Recent Highlights

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  Revolutionary ideas presented in spring faculty lectures

  This spring, two faculty members, Bruce Mann, the Carl F. Schipper, Jr. Professor of Law, and Robert Sitkoff, the John L. Gray Professor of Law, gave lectures to commemorate their appointments to endowed chairs. News coverage and video of their lectures are included below.

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  Why the Founding Document Doesn't Mean What It Meant Before

  Intelligent minds have long differed on the U.S. Constitution’s role as a blueprint for democracy. Some see it as the sacrosanct product of an enlightened era, its text to be followed literally. Others say that the Constitution must be interpreted more generally in order to apply its principles to current times.

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  In a new book, Minow and Freeman look at the issues raised by outsourcing

  Today, the U.S. government outsources a significant portion of its work—in such key areas as national security, military intelligence, environmental monitoring, prison management, and interrogation of terrorism suspects. It’s a reality that's here to stay, according to Professors Martha Minow and Jody Freeman LL.M. ’91 S.J.D. ’95, and it raises important questions about accountability, transparency and the rule of law. 

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  Ramseyer and Shavell launch peer-reviewed law journal, with open access online

  In the summer of 2007, HLS Professors Mark Ramseyer ’82 and Steven Shavell approached editors at Harvard University Press with the idea of starting a unique online venture: a broad-focused, faculty-edited journal with an open access format, to provide first-rate scholarship to the widest possible audience.

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  In chair lecture, Hanson explores the mechanics of human decision-making and its impact on the law

  Individual free choice, an idea that permeates common sense and legal theory, assumes that actions reflect the stable preferences of individual actors. Individuals are responsible for their actions (that is, their preference-driven choices), and laws can therefore be designed on that assumption.

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  The Real “Third Way”: Sunstein and Thaler Offer a New Model for Policy Design

  Faced with important decisions about their lives, people often make pretty bad choices—choices they would not have made if they paid full attention and possessed complete information, unlimited cognitive abilities, and complete self-control. To take just one example, many people never get around to joining their employer’s retirement savings plan, even when it is heavily subsidized.

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  Free Speech in the Age of the Internet

  Is the proliferation of online customized news sources a boon or a hindrance to democracy?

  That was the question posed by Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein in his Constitution Day lecture, entitled “Free Speech in the Age of the Internet.” Watch the webcast.

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  When Sweet Charity Became Bittersweet: Lessons from the Hershey “Kiss-off” of 2002

  About a hundred years ago, when Milton Hershey founded the Hershey Company—now the largest confectionery company in North America—he also established a school for needy children, and a charitable trust for the benefit of the school. Today, the trust—worth over $8 billion—holds a controlling interest in the publicly traded Hershey Company.

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  The power of City Hall is a myth sometimes, say Barron and Frug—and they explain why

  Last year, while waiting for a flight at Boston’s Logan Airport, Harvard Law Professor David J. Barron ’94 eavesdropped on the couple in line ahead of him as they complained about the airport’s general disorganization. “Someone should call the mayor and get him to do something about this,” he heard the woman say. Her complaint—and how fruitless it would be if someone did call the mayor—goes to the heart of a new book Barron has co-written with his Harvard Law colleague Gerald E. Frug ’63. “City Bound: How States Stifle Urban Innovation,” forthcoming from Cornell University Press in December, examines how state laws shackle cities.

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  Donahue to publish study of marriage and law in the Middle Ages

  This month, Cambridge University Press will publish Professor Charles Donahue’s “Law, Marriage, and Society in the Later Middle Ages: Arguments about Marriage in Five Courts,” a 696-page comprehensive study of medieval marriage culture and litigation.

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  In new book, Feldman looks behind the calls for Sharia

  Professor Noah Feldman has done plenty of thinking about the intersection of religion and law, particularly in the Arab World.

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  Martha Minow discusses equality in education

  Harvard Law School Professor Martha Minow is co-editor of "Just Schools: Pursuing Equality in Societies of Difference," a new book exploring ways to create more equal schools in an increasingly multicultural America.

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  Harvard Law faculty votes for 'open access' to scholarly articles

  In a move that will disseminate faculty research and scholarship as broadly as possible, the Harvard Law School faculty unanimously voted last week to make each faculty member’s scholarly articles available online for free

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  Four young HLS faculty members selected to participate in Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum

  Assistant Professors I. Glenn Cohen '03, Adriaan Lanni, Jed Shugerman, and Matthew Stephenson '03 each had papers selected for the ninth annual Stanford-Yale Junior Faculty Forum, which will take place at Yale Law School in June.