‘seed grant’ recipients for 2014-15 academic year

Two recent Harvard Law School graduates, Shannon Erwin ’10 and Alana Greer ’11, have been selected as recipients of grants from the Public Service Venture Fund, a unique program that awards up to $1 million each year to help graduating Harvard Law students and recent graduates obtain their ideal jobs in public service. The Public Service […]

Oregon's Long Statewide Nightmare Isn't Over: John Kitzhaber Will Still Cost Taxpayers Millions

By Jeremy Lott This week brought news that Oregon taxpayers are on the hook for $35,000, per person, in legal fees for a clown car packed to the wheel-wells with Democratic politicians and consultants. The newly subsidized include disgraced ex-governor John Kitzhaber, forced to step down last month. Also covered under that [...]

Oregon's Long Statewide Nightmare Isn't Over: Driven from office, John Kitzhaber will still cost taxpayers millions.

Oregon’s Long Statewide Nightmare Isn’t Over: Driven from office, John Kitzhaber will still cost taxpayers millions. By Jeremy Lott This week brought news that Oregon taxpayers are on the hook for $35,000, per person, in legal fees for a clown car packed to the wheel-wells with Democratic politicians and consultants. The newly subsidized [...]

Ted Cruz's Cannabis Conversion Reflects The Political Prudence of Marijuana Federalism

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last week, Ted Cruz responded to a question about marijuana legalization in Colorado by endorsing a federalist approach to the issue. “I actually think this is a great embodiment of what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called ‘the laboratories of democracy,’” the Texas [...]

It's High Time The High Court End Compulsory Dues

BY TERRY PELL - Unions are the only professional organization that is allowed to rely on the state to collect dues by force as a condition of employment.

After Ferguson, the ripples across Harvard

National concerns over racial justice lead to campus introspection, discussion, research, and action They are short, stark sentences, seared into the public consciousness in recent months: Hands up, don’t shoot. I can’t breathe. Black lives matter. The killings of unarmed black men by white police officers last summer—the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, […]

Man Acquitted Of Crime, Cops Still Take His Cash

Iowa State troopers can keep more than $30,000 in cash taken during a traffic stop, even though the owner was found not guilty, the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled last week.

EEOC Keeps Its Losing Streak Intact, Reinforces The Case Against Administrative Law

Judges should not show deference to bureaucrats when they usurp the legislative function, but often they do, only slapping them down in cases where they've gone "too far."

Six from Harvard Law School awarded Skadden Fellowships

Six Harvard Law School students and recent graduates have been chosen to receive Skadden Fellowships to support their work in public service.

FCC's Net Neutrality Order To Ensnare Content And App Providers

In comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) way back in 2007, I urged CEO- and Board-level focus to put a halt to the net neutrality steamroller, and was unsurprisingly ignored. Some formerly hot-blooded net neutrality advocates are having second thoughts about a new "Federal Department of the Internet," though. We saw that in the runup to and in the [...]

The Other Big Supreme Court Case To Watch This Week

BY JAMES R. COPLAND - This Wednesday, many legal observers will be analyzing the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in King v. Burwell. I’ll be following those arguments, of course, but I’ll also be closely scrutinizing the Court’s oral arguments in another case, City of Los Angeles v. Patel. The Court’s ruling in Patel could impact how police officers track down criminals in cities across the nation.

Renowned economist Thomas Piketty to speak at HLS March 6; discussion will be webcast live from 2-4 pm

Renowned economist Thomas Piketty, professor of Economics, EHESS and at the Paris School of Economics, will speak at Harvard Law School Friday, March 6, from 2-4 pm. Piketty will debate his bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century with several Harvard faculty, including: Sven Beckert Laird Bell Professor of American History, Harvard University; Christine Desan, […]