Friday, May 29, 2015
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‘You will be the counsel for the situations to come,’ says Minow
On May 29, 2015, on Holmes Field, Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow congratulated the most recent Harvard law school alumni: 586 J.D.s, 167 LL.M.s and 8 S.J.D.s.
“Every student graduating today has traveled a remarkable journey to reach this moment,” she said. “You deciphered, you debated, you served, and you soared. You shoveled snow. You shoveled piles of words. You made this place and the law yours and the world will be better for it.”
Minow applauded the many accomplishments of Class of 2015 and she praised their activism against injustice: “You led teach-ins, die-ins, and active mobilization in response to police shootings and racial injustice, and participated in criminal justice reform work. Your work changes lives,” she told the graduates.
Credit: Martha Stewart
“I can say from experience, you ask amazing and important questions. You have learned how to assess yourselves, to reflect on what you’ve learned, and to consider what could be taught better and what can be done better. This will serve you well. For, as each year passes, you will increasingly have to rely on your own assessments rather than getting feedback from others.”
She encouraged the new alumni to be proud and honest and treat feedback as a gift. “Show gratitude. Bounce back from mistakes. And do not refrain from assessing in turn your boss, organizations, leaders, nations. And craft effective ways to express your views so they can be heard.”
Credit: Martha Stewart
Minow urged the Class of 2015 to be upstanders rather than bystanders. She said research shows that connections to others rather than ideology are most likely to motivate people to stand up against what’s wrong. She drew a lesson for the audience: “The friendships that you have made here and that you will make over the rest of your life will make it possible for you to do the right thing and for others to do so as well.”
“You can join with others to make it more possible for each next act of upstanding. We can each help to reduce fears of speaking out against what is wrong. We can come to recognize and combat denial, rationalization, and feeling overwhelmed. You have built amazing friendships here. That’s a resource,” she said.
“Now it is your turn. The Harvard Law School Class of 2015 will be the counsel for the situations to come. You will define what law, business, policy, politics and leadership will mean. Will you take risk? Will you grab opportunities? Will you be upstanders and not bystanders? Will you rebound from mistakes? Will you question assumptions? Your influence reflects what Harvard Law School is, who you are and who you will become.”
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Thursday, May 28, 2015
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Harvard Law School Class Day 2015
Harvard Law School’s 2015 Class Day ceremony featured speeches by Gabrielle Giffords, former U.S. Representative from Arizona, and her husband Mark Kelly, a Navy pilot and NASA astronaut, and Harvard Law School Professor Jon Hanson, winner of the 2015 Albert M. Sacks-Paul A. Freund Award for Teaching Excellence. A number of Harvard Law students from the Class of ’15 received special awards for their outstanding leadership, citizenship, compassion and dedication to their studies and the profession.
Students honored at class day ceremony
Credit: Martha Stewart
A number of Harvard Law students from the Class of ’15 received special awards this year during the 2015 Class Day ceremony on May 27. The students were recognized for their outstanding leadership, citizenship, compassion and dedication to their studies and the profession.
Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award
Credit: Martha Stewart Chad Baker ’15
This year’s Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award was presented to Chad Baker, honored for demonstrating an extraordinary commitment to improving and delivering high quality volunteer legal services to disadvantaged communities. Baker contributed over 2000 pro bono hours working with the Tenant Advocacy Project, the Prison Legal Assistance Project, and the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau.
Baker helped revitalize HLAB’s Social Security disability practice by recruiting students to take disability cases, creating and running a streamlined investigation and intake system, and developing an enormous resource-rich internal wiki containing all of the materials a Bureau student could need to handle a first disability law case.
The Andrew L. Kaufman Pro Bono Service Award is granted each year in honor of Professor Andrew Kaufman ’54, who has been instrumental in creating and supporting the Pro Bono Service Program at HLS. The J.D. student in the graduating class who performs the highest number of pro bono service hours receives the award and a $500 honorarium.
HLS requires all students to perform 50 hours of pro bono services but most go far beyond. This year, 10 students exceeded 2000 hours of service and 135 students volunteered more than 1000 hours.
The William J. Stuntz Memorial Award for Justice, Human Dignity and Compassion
Credit: Martha StewartSima Atri ’15
The Stuntz award was presented to Sima Atri. The award recognizes a graduating student who has demonstrated an exemplary commitment to the principles of justice, human dignity and compassion while at Harvard Law School.
At HLS, Atri has been dedicated to bringing community awareness to important social justice issues. She has served on the HLS Advocates for Human Rights executive board, as primary editor for the International Human Rights Journal, and played leadership roles in numerous student-organized public interest projects, including Divest Harvard, Firmly Refuse, and the Harvard Ferguson Action Coalition. As a Chayes International Public Service fellow in 2013, Atri split her time working with Justice Base, a rule of law organization in Myanmar, and the Native American Rights Fund in Washington, DC.
Atri has also been involved in Project No One Leaves, a non-profit tenants’ rights organization that advocates for citizens living in foreclosed properties.
Prior to HLS, Atri earned a B.A. in Peace, Conflict and Justice Studies at the University of Toronto and worked with numerous human rights and development organizations in Canada. After graduating, she coordinated the Injustice Project at the University of Toronto Law School, working to spread awareness of socio-economic conditions facing indigenous peoples in Canada.
The award is given in honor of the late William Stuntz, a renowned scholar of criminal justice at Harvard Law School, an evangelical Christian and a teacher much beloved by students and colleagues. Atri is the fifth person to receive this honor since it was established in 2011.
The Frank Righeimer, Jr. Prize for Student Citizenship
Credit: Martha StewartAlison Sher ’15
The Righeimer Prize was presented to Alison Sher. Established in memory of Frank S. Righeimer Jr. ’32, the prize is awarded annually to a graduating student in recognition of exceptional citizenship within the HLS community demonstrated through involvement in student organizations, community service groups or through individual efforts.
Sher served as president of the Student Representative Board, the HLS student government, organizing numerous events for the HLS community. She has also served as student director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at the Legal Services Center. The project represents low-income student loan borrowers who have experienced predatory lending in connection with for-profit schools.
In addition, Sher served as a student leader in the Title IX Working Group and was instrumental in promoting dialogue on the issue of gender equality and prevention of and responses to sexual assault.
The David Westfall Memorial Award
The Westfall Award was presented to Alexander Civetta. Named in honor of the late Professor David Westfall ’50, who taught at HLS for more than 50 years and served as an inaugural faculty leader for a first-year section, the award is presented annually to recognize student contributions to creating community within a first-year section and the wider class.
As a 1L, Civetta led the Section 4 Events Committee for the Class of 2015, coordinating community building events and activities. And he has he continued to foster the close bonds and network of support among its members.
Civetta has also served both as an executive editor and managing editor at the Harvard Negotiation Law Review, and a member of the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology.
The Dean’s Award for Community Leadership
The Dean’s Award recognizes a number of graduating students who have contributed time and energy to making the HLS community a better place through involvement in student organizations, community service groups, and individual efforts.
- Gregory J. Baltz
- Melanie Berdecia
- Samantha R. Caravello
- Cassie Helen Chambers
- David Glanzer Curtis
- Emily Grace Cusick
- Sudipta Devanath
- Juliana de Valdenebro Garrido
- Olivia G. Hoffman
- Sara Hugelier
- Claire M. Johnson
- Joshua Stephen Ellis Lee
- Dooter D. Malu
- McKenzie Louise Morris
- Tara Janelle Studebaker Norris
- Shakeer Rahman
- Julia Brinn Siegel
- Blake Alexander Strode
- Paul E. Suitter
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‘Be courageous,’ Giffords tells HLS grads
“Starting tomorrow, you can help change the world. The nation is counting on you, to create, to lead, to innovate,” said Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords, a former congresswoman, and her husband, Mark Kelly, a retired Naval aviator, were the Class Day speakers at Harvard Law School.
Four years ago, then-Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, was shot in the head and gravely wounded by a gunman in a mass shooting outside a Tucson supermarket.
Most people who suffer such an injury don’t survive, as her husband, Mark Kelly, pointed out. But Giffords fought back.
On Wednesday, taking the podium to a standing ovation at Class Day exercises for Harvard Law School, she urged the students to action.
“Starting tomorrow, you can help change the world. The nation is counting on you, to create, to lead, to innovate,” she said.
“Be bold, be courageous, be your best.”
Kelly, a retired Naval aviator who made four trips to space as an astronaut, commanding the space shuttles Endeavour and Discovery, shared the podium with his wife, drawing on her example to encourage the graduating students to never give up in the face of daunting challenges, and to lead lives of service.
“We want you to think about courage, determination, and your own path. We want you to think about service. And we want you to think about second chances.”
Kelly pointed to his wife as a model of courage and tenacity: “Nearly all people who experience the kind of injury Gabby did — a bullet to the head at near point-blank range — die. But Gabby lived. And she grew stronger every day.
“She was given another chance at life — and another chance at service. She has seized that chance.
“She has comforted and held the hands of mothers in Minneapolis who had sought safety in a domestic violence shelter. She has testified before Congress — sitting on the other side of the dais for the first time ever, facing her former colleagues.
“She has spoken out against the bitter partisanship that paralyzes Congress — and she has called for compromise and solutions in the middle.
“And she continues to be obsessed — and I mean that as a compliment — obsessed with encouraging young people to serve.”
Giffords served as U.S. Representative from Arizona’s 8th Congressional District from 2007 to 2012. She was meeting with constituents in the moments before the attack, which left six dead and 13 injured.
Giffords returned to Capitol Hill less than seven months after the incident. She resigned her seat in 2012 to focus on her recovery. Upon stepping down, she announced, “I will return, and we will work for Arizona and this great country.”
This article was published in the Harvard Gazette on May 27, 2015.
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Hanson, Pattanayak honored by Class of 2015
Victoria White-Mason ’15 presents Professor Jon Hanson with the Sacks-Freund Award
The Class of 2015 selected Professor Jon Hanson to receive the prestigious Albert M. Sacks-Paul A. Freund Award for Teaching Excellence. He was recognized for his work inside the classroom as “a creative and effective teacher, combining presentations, narratives and hands-on projects,” as well as his work outside the classroom.
“We have the power and tools to make a more just world,” said Victoria White-Mason ’15 in introducing Hanson at Class Day. “Thank you Professor Hanson, for your beautiful example.”
Hanson thanked the Class of 2015 for this “greatest professional honor” and went on to describe why they are the “most inspiring and amazing class to graduate from HLS in the last 25 years.” Many of them came to HLS to advance justice and have managed to hold on to that desire by pushing for change beyond HLS, traveling to Ferguson, MO, writing op-eds, drafting legislation, all while juggling challenges of law school. “You’ve already made a difference,” Hanson told them. “We will miss you. Our world needs you.”
Hanson is the Alfred Smart Professor of Law, the faculty director of The Systemic Justice Project, and the director of The Project on Law and Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School. His teaching and scholarship meld social psychology, social cognition, economics, history and law.
Hanson and Jacob Lipton ’14 launched The Systemic Justice Project last year to provide students with a new way to think about the role that law and lawyers play in society. The first annual Systemic Justice Conference was held in April and featured six teams of HLS students who demonstrated how public-policy problems might be addressed from this broader perspective.
Hanson also devised a project he called “Frontier Torts,” in which students in his first-year torts class explored several developing areas of tort law in a much more interactive fashion than the casebook method would allow. The method encourages students to think “outside the legal box” in order to better comprehend the limits of law and the role it plays, and could play, in dealing with social problems.
This is the third time Hanson has received the HLS teaching award. He first won in 1999 and then again in 2011.
The Sacks-Freund Award recognizes a single faculty member each year for teaching ability, attentiveness to student concerns and general contributions to student life at the law school. It was established in 1992 and is named in honor of the late Harvard Law School Professors Albert Sacks ’48 and Paul Freund S.J. D. ’32. This year’s finalists included Professors Richard Fallon, Richard Lazarus ’79, John Manning ’85 and Jeannie Suk ’02. Recent recipients include Tyler Giannini, Benjamin Sachs and William Rubenstein ’86.
Pattanayak receives staff appreciation award
Catherine Pattanayak
’04 was selected by the Class of 2015 to receive the Suzanne L. Richardson Staff Appreciation Award for her “extraordinary support of public interest students and their careers.” The award is given each year to a member of the staff who demonstrates commitment to the student experience and concern for students’ lives and work at the law school.
“Thank all of you for trusting me with your hopes, as well as fears,” Pattanayak told students after receiving the award. “Make the difference we know you can in the world.”
Pattanayak is an associate director in the Bernard Koteen Office of Public Interest Advising. She has worked in OPIA since 2009 after practicing law in both the public and private sectors. She was a recipient of the Dean’s Award for Excellence in 2014.
Pattanayak is the 20th recipient of the staff award, and the 12th since the award was renamed for Suzanne Richardson, who was dean of students at HLS from 1993-2004.
Closing arguments: Graduating students reflect on life before, during and after Harvard Law
This year, more than 550 students will receive a juris doctor from Harvard Law School and another 175 will receive a master of law. Each brought unique experiences to law school and all have tailored their academic careers while at HLS to explore their individual interests — through specific course work and reading groups; hands-on practical experience as student-lawyers; in-depth research and independent writing; and participating in journals and student organizations.
As they prepare to graduate, several members of the Class of 2015 reflect on the interests they brought to law school and the experiences they will take from their time at Harvard Law.
Susan Mirembe Nalunkuma LL.M. ’15 and Godiva Akullo LL.M. ’15, training together to fight Uganda’s draconian anti-gay laws
Credit: John Goodman Susan Mirembe Nalunkuma LL.M. ’15 and Godiva Akullo LL.M. ’15 recall teachers who have guided their activism. they now hope to play that role to others.
As activists for LGBT rights in Uganda—among the harshest nations in its treatment of homosexuals—Susan Mirembe Nalunkuma LL.M. ’15 and Godiva Akullo LL.M. ’15 have not chosen an easy path.
They’ve been called names, including by some of their university teachers, and been shunned by other students, even those who support their work but are afraid to do so openly.
“We had classmates saying: ‘You’re being paid by Western powers to kill African culture. You are spreading immorality,’” says Nalunkuma. “We did not have it easy, but many had it worse.” Read the full story
Victoria White-Mason ’15, taking action against injustice
Credit: Lorin Granger
In a way, the seeds of Victoria White-Mason’s activism were planted long before she was born. Her grandfather was the first black man to graduate from Duke University, where he faced prejudice and discrimination. Her great-grandfather operated a business in Durham, N.C.’s Hayti district, a thriving African-American community during a time of segregation. Her family history helped raise her awareness of racial injustice and also the strength of black people in the face of adversity. Read the full story
Sean Morrison ’15, merging a passion for tax law and a penchant for politics
Credit: Lorin Granger Sean Morrison ’15
Growing up in Montana with a mother who owned a horse farm, Sean Morrison ’15 found his tax attorney father’s line of work a bit dull by comparison. So Morrison is a little surprised to find himself, years later, graduating from law school with the intent to specialize in tax law and policy. Read the full story
Lor Sok LL.M. ’15, making an impact at home
Credit: Lorin Granger
As he prepares to finish his LL.M. year at Harvard Law, Lor Sok recalls all the benefits the experience has provided him. But the real test of the experience, he says, is what it will mean for Cambodia, his homeland. Read the full story
Antonia Domingo ’15, dedicated to social justice
Credit: Lorin Granger
At a time when right-to-work laws, which severely threaten the viability of workers’ unions, seem to be gaining in popularity, Antonia Domingo ’15 is something of a rare creature: a fervently pro-union loyalist. Read the full story
Innovation, teamwork drive Romeen Sheth ’15
Credit: Lorin Granger
Romeen Sheth ’15 is a team player who works well with others–not because he has to, but because he prefers to, and he wishes more lawyers felt the same way. Read the full story
CLEA Award recognizes Christopher Melendez ’15 and his service to veterans
Christopher Melendez ’15 received the Outstanding Clinical Student Award from the Clinical Legal Education Association. The award is presented annually to one student from each law school in recognition of outstanding clinical coursework and contributions to the clinical community.
Credit: Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff PhotographerChristopher Melendez ’15 (third from the right) with Dean Martha Minow (center left), judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, and students who were part of Harvard Law School’s Veterans Legal Clinic.
Melendez was nominated by Clinical Professor of Law Daniel Nagin for his work with the Veterans Legal Clinic. Over the course of his three years at Harvard Law, Melendez has logged hundreds of pro bono hours in service to the community and excelled as a clinical law student.
“I have had a fantastic experience working with the Veterans Legal Clinic,” he said. “Not only did I receive an immensely practical education, but I was also able to work with engaging clients and novel issues of law. Having left the Marine Corps to attend law school, the Veterans Legal Clinic also gave me the personal satisfaction of connecting with a broad community of Massachusetts veterans.”
Melendez first joined the clinic as a summer intern during his 1L year. He worked long hours crafting appellate briefs, representing clients, and interviewing new clients who contacted the clinic. He then enrolled in the Veterans Legal Clinic as a 2L clinical student. During his first semester in the clinic, along with student co-counsel, Melendez briefed and argued a significant case before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. The case involved a question of first impression regarding whether the Court’s own filing deadline for commencing an appeal from an adverse VA decision could be extended because of a veteran’s difficulties readjusting to civilian life following a combat deployment.
“Chris spent day after day preparing for the argument and worked seamlessly with his fellow students on the team to consider the case from every angle,” said Nagin. In a precedential decision, Ausmer v. Shinseki, 26 Vet.App. 392 (2013), the Court ruled in favor of the veteran and for the first time applied the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to the Court’s own filing deadline. The decision not only allowed this individual veteran’s disability appeal to be heard on the merits, but protects the appellate rights of other veterans who have service-connected disabilities and experienced multiple deployments.
“Together with his fellow students on the team, it was Chris’ determination, creativity, smarts, and grit that helped bring justice to this veteran and many other veterans who will benefit from the Court’s decision,” said Nagin.
“Arguing Ausmer v. Shinseki was the highlight of my experience at HLS,” said Melendez. “I met esteemed judges, set precedent and was able to see the case through to a successful remand to the VA. Because of this experience, I can head into professional life fully prepared to conduct veterans advocacy throughout the VA appeals process.”
“I am also leaving HLS with a deep sense of the problems—and achievements—of the VA as well as the place that intelligently directed advocacy can play in its reform.”
Melendez went on to work on countless veterans’ cases involving a range of legal issues. Among other things, he represented disabled veterans in estate planning matters, including drafting a sophisticated trust instrument to help protect the limited assets of one client facing serious health issues. He also helped mentor new clinic students. Even after completing his clinic semester, his dedication found new outlets. He helped the clinic staff the legal assistance tent at Massachusetts Stand Down, a day-long summer event to link homeless and at-risk veterans to services. After graduation, Melendez will join the Boston office of the international law firm Morgan Lewis.
Harvard Law School celebrates Commencement 2015
Harvard Law School’s 2015 Commencement ceremonies begin on Wednesday, May 27 at 2:30 P.M. with the celebration of Class Day. The speakers chosen by the Class of 2015 are Gabrielle Giffords, former U.S. Representative from Arizona, and her husband Mark Kelly, a Navy pilot and NASA astronaut. Commencement Day begins at 9:00 A.M. on Thursday, May 28; law school diploma ceremony begins at approximately 11:45 A.M.; afternoon exercises begin at 2:30 P.M.
You can watch live webcasts of both days’ events at http://today.law.harvard.edu/watch-live-harvard-law-celebrates-class-day-2015/.
For more information on Harvard Law School Commencement, visit http://hls.harvard.edu/commencement/.
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Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Closing argument: Victoria White ’15, taking action against injustice
Credit: Lorin Granger Victoria White
In a way, the seeds of Victoria White-Mason’s activism were planted long before she was born. Her grandfather was the first black man to graduate from Duke University, where he faced prejudice and discrimination. Her great-grandfather operated a business in Durham, N.C.’s Hayti district, a thriving African-American community during a time of segregation. Her family history helped raise her awareness of racial injustice and also the strength of black people in the face of adversity.
But it was the events of Ferguson, Mo., last year that inspired her to take action against the injustice she saw and the problems that still linger when it comes to race in America.
“I’ve always cared about these kinds of issues,” she says. “I guess I didn’t know what my place would be in trying to solve them. For Ferguson, it was sort of an awakening for me and I felt like I couldn’t — just for fear of not knowing what to do — not do anything.”
During her final year of law school, White-Mason traveled to Ferguson after the killing of Michael Brown on behalf of the Ferguson Legal Defense Committee, which worked to ensure the rights of protesters. She was there, at the police station in fact, when the decision came down not to indict the police officer responsible for the shooting. The memory of the shock and trauma she witnessed still remains with her, she says.
White-Mason also sought to bring the lessons of Ferguson back with her to Cambridge when she returned after nearly three weeks away. She helped organize a march on Harvard, mobilizing students from different Harvard schools to converge in Harvard Yard as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. She also helped bring together faculty and students at HLS to discuss how the curriculum could more closely reflect upon issues of social injustice.
“Just to get people a space with which to grieve and to try to find hope, I think that probably was the highlight of my Harvard experience,” she says.
There were other highlights too. HLS gave her a launching point to see the world, including internships in London and Australia and as a representative of the Harvard Black Law Students Association to the Africa Summit in Tanzania; all told, she traveled to 20 countries since she started law school. She also served as co-president of the Harvard Law Documentary Studio, for which she helped produce student films.
Before she immersed herself in the events of Ferguson and the Black Lives Matter movement on campus, White-Mason focused her legal studies and work on the music and entertainment industry. She was on the Committee on Sports and Entertainment Law and did clinical work to help draft contracts for musicians at the Berklee College of Music. During summers, she worked for the Recording Industry Association of America and Sony Music.
A classically trained cellist, White-Mason dreams about starting a music festival focused on social justice issues or a music label that signs artists of substance, perhaps discovering a current-day incarnation of Marvin Gaye singing “What’s Going On.” Or she may seek to advance the work she started in Ferguson. After experiencing so much in the last three years, she is taking the summer to consider her next steps. One thing she is sure of is her ability to withstand challenges, like a childhood with little money and her mother’s death as her HLS application was due. She didn’t believe that she would ever have the chance to go to Harvard, and, as she prepares to graduate, she is steadfast that she will make the most of the opportunity.
“As a kid who grew up with not the most available to her, the fact that with hard work, pushing through it, persevering, I’ve got myself to the point where doors are opened,” says White-Mason. “And that’s all I really need to be able to do some amazing things at some point in my life I’m hoping.”
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Watch Live: Harvard Law celebrates Class Day 2015
The Law School’s Class Day program will be held on Wednesday, May 27, on Holmes Field. This year’s Class Day speakers are Gabrielle Giffords, former U.S. Representative from Arizona, and her husband Mark Kelly, a Navy pilot and NASA astronaut. Live coverage starts at 2:30 P.M. ET (requires current Flash player):
http://media.video.harvard.edu/core/live/hls-live.html
Harvard University’s 364th Commencement will be held Thursday, May 28. The Harvard Law School Class of 2015 will march from the Law School campus to Tercentenary Theater in Harvard Yard for a university-wide ceremony in the morning. The Harvard Commencement speaker, who will deliver remarks at the afternoon ceremony, is Deval Patrick ‘82, former governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Morning exercises begin at 9:00 A.M. ET. Afternoon exercises begin at 2:30 P.M. ET (requires current Flash player):
http://media.video.harvard.edu/core/live/hls-live.html
If you are having issues viewing the live webcasts above for the 2015 Harvard Law School Class Day and Commencement Day Ceremonies, the live stream can also be found at http://media.video.harvard.edu/core/live/hls-live.html.
Follow and share Class Day and Commencement coverage on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook with #HLS2015.
Closing argument: Sean Morrison ’15, merging a passion for tax law and a penchant for politics
Credit: Lorin Granger Sean Morrison ’15
Growing up in Montana with a mother who owned a horse farm, Sean Morrison ’15 found his tax attorney father’s line of work a bit dull by comparison. So Morrison is a little surprised to find himself, years later, graduating from law school with the intent to specialize in tax law and policy.
Like many things about him, Morrison’s passion for tax law comes directly out of his Montana upbringing. When he was in college, the state was embroiled in a debate about whether to increase tax incentives for the oil and gas industry. Morrison attended arguments at the state capitol, where he heard industry executives argue that if taxes increased, their companies would relocate to another state. He thought that made little sense – after all, oil and gas companies were tied to natural resources that were geographically limited. But what about mobile industries, like film, with which he had become familiar through a high school job as a film projectionist? How would they respond to tax incentives?
Morrison explored the topic in his undergraduate thesis at the University of Montana. Through his research, he discovered that tax law was not the dreary world he had envisioned as a child, but a centerpiece in forming policy. People rarely think about how tax policies and spending policies inform one another, he said, which often results in tax policies and spending policies that work in opposite directions. “One of the complaints people have about how Washington works is that there are two different offices for tax policies and for budget policies. They’re not even in the same building,” he said. “It’s like they don’t exist together.”
Morrison has long had a penchant for politics. In college, he worked on campaigns to generate support for the Affordable Care Act in Montana, delivering a speech in the state capitol in 2008 about the daunting health care costs and low rates of insurance coverage for recent graduates. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the way tax policy interacts with his various other political interests, noting that the Supreme Court unexpectedly upheld the Affordable Care Act’s controversial individual mandate to purchase health insurance as a lawful exercise of Congress’s taxing powers.
After college, Morrison moved to D.C. to work as an unpaid intern for Max Baucus, then a senator from Montana, who chaired the Senate Committee on Finance. Eventually, he became a research assistant on tax policy for the committee. For the first time, he said, he saw lawyers doing work that made him envious.
Morrison’s interest in tax and politics led him to Harvard, where he pursued a range of interests, including serving as an editor on the Journal on Legislation, working in the housing clinic, volunteering with HLS TaxHelp, which helps low-income individuals fill out tax forms, and competing with the law school’s Target Shooting Club.
One formative experience was writing an article later published in an environmental law journal, under the supervision of Professor Joseph Singer ’81, about a Montana law that allows people to use streams for recreational purposes even if to do so they must trespass on private property. Property owners in Montana had challenged the law as a form of illegal taking of property without just compensation. Although the legal issue seemed somewhat archaic, he saw an obvious connection to his other political and policy interests. “What’s consistent about my life and what I’ve done with it is my concern that the public needs access to resources, and that those channels work well,” he said. “The Montana law is really a minimal tax on people who own large estates.”
After law school, Morrison is headed to Miller & Chevalier in Washington, D.C., a firm specializing in tax and administrative law that was founded the year after the first federal income tax was passed. There, he hopes to build skills that may one day lead back to helping the government in his home state establish tax and consumer protection policies that help individuals access public resources with minimal burdens – as well as reunite with his horse, named Fenway, who awaits him at his mother’s ranch.
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Closing argument: Lor Sok LL.M. ’15, making an impact at home
Credit: Lorin Granger Lor Sok LL.M. ’15
As he prepares to finish his LL.M. year at Harvard Law, Lor Sok recalls all the benefits the experience has provided him. He praises his classes, professors and fellow students. He’s enjoyed trips to explore the United States from the West Coast to New York and even smiles at the memory of going to the opera in Boston. But the real test of the experience, he says, is what it will mean for Cambodia, his homeland.
“Your performance as a member of the Harvard family will be measured not so much by your personal progress but by the extent of your contribution and impact you can make in the progress of the society,” he says.
For nearly the last 10 years, Sok has worked to improve his country through the Arbitration Council Foundation, an organization for which he first served as chief legal officer and now as executive director. The country’s first arbitral institution, launched in 2003, the Arbitration Council Foundation resolves labor disputes, typically in the garment industry, including issues involving wages, level of benefits, rights and responsibility of trade unions, and the rights of women in the workplace. He touts the neutrality of its decision makers and arbitrators and the fact that it is free of corruption, an important sign of progress and a matter of pride in a developing country, he says.
Of course, more than many countries, Cambodia has faced challenges establishing its laws and institutions. Sok speaks of a stigma that still affects his country, how for many it still conjures thoughts of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, which was in power just before he was born in 1980. In the aftermath, few legal minds remained since the regime targeted the intellectual class. Contract law was only a few pages, like a child’s paper, as Sok puts it. The country, which faced civil conflict after the Khmer Rouge fell, begin its transformation when a 1991 peace agreement was signed and now has a functioning level of laws to govern society, he says.
“My challenge here is to let people know especially with recent developments that my country is no longer attached to genocide,” says Sok. “It’s actually a country that’s progressing forward.”
He was inspired to become a lawyer because he saw the law as a way to make changes in society, especially in a low-income country that has recently emerged from a long period of conflict.
“You have an opportunity to make a big contribution to push the legal frontier in my country, Sok says. “I see myself as having a role to play in advancing justice and development of the country.”
While he was experienced in dispute resolution, his studies at HLS have broadened his knowledge of subjects like law and economics, business law, and constitutional law. Cambodia is a civil law country and learning about a common law system also has expanded his perspective, he says. He describes the law in Cambodia as static, and “coming here, you see that the law goes through constant changes that reflect the actual needs and level of development of the country. This is something that I find quite amazing and so important for me to take back to my country.”
Sok isn’t aware of anyone else from Cambodia who has gone through the LL.M. program and neither is the HLS alumni office. When he gets back home, he is going to try to inspire others to follow, for the good of his country.
Friday, May 22, 2015
Closing argument: Lor Suk LL.M. ’15, making an impact at home
Credit: Lorin Granger Lor Sok LL.M. ’15
As he prepares to finish his LL.M. year at Harvard Law, Lor Sok recalls all the benefits the experience has provided him. He praises his classes, professors and fellow students. He’s enjoyed trips to explore the United States from the West Coast to New York and even smiles at the memory of going to the opera in Boston. But the real test of the experience, he says, is what it will mean for Cambodia, his homeland.
“Your performance as a member of the Harvard family will be measured not so much by your personal progress but by the extent of your contribution and impact you can make in the progress of the society,” he says.
For nearly the last 10 years, Sok has worked to improve his country through the Arbitration Council Foundation, an organization for which he first served as chief legal officer and now as executive director. The country’s first arbitral institution, launched in 2003, the Arbitration Council Foundation resolves labor disputes, typically in the garment industry, including issues involving wages, level of benefits, rights and responsibility of trade unions, and the rights of women in the workplace. He touts the neutrality of its decision makers and arbitrators and the fact that it is free of corruption, an important sign of progress and a matter of pride in a developing country, he says.
Of course, more than many countries, Cambodia has faced challenges establishing its laws and institutions. Sok speaks of a stigma that still affects his country, how for many it still conjures thoughts of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime, which was in power just before he was born in 1980. In the aftermath, few legal minds remained since the regime targeted the intellectual class. Contract law was only a few pages, like a child’s paper, as Sok puts it. The country, which faced civil conflict after the Khmer Rouge fell, begin its transformation when a 1991 peace agreement was signed and now has a functioning level of laws to govern society, he says.
“My challenge here is to let people know especially with recent developments that my country is no longer attached to genocide,” says Sok. “It’s actually a country that’s progressing forward.”
He was inspired to become a lawyer because he saw the law as a way to make changes in society, especially in a low-income country that has recently emerged from a long period of conflict.
“You have an opportunity to make a big contribution to push the legal frontier in my country, Sok says. “I see myself as having a role to play in advancing justice and development of the country.”
While he was experienced in dispute resolution, his studies at HLS have broadened his knowledge of subjects like law and economics, business law, and constitutional law. Cambodia is a civil law country and learning about a common law system also has expanded his perspective, he says. He describes the law in Cambodia as static, and “coming here, you see that the law goes through constant changes that reflect the actual needs and level of development of the country. This is something that I find quite amazing and so important for me to take back to my country.”
Sok isn’t aware of anyone else from Cambodia who has gone through the LL.M. program and neither is the HLS alumni office. When he gets back home, he is going to try to inspire others to follow, for the good of his country.
Daniel Nagin appointed Vice Dean for Experiential and Clinical Education
Clinical Professor Daniel Nagin
Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow has appointed Clinical Professor Daniel Nagin as Vice Dean for Experiential and Clinical Education.
In that role, Nagin will help to further expand the Law School’s extensive offerings in the area of experience-based learning, and he will work to develop new initiatives drawing upon the school’s wide array of clinics, student practice organizations, and other opportunities for learning through hands-on experience.
Nagin is Faculty Director of the Law School’s WilmerHale Legal Services Center and also of the Center’s Veterans Legal Clinic, which he founded in 2012. He will retain those positions as he assumes his new role effective July 1.
“As numerous studies undertaken by our profession and our own internal studies have shown, experiential learning helps our students enter the world more ready to contribute meaningfully from day one,” said Minow. “I asked Dan to take on this important new role because of his innovative work in establishing the Veterans Legal Clinic at Harvard Law School, his excellent stewardship of the WilmerHale Legal Services Center, and his thoughtful work with faculty committees focused on clinical programs and experiential learning. He will help Harvard Law School build upon and continue its leadership in the increasingly important area of experiential education.”
Nagin will work closely with Dean Minow, the faculty, students, and Lisa Dealy, assistant dean for clinical and pro bono programs, to foster innovation in experiential learning.
“I am continually inspired by the innovative experiential teaching and learning that takes places across the Law School’s classrooms, clinics, and community settings,” said Nagin. “I look forward to working with colleagues, students, and other partners in whatever way I can to help the Law School build on this exceptional foundation.”
Harvard Law School has been a pioneer in the development of experiential and clinical education. In addition to 16 in-house and 10 externship clinics (in which 75% of the class of 2015 participated), the Law School has also launched numerous simulation classes – including the path-breaking Problem Solving Workshop, which asks first-year students to work in teams to construct solutions to legal problems typically presented by clients.
HLS also offers upper-level courses such as the Trial Advocacy Workshop and the Negotiation Workshop, which together draw hundreds of students each year, as well as numerous smaller courses that offer simulations in litigation, business transactions, and quantitative methods essential to the modern practice of law. The Law School’s experiential program also encompasses 11 Student Practice Organizations, which provide legal services through voluntary participation in student-run organizations, and a vast array of upper level moot court, legal drafting, and negotiation competitions.
In response to guidance from the American Bar Association and the California Bar for all law schools, Minow appointed an Ad Hoc Committee on Experiential Learning to assess the HLS program. Said Minow, “The committee focused on identifying opportunities for growing, enhancing, and ensuring the broadest distribution of experiential opportunities at Harvard Law School. The committee made a wide variety of recommendations about not only how to enhance our already extensive clinical and simulation opportunities, but also how to foster new avenues of faculty-student collaboration in student-run experiential programs such as moot courts. The committee generated a great many proposals to make a strong program of experiential education even stronger. I am delighted and grateful that Dan Nagin will help us build on that work.”
A Young Woman's Shocking Encounter With Drug Warriors Disguised As Immigration Agents
Thursday, May 21, 2015
A Young Woman's Stunning Encounter With Drug Warriors Disguised As Immigration Agents
Antonia Domingo ’15, dedicated to social justice
Credit: Lorin Granger Antonia Domingo ’15
At a time when right-to-work laws, which severely threaten the viability of workers’ unions, seem to be gaining in popularity, Antonia Domingo ’15 is something of a rare creature: a fervently pro-union loyalist. Her faith in unions traces back to her childhood in Indiana. In fifth grade, Domingo’s elementary school teachers went on strike. Every day before she headed to work, Domingo’s mother would join the picket line. “Seeing that was very meaningful,” Domingo said. “That solidarity between people who were in my life every day, my teachers and my family, made an impression on me.”
Domingo, who will be working for the United Steelworkers union in Pittsburgh upon graduation, came to Harvard with a dedication to social justice that shaped each choice she made along the way to law school, from volunteering at a workers’ collaborative center in Argentina while learning Spanish for a year after college, to working for two years in a domestic violence shelter in South Bend, Indiana, as a bilingual advocate. Eventually, however, she settled on labor and employment rights as the issues that brought everything together. “Something just seemed very fundamental about having access to jobs that provide a living wage, that treat people with dignity at work,” Domingo said. “And I was always impressed by the collective action component that I had seen in workers’ movements.”
At Harvard, Domingo quickly sought ways to connect to the broader community. In her first year, she began canvassing foreclosed homes with Project No One Leaves, a student group that educates homeowners and tenants about their legal rights. For Domingo, it was a way to escape Cambridge and connect with Boston’s gentrifying communities. Domingo also helped revitalize the Labor and Employment Action Project, a small group of students dedicated to workers’ rights. LEAP, along with other student groups, has organized student delegations to support Harvard dining service workers and, during Boston’s snowiest winter on record and after numerous school closures, amassed hundreds of student and faculty signatures for thank you cards to the Harvard staff who had kept the school running.
In addition, Domingo has served as a student attorney with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, where she has worked on family law, social security, wage-and-hour and unemployment cases. At an end-of-year dinner honoring HLAB students who were graduating, Domingo was voted “most likely to cover your office hours with a smile,” which fellow HLAB member Donna Harati ’15 said was perfectly emblematic of Domingo’s dedication to her friends and colleagues.
Harati described Domingo as a “quiet leader” who “takes on a lot of work and doesn’t draw a lot of attention to herself in doing it.” Instead, Domingo is quick to focus on her clients and the workers she seeks to represent. Rather than heedlessly jump at the opportunity to advocate for swift change, Harati said, Domingo will take the time to meet with workers, union leaders, and others who could be impacted by changes to law or policy to really listen to their concerns. “She always brings a lens of asking, how are workers going to be affected by this?” Harati said. “She really understands the need to respect workers and the decisions that they make.”
Domingo plans to bring that lens to United Steelworkers, a union that focuses both on traditional representation of its members as well as newer forms of organizing, such as working with adjunct professors, supporting a campaign for carwash workers in Los Angeles, and engaging in international work to connect union members worldwide. “I don’t know how this happened – I just got my dream job,” Domingo said. “I get to work directly with members and be involved in a larger movement that I care deeply about. I have a really hard time wrapping my mind around it.”
Innovation, teamwork drive Romeen Sheth ’15
Credit: Lorin Granger Romeen Sheth ’15
Romeen Sheth ’15 is a team player.
For Sheth, that doesn’t just mean that he works well with others — it means he prefers to. And he wishes more lawyers felt the same way. “There’s no way you can make an impact in our increasingly globalized world without working in teams,” says Sheth, who has been pursuing teamwork and innovation throughout his law school career.
In April, Sheth won the international Law Without Walls competition – a team-based contest that recognizes innovative ideas to be applied in legal practice. His winning idea was a cloud-based system to help law firms and in-house law departments easily monitor and manage the work they assign to outside vendors.
During his 2L year, he led a team through the Harvard Innovation Lab to develop a product to improve the efficiency of corporate legal departments – a project inspired by his IL summer in the M&A department of an Atlanta law firm. And after graduation and before starting as an Associate at Cleary Gottlieb, Sheth will intern as a Product Manager at Ravel Law, a Silicon Valley start-up that has raised $9.2 million to improve the visualization and analytics behind legal research.
Sheth’s entrepreneurial law school career reflects his belief that the legal profession is ripe for innovation and disruption. And by extension, so are the opportunities available to law students and young lawyers. “With a little hustle and a little intellectual honesty about what you’re interested in, a lot is open to you,” says Sheth. “The first institutional challenge is in your own head.”
Despite his innovative bent and entrepreneurial successes, Sheth doesn’t think he is that unusual. He has done what any tennis playing, bhangra-dancing, champion debater would do: work on a team to find creative solutions to long-standing problems and find a way to come out on top.
A graduate of Duke University with a degree in philosophy and a certificate in markets and management studies, Sheth came to HLS after a year working for Gerson Lehrman Group, a technology marketplace connecting institutional investors with industry experts; GLG is commonly referred to as the “Match.com for Wall Street.” At HLS, he has served on the Executive Board of the Harvard Business Law Review and was Co-President of the Harvard Association for Law and Business.
After his 1L summer at an Atlanta law firm, he could not get over the many inefficiencies of M&A work – a process that frustrated clients and lawyers, alike. Sheth thought it was overdue for repair. When he returned to Harvard, he applied to enter the Venture Incubation Program at the Harvard Innovation Lab. Armed with $40,000 worth of technical resources, Sheth began to talk to law firms about a new project management platform that could streamline M&A work and help relevant stakeholders communicate more effectively.
Sheth said the process taught him a lot about the challenge of selling to law firms. He didn’t develop the project further, but at the urging of his Legal Profession Professor, David Wilkins ’80, the Lester Kissel Professor of Law and the Director of the Center on the Legal Profession (CLP) at HLS, Sheth wrote an article about the key challenges startups face in selling to law firms and offered mitigation strategies for these challenges. “The Practice,” CLP’s magazine, published his piece in January 2015. At Wilkins’s request, Sheth also lectured to Wilkin’s Legal Profession class about disruptive innovation in law firms.
Wilkins next encouraged Sheth to compete in Law Without Walls (LWOW), a five-year old class and competition created by Michele DeStefano ’02, professor at the University of Miami School of Law. (DeStefano will be a visiting professor at HLS during the 2015-16 academic year.)
LWOW 2015 kicked off in January, with 50 students from 27 law schools and more than 50 practitioners from around the world gathering in Dublin, Ireland, for two days of training and team building. Students were randomly assigned to teams and given a broad topic to address in a semester-long project. Sheth was paired with Max Viski-Hanka, a 3L at the University of Miami School of Law, and they were assigned to create a project on e-discovery and legal process outsourcing (LPOs). Two other HLS 3Ls also participated, Iram Huq and Lolita Sosa.
For the next three months, the class met online once a week, with DeStefano bringing in experts with backgrounds in law, venture capital, marketing, and finance. Students, faculty and judges came together again in Miami in April for the final competition – a 15-minute pitch of their innovative idea followed by a 25-minute Q and A by a panel of judges. Sheth’s panel of judges included Daniel Reed, CEO of UnitedLex, one of the largest LPOs in the world backed by Sequoia Capital, Canaan Partners, and Helion Ventures Partners.
Sheth and Viski-Hanka decided to tackle the difficulty law firms and in-house counsel have in communicating with their LPO vendors. “Though there are a number of strategic advantages LPOs offer,” says Sheth “the increased operational overhead costs associated with managing them often mitigates these advantages.” Sheth and Viski-Hanka won first place for their proposed venture, CORE, a cloud-based system that helped tackle this exact problem. The product’s vision was to enable law firms and in-house law departments to facilitate better day-to-day management of their LPOs while simultaneously gaining better analytic insight into their usage of LPOs. Through CORE, they can all see the same information in the same place.
“Several long-time LWOW judges and observers told me afterwards that Romeen’s team gave one of the best presentations they had ever seen at LWOW,” said Scott Westfahl ’88, Professor of Practice and Director of the HLS Executive Education Program, who has been a Law Without Walls judge since the competition’s inception.
As winners of LWOW, Sheth and his partner will receive an all-expenses paid trip to next year’s kick-off conference in Madrid. They also win $25,000 in seed capital to develop their CORE project through the University of Miami’s Launchpad accelerator.
The inefficiencies in law firms, his problem-solving nature, and the consistent thought lurking in his head “that there has to be a better way to practice law than the status quo” encouraged Sheth to pursue his interest in entrepreneurship during his time at HLS. Over this past year Sheth contacted CEOs of companies that interested him just to talk. One of those CEOs was at Ravel, and the company was so impressed by his background, ability and passion they invited him to come out and help kick the tires of its growing start-up. Sheth is excited to bring the same energy and emphasis on teamwork that he brought to the Harvard Innovation Lab and the LWOW competition to Ravel.
“My journey has been the culmination of a lot of different things,” says Sheth, saying his entrepreneurial spirit has drawn on his background as a debater, a tennis player, and a competitive dancer in bhangra, a genre of music and dance from the Punjabi region of India. Strong interpersonal skills, he believes, combined with his HLS education are a recipe for innovation. “Today lawyers understand the pain points of their industry better than anyone else, but are either disinterested in or unable to craft a solution. On the flipside, there are a number of business people that would love to craft a solution but are often reticent given their lack of knowledge on the space. If you’re someone with a legal background with the ability to think through a solution and craft a concept, you have the potential to be a pretty interesting player,” he says.
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Innovation, teamwork drive entrepreneurial 3L
Credit: Lorin Granger Romeen Sheth ’15
Romeen Sheth ’15 is a team player.
For Sheth, that doesn’t just mean that he works well with others — it means he prefers to. And he wishes more lawyers felt the same way. “There’s no way you can make an impact in our increasingly globalized world without working in teams,” says Sheth, who has been pursuing teamwork and innovation throughout his law school career.
In April, Sheth won the international Law Without Walls competition – a team-based contest that recognizes innovative ideas to be applied in legal practice. His winning idea was a cloud-based system to help law firms and in-house law departments easily monitor and manage the work they assign to outside vendors.
During his 2L year, he led a team through the Harvard Innovation Lab to develop a product to improve the efficiency of corporate legal departments – a project inspired by his IL summer in the M&A department of an Atlanta law firm. And after graduation and before starting as an Associate at Cleary Gottlieb, Sheth will intern as a Product Manager at Ravel Law, a Silicon Valley start-up that has raised $9.2 million to improve the visualization and analytics behind legal research.
Sheth’s entrepreneurial law school career reflects his belief that the legal profession is ripe for innovation and disruption. And by extension, so are the opportunities available to law students and young lawyers. “With a little hustle and a little intellectual honesty about what you’re interested in, a lot is open to you,” says Sheth. “The first institutional challenge is in your own head.”
Despite his innovative bent and entrepreneurial successes, Sheth doesn’t think he is that unusual. He has done what any tennis playing, bhangra-dancing, champion debater would do: work on a team to find creative solutions to long-standing problems and find a way to come out on top.
A graduate of Duke University with a degree in philosophy and a certificate in markets and management studies, Sheth came to HLS after a year working for Gerson Lehrman Group, a technology marketplace connecting institutional investors with industry experts; GLG is commonly referred to as the “Match.com for Wall Street.” At HLS, he has served on the Executive Board of the Harvard Business Law Review and was Co-President of the Harvard Association for Law and Business.
After his 1L summer at an Atlanta law firm, he could not get over the many inefficiencies of M&A work – a process that frustrated clients and lawyers, alike. Sheth thought it was overdue for repair. When he returned to Harvard, he applied to enter the Venture Incubation Program at the Harvard Innovation Lab. Armed with $40,000 worth of technical resources, Sheth began to talk to law firms about a new project management platform that could streamline M&A work and help relevant stakeholders communicate more effectively.
Sheth said the process taught him a lot about the challenge of selling to law firms. He didn’t develop the project further, but at the urging of his Legal Profession Professor, David Wilkins ’80, the Lester Kissel Professor of Law and the Director of the Center on the Legal Profession (CLP) at HLS, Sheth wrote an article about the key challenges startups face in selling to law firms and offered mitigation strategies for these challenges. “The Practice,” CLP’s magazine, published his piece in January 2015. At Wilkins’s request, Sheth also lectured to Wilkin’s Legal Profession class about disruptive innovation in law firms.
Wilkins next encouraged Sheth to compete in Law Without Walls (LWOW), a five-year old class and competition created by Michele DeStefano ’02, professor at the University of Miami School of Law. (DeStefano will be a visiting professor at HLS during the 2015-16 academic year.)
LWOW 2015 kicked off in January, with 50 students from 27 law schools and more than 50 practitioners from around the world gathering in Dublin, Ireland, for two days of training and team building. Students were randomly assigned to teams and given a broad topic to address in a semester-long project. Sheth was paired with Max Viski-Hanka, a 3L at the University of Miami School of Law, and they were assigned to create a project on e-discovery and legal process outsourcing (LPOs). Two other HLS 3Ls also participated, Iram Huq and Lolita Sosa.
For the next three months, the class met online once a week, with DeStefano bringing in experts with backgrounds in law, venture capital, marketing, and finance. Students, faculty and judges came together again in Miami in April for the final competition – a 15-minute pitch of their innovative idea followed by a 25-minute Q and A by a panel of judges. Sheth’s panel of judges included Daniel Reed, CEO of UnitedLex, one of the largest LPOs in the world backed by Sequoia Capital, Canaan Partners, and Helion Ventures Partners.
Sheth and Viski-Hanka decided to tackle the difficulty law firms and in-house counsel have in communicating with their LPO vendors. “Though there are a number of strategic advantages LPOs offer,” says Sheth “the increased operational overhead costs associated with managing them often mitigates these advantages.” Sheth and Viski-Hanka won first place for their proposed venture, CORE, a cloud-based system that helped tackle this exact problem. The product’s vision was to enable law firms and in-house law departments to facilitate better day-to-day management of their LPOs while simultaneously gaining better analytic insight into their usage of LPOs. Through CORE, they can all see the same information in the same place.
“Several long-time LWOW judges and observers told me afterwards that Romeen’s team gave one of the best presentations they had ever seen at LWOW,” said Scott Westfahl ’88, Professor of Practice and Director of the HLS Executive Education Program, who has been a Law Without Walls judge since the competition’s inception.
As winners of LWOW, Sheth and his partner will receive an all-expenses paid trip to next year’s kick-off conference in Madrid. They also win $25,000 in seed capital to develop their CORE project through the University of Miami’s Launchpad accelerator.
The inefficiencies in law firms, his problem-solving nature, and the consistent thought lurking in his head “that there has to be a better way to practice law than the status quo” encouraged Sheth to pursue his interest in entrepreneurship during his time at HLS. Over this past year Sheth contacted CEOs of companies that interested him just to talk. One of those CEOs was at Ravel, and the company was so impressed by his background, ability and passion they invited him to come out and help kick the tires of its growing start-up. Sheth is excited to bring the same energy and emphasis on teamwork that he brought to the Harvard Innovation Lab and the LWOW competition to Ravel.
“My journey has been the culmination of a lot of different things,” says Sheth, saying his entrepreneurial spirit has drawn on his background as a debater, a tennis player, and a competitive dancer in bhangra, a genre of music and dance from the Punjabi region of India. Strong interpersonal skills, he believes, combined with his HLS education are a recipe for innovation. “Today lawyers understand the pain points of their industry better than anyone else, but are either disinterested in or unable to craft a solution. On the flipside, there are a number of business people that would love to craft a solution but are often reticent given their lack of knowledge on the space. If you’re someone with a legal background with the ability to think through a solution and craft a concept, you have the potential to be a pretty interesting player,” he says.
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Hank Greenberg's AIG Case Might Not Be Open And Shut
Susan Farbstein appointed Clinical Professor
Assistant Clinical Professor Susan H. Farbstein ’04
Susan Farbstein ’04 has been appointed Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Co-director of the International Human Rights Clinic, Farbstein has been an assistant clinical professor at HLS since 2012.
Farbstein’s current work focuses on Southern Africa, transitional justice, Alien Tort Statute litigation, community lawyering, and economic, social, and cultural rights. She is an expert on South Africa, having worked on a variety of human rights and transitional justice issues in that country for nearly 15 years. Her writing has been published in scholarly journals, including the Harvard Law Review and the Harvard International Law Journal, as well as The New York Times and SCOTUSBlog.
“Susan is a true leader in human rights and transitional justice, and she is also an amazing teacher,” said Martha Minow, Harvard Law School Dean. “Her innovative work spans social and economic rights in South Africa, transitional justice issues in Africa and Asia, and Alien Tort litigation in the United States. Susan’s devotion to students and tireless, imaginative work makes her an outstanding member of this community and the entire human rights community.”
For the past three years, Farbstein and her clinical students have collaborated with Equal Education Law Centre in South Africa to advance the right to education enshrined in that country’s constitution. Farbstein is co-counsel in In re South African Apartheid Litigation, a suit against major multinational corporations for aiding and abetting human rights violations committed by the apartheid state.
She is also co-counsel in Mamani v. Sanchez de Lozada, which brings claims against the former Bolivian president and defense minister related to a 2003 civilian massacre.
Farbstein was also a participant in litigating Wiwa v. Shell, which charged Shell with complicity in the torture and killing of non-violent Nigerian activists in the mid-1990s and successfully settled in 2009. For her work as a member of the Wiwa legal team, Farbstein was honored as finalist for the 2010 Public Justice Trial Lawyer of the Year Award. She has authored numerous amicus curiae briefs, including to the Supreme Court in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. (on behalf of legal history scholars), Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman (on behalf of international law scholars), and Samantar v. Yousuf (on behalf of human rights organizations).
Farbstein has a strong interest in clinical pedagogy and, in 2011-2012, was a recipient of the Harvard President’s Innovation Fund for Faculty Grant for her creative clinical teaching. Building on this interest, she developed and implemented a training and exchange program on clinical pedagogy with practitioners and academics in South Africa.
“I am honored and humbled to be appointed Clinical Professor of Law,” said Farbstein. “It’s a joy to work every day with students and colleagues who are creative, inspiring, and deeply committed to advancing human rights. I feel extraordinarily lucky to be part of this community.”
Farbstein joined the International Human Rights Clinic in 2008. She previously worked at the Cape Town office of the International Center for Transitional Justice. Prior to that, she clerked for the Honorable Morris E. Lasker of the Southern District of New York. She holds a B.A. from Princeton University, an M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.