Toby’s blog

The folks at HL Central know the answer to that question. From weekly “Bar Reviews” to the annual “Prom”, HL Central makes sure that Harvard Law students take their social lives seriously. The student leaders, Ori Portnoy and Allison Quick, were kind enough to come to my office recently to chat about the organization.

Podcast: HL Central (6:47)

Ellen Cosgrove is one of the most recognizable faces on campus for students. Why? Not just because she’s the Dean of Students, but because she’s an incredibly active and engaged Dean of Students. She meets with students one-on-one, she attends student events, and she works very hard (with the help of a terrific staff) to continue to make student life better on campus at Harvard Law School.

Podcast: Ellen Cosgrove (5:53)

“Elena Kagan invites you to join her in honoring Martha Minow on the occasion of her appointment as the Jeremiah Smith, Jr., Professor of Law.” An important tradition at the law school is for faculty members to give a special lecture upon their appointment to a distinguished chair. Two days ago, Professor Minow gave a lecture entitled “Living Up to Rules: When Should Soldiers (and others) Disobey Orders?”

How could I resist? I arrived 10 minutes early, knowing that this would be a standing room-only crowd. Sure enough, not a seat remained in one of the largest rooms on campus and late-arriving students, faculty, and administrators lined the side and back walls and covered the floor in front. Not only was the topic of interest to many, but the speaker, Martha Minow, is a favorite of…well…students, faculty, and administrators. Last year, for example, the students voted to award her the Sachs-Freund Teaching Award, the highest honor a Harvard Law School teacher can receive. But back to the action…

Dean Kagan stepped up to the podium and introduced the honoree, and Professor Minow captivated the masses with a talk that touched on the Nuremberg Trials, the Lyndie England case (one of the Abu Ghraib defendants), social and cognitive psychology, and even parenting issues (When should children be taught to disobey?). She talked about the problems facing 18-year-old soldiers with vague orders to take questionable action. She talked about the strong force wielded by our need to conform and our willingness to bend to authority.

And then the questions started. Professors Brewer and Tribe were quick on the draw, but our students weren’t far behind. Professor Minow led off by saying that she wanted everyone to be as obsessed by this subject as she is. She managed to convince quite a few. Several students’ questions were answered with, “Do you want to work with me on that?” This was no idle statement, as Professor Minow works with several students every year on articles and books and other projects that become key entries in national and international debates.

After the Q&A, everyone moved up to the John Chipman Gray Room for cocktails and appetizers and students and faculty continued the discussions over fruit-kabobs and crabcakes. I ran into some students from the Veterans Association who disagreed with some of Professor Minow’s points. Today I found out that they later sat down with her and had a long talk about their concerns.

This was typical Harvard. Intellectual give-and-take. Faculty and students thinking things through together. Disagreements not swept under the rug, but addressed in the open in a collegial way. To be in that room with those people was to realize that this is a special place.

Yesterday afternoon, I happened to stop by Elizabeth Warren’s office and she was chatting with Susan Dynarski, a colleague from the Kennedy School of Government. They were talking about Professor Warren’s seminar that evening (“Legal Policies, Economic Policies and the Middle Class”). Professor Dynarski would be leading the discussion:

“You should come sit in, Toby—today’s discussion is right down your alley.” The session was to be about the costs and benefits of a college education: does a college education pay off and does it pay off for everyone? If so, what are the policy implications?

I arrived a few minutes early and took a seat in the corner. Most of the students were already there and were buzzing about earlier classes. The student sitting next to me told me about his Con Law class with Minow—I heard a bit about Montesquieu, and nearby students weighed in on the subject of “checks and balances.”

When the class began, I counted 22 people in a class with 18 registered students (its seems that I wasn’t the only guest), and of course, Elizabeth Warren and Susan Dynarski. Professor Dynarski started running through the costs of college in a PowerPoint presentation and the students immediately broke in with questions. This was not a one-way lecture! Mostly the questions were at a very high level (“Doesn’t the lower cost at public universities minimize the ability of the institution to price discriminate in favor of low-income applicants?”), though we did get a bit caught up on the discounted-cash-flow model used to weigh costs against benefits. Okay, that was my fault—my not-so-dormant consultant training wouldn’t let me keep my mouth shut on that one…

Then the policy discussion began. A question was posed, “To maintain competitiveness in a global market should we be encouraging more PhDs in science or should we be focusing on more access on the margins—more training for assembly-line workers so the line is more efficient?” Professor Warren suggested, “If we’re making bets on keeping our people economically ‘safe’ for the next 30 years, shouldn’t our money be on more education for more people?” She was throwing out to the group the idea of universally free or even mandatory college education. Someone countered, “But even if everyone gets a college education, aren’t there still going to be waitresses and gardeners? Isn’t the opportunity cost of college just a net loss for them?”

The freewheeling discussion went on ten minutes past the end of class, and no one noticed, until finally, Professor Warren happened to check the clock, “Oh! We’re over. Okay, guys, I’ll e-mail tonight with the readings for next time.” The class applauded the guest lecturer and I slipped out the door.

Most notable for me as an (almost) quiet observer was how difficult it was NOT to get involved in the conversation. In fact, though some people contributed more than others, it looked to me like EVERYONE participated in the discussion. Now I’m just hoping that I get included on that e-mail list…

A seat on the Supreme Court would be “boring compared to this,” Professor Larry Tribe recently said when describing his life at HLS. “This place is not static. It keeps changing, growing, becoming more diverse, more appealing to a wider audience, capable of exploring in greater depth new dimensions of law as they bubble up. No place else, no matter how good, has the kind of richness and diversity that we’ve got.”"Brains are a dime a dozen. But what’s really much rarer is decency, kindness, aspiration to do something valuable and important with your life. That’s here in great abundance. And much more so than before. Students were much more single-minded and careerist,” when he was a student here, he says.

I asked about the students who leave an impression. “My most amazing research assistant was Barack Obama. He’s a guy I hope will be president someday.”

But Professor Tribe makes Obama sound nearly representative of HLS students. “There are no students anywhere in the world that are comparably good. So much talent, richness, diversity in the student body.”

“When I have a supreme court case I always involve students right from the beginning.”

Podcast: Professor Tribe, Part 2 (10:09)

I’m often struck by how students lead many of the activities at Harvard Law. Last week, we saw lawyers in action in front of the First Circuit, but, as usual, the students wanted to step back a bit to think about how the lawyers prepped for their arguments. In big cases, lawyers usually use a moot court, which is like a dress rehearsal. The lawyers come and put on their best arguments under real-time constraints, and the panel reads their briefs and peppers them with questions and counterarguments during the oral arguments. When it is over, the lawyers and the panel talk about the answers and the overall strategies. Getting a good moot can be the difference between success and failure.

A 3L, Jeff Harris, just sent me an e-mail that gives a window into the pre-argument process:

Jeff wrote: “During the 2004-05 academic year, the Federalist Society held a highly successful moot court for Ashcroft v. Raich (medical marijuana case - with Prof. Randy Barnett), and the American Constitution Society held an excellent moot court for Van Orden v. Perry (Ten Commandments case - with Prof. Erwin Chemerinsky). Dean Kagan was extremely impressed by both of these events, so she offered to fund a standing program devoted to moot arguments.

“This year, the Supreme Court Advocacy Project – co-sponsored by Dean Kagan, the Fed Soc, and the ACS – has already held a moot argument for the state of Oregon in Gonzales v. Oregon (the assisted suicide case). This week, we will be holding another moot for Randall v. Sorrell, which is a major case addressing the constitutionality of campaign finance regulations.

“Each moot brings a highly accomplished attorney to HLS to moot his or her argument before appearing in front of the Supreme Court shortly thereafter. For the ‘judges,’ we invite experts in the field – HLS professors, practicing attorneys, and federal judges have all volunteered to serve as panelists. Each moot attempts to simulate actual Supreme Court conditions as accurately as possible.

“Our past events have been a great success – the attorneys doing the moots were grateful for the extensive and thorough preparation sessions, and the students in attendance benefited from seeing nationally-renowned lawyers giving oral arguments. We’re thrilled with how the program has gone this year and are looking forward to continuing it in the future.”

I ran into first-year student Rishi Batra last week coming out of the Ames Courtroom, which as you know is conveniently located next to my office. Rishi promised me an email about what was going on that day:

“Last Wednesday, the Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit held court in the Ames Courtroom here on the HLS Campus. For those of you completely unfamiliar with the Federal Court System (as I was before I came here), this is a brief explanation. The 1st Circuit, which normally holds court in Boston, covers the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and, just for fun, Puerto Rico.

“All of the 1Ls were invited to watch the proceedings as part of our First Year Legal Research and Writing (FYLRW – somehow pronounced by some of my section mates as ‘Flower’ – don’t ask me why. More commonly just referred to as FYL) Class. In our second semester of our first year, our assignment is to actually research and write the briefs (documents containing our persuasive arguments to the court) for a case that is assigned to us, and then argue it in teams of two in front of real lawyers and judges, in what is known as the First Year Ames Moot Court Problem. This event gave us a little preview of what that might be like, and also a preview of the work some of us might be doing in a few years. Also a chance to make me get up earlier than normal.

“A few things really stood out to me. First, I was surprised at how much I had really learned in just one semester of school. The issues raised in the briefs and in the oral arguments covered the basic principles that we covered in Contracts, Crim Law, and Civil Procedure last semester. (My favorite part was during a case about employment disability I turned to my friend Molly and whispered ‘Why is this case in Federal Court? It seems like a state law claim?’ and 2 seconds later, one of the judges on the bench asked counsel the same question.) Law school feels like learning by immersion – you are surrounded by conversations about the law during class, with your friends, and at evening talks & presentations, and you don’t really notice how much you are picking up until an event like this.

“The other thing that stood out is that I, like a lot of my fellow students, came out of the courtroom with a sense that ‘I could do that.’ It is not that the lawyers on any of the cases were bad, or that we didn’t feel we had to be prepared, but the judges’ questions felt a lot like the Socratic Method, and the arguments about Due Process and Subject Matter Jurisdiction were ones we had seen before. We are on our way to becoming lawyers, even if it seems like a long way away right now. I guess I better start doing research for my Ames Problem now, though, so I look like I know what I am talking about.”

A month or so ago I posted an edited version of the interview I did with the Clinical Director of the Human Rights Program, Jim Cavallaro. The more prospective students I call, the more I realize how widespread is the interest in human rights, so I’m posting the full interview here in two parts. All in all, it’s about 30 minutes. Here is Part 1 and Part 2 of the complete interview.

Questions abound these days on the subject of the “hold” status. The rolling admission cycle doesn’t allow us to make final decisions on all applications within the 2-month window (we promise applicants an update by the end of that time period). So if we can’t admit yet and we don’t want to deny someone who might very well fit into a great class, we have to do something else. We “hold” the application.

So what does it mean if you’re on hold? It means we want to take a look at your application again in the context of the broader pool. Remember, we’re building a class; we’re not looking at each application by itself and asking, “Does this person deserve to come to Harvard?” A Harvard Law School class is comprised of students from all over the country (and world); small towns and big cities; small colleges and major universities; and from a wide variety of ethnicities, religions, and nationalities. Each year we mix together engineers and writers, social activists and teachers, math majors and French majors, newly-minted graduates and seasoned professionals, and of course, one or two students from the political science departments of many fine schools.

You can feel free to send in additional materials, especially if you want to update us on your academic or career progress. For most people, though, additional information would have, at best, a negligible impact on our final decision. If you did a good job of compiling your application, it’s in our hands now. We’re going to take a look at the whole pool and finish putting together the class of 2009.

When I asked Professor Larry Tribe what he’s been doing with his time lately, he replied, “It’s pretty much, Constitution, 24-7.” He really means it. This 36-year veteran of the HLS faculty has helped draft constitutions for countries such as South Africa, Russia, the Czech Republic and the Marshall Islands. His most prized possession is a framed copy of the transition constitution of South Africa, with a “little note from Nelson Mandela thanking me for my help.”He also finds other ways to help, including working on pro-bono cases (a current case involves a death row inmate in Florida who he’s long been convinced is innocent—”Unfortunately, we’re grasping at straws before the death warrant is signed”), testifying before the House or Senate (”The Senate ought not to proceed with their eyes wide shut,” he said in reference to the Alito confirmation), and writing two books. One book addresses “the controversy over rights that are not spelled out in the constitution, such as privacy and the right to marry someone of your choice.” The other book emerges from a classroom project first dubbed “The Constitutional Coloring Book.”

“For me, it’s almost impossible to think without doing a diagram.” To illustrate a concept, Tribe once developed the now frequently-cited Hearsay Triangle More recently, he’s devised the Free Speech Cone. “Using geometric constructs to illustrate legal concepts leads to this broader inquiry I have engaged in: Mapping the constitution. Different ways of imaging things. Do you think of the federal government as the three axes of a three dimensional figure? Do you think of it as the three sides of a triangle? Do you think of it in some other way? Does it matter whether you introduce a fourth dimension?”

And then there’s his forthcoming University-wide course in the spring of 2008: “Sex, Love and Death in American Law.”

Podcast: Professor Tribe, Part 1 (10:11)