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I’m headed out of the office at the end of the day today until after New Year’s. (Well, I might find myself in the office at some point during that time…) I just noticed this new interview with Professor Noah Feldman posted to our main HLS page and wanted to highlight it:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2007/12/21_feldman.php
Happy Holidays!
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A new program has just been announced for HLS students interested in both public interest law and legal theory. Harvard Law School’s Summer Theory Institute is a summer workshop for HLS students with public interest internships in New York City. The Institute will include between 10 and 12 student fellows who will meet with the facilitators one evening a week to discuss works of social and critical theory as they relate to the fellows’ public interest work.
Check out this link for more information.
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If Al Gore’s recent Nobel Peace Prize has inspired you to explore careers in environmental law, then EarthJustice could be just the ticket. Alice Thomas, a staff attorney for the organization’s international law department, spoke recently at HLS of her involvement with EarthJustice. Founded in 1971 as the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, it is the nation’s largest non-profit environmental law firm. With a docket of more than 200 cases, EarthJustice is dedicated to protecting the natural resources, habitats, national monuments, and wildlife that ensure a healthy environment for the international community. “The bulk of what we strive for,” said Thomas, “is to strengthen environmental laws on behalf of many organizations and communities that don’t have to financial resources to defend themselves.”
Headquartered in Oakland, California, EarthJustice has eight offices located throughout the country that specialize in issues pertinent to each region. “Primarily,” Thomas explained, “we litigate, but we also have a policy and legislation team in Washington, DC that handles the backlash on Capitol Hill.” In addition to monitoring the environmental support among political candidates, the policy and legislation group has lobbied to ensure that no new policies undermine the environmental laws already in place. Counted among the victories of EarthJustice over the years as cited by Thomas were: 1) the preservation of Mineral King Valley in Sequoia National Park from Disney developers looking to build a ski resort in the early 1970s; 2) the preservation of old growth forests that serve as the habitat of the Northern Spotted Owl from loggers in February, 2007; and 3) the revocation of plans to construct a nuclear power plant in a low-income African-American community in Louisiana in 2003.
“Over the course of the last five years, we’ve been especially focused on addressing global warming and the source of greenhouse gases,” Thomas said. “We’re working to challenge coal plants to stop CO2 emissions, and to challenge the unregulated emissions of cargo ships… we’ve also addressed climate change by working, for instance, to get the polar bear on the list of endangered species and lobbying on behalf of peoples and cultures whose lives are closely tied to the environment, like the Inuits.”
“I like this paradigm of NGOs regionally banding together to tackle common issues,” Thomas reflected on EarthJustice. “You can link the office you work at with your interests, and push a legal agenda forward in creative ways. I’ve always said that EarthJustice is an NGO version of a law firm, one focused on ‘feel good’ litigation.”
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Newly appointed Assistant Professor of Law, Jim Greiner, sat down with me briefly to discuss how his research in Quantitative Legal Empirics and PhD in Statistics have guided the curriculum in his Civil Procedure class this semester. We also talked about election law.
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These days I sometimes make 20 interview calls a day. We’re in the heart of the busy season here at HLS admissions. I like this time of year–reading files, getting to know people who will soon join the Harvard community, planning the admitted applicant events for the spring. We have admitted quite a few applicants already and are a bit ahead of last year, but we have a long way to go.
My thoughts on the interview at this point in the season are as follows:
(1) It is not the case that a person makes the first cut to the interview and then has to “pass” the interview to get admitted — the interview just becomes a part of the application as it’s reviewed by committee members. If you get a call, then don’t get admitted shortly thereafter, you may well get admitted later in the cycle. Of course you may also get waitlisted or denied. But generally speaking, the interview should be viewed as a relatively positive sign.
(2) There are few right or wrong answers in the interview. I’m just trying to get more of a sense for how you interact with a human being…for a few minutes…over the phone. Introverts are as welcome as extroverts.
(3) I get the feeling that there’s a rumor going around that I have an interest in certain local sports teams… Strange. I am not going to say whether I do or do not, but one should keep in mind that I’m not from around here. And it’s a stretch to call me a fanatic about sports…
(4) I can tell when you are asking a question just because you think you NEED to ask a question. I know it’s supposed to be good interview decorum to “show interest” by asking intelligent questions. I’ve always thought that to be a bit silly. When I’ve interviewed for jobs or for other purposes, if someone asked me “Do you have any questions?” I would say “No” if I thought I’d figured things out. Or, if I had one, I’d ask it. Seems simple enough. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to encourage questions–I’m sure many of you out there DO wonder about some things related to HLS and our community. Ask away! But don’t feel like you have to.
(5) I’ll usually ask about your law school-related interests after looking at your “interest checklist” on the application form. Some of you have not checked anything. Some of you have checked 20 things. Both are fine. And when I ask the question, there’s nothing wrong with saying you have no idea what you want to study or pursue at law school or beyond. I’m just curious.
(6) Being nervous is okay.
(7) I typically can’t schedule an interview precisely due to my workflow around here, so just give the times when you may be available and I’ll try my best to call within those times. Sometimes, however, I won’t get a chance to read your e-mail until after your times have passed. If that happens, I’ll just call and if I don’t get you, you can call me back! No worries.
I expect to make somewhere between 1000 and 1100 phone calls this year. We’ll see how that goes.
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Professor Ogletree just passed along this article from the Washington Post on the subject of John Payton ‘77 ascending to the post once held by Thurgood Marshall.
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Recently, I sat in on a lunch discussion with James Ross, the Legal and Policy Director at Human Rights Watch. Having formerly worked for Doctors without Borders, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the International Human Rights Law Group in Cambodia, the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, and as a visiting fellow at the HLS Human Rights Program in 1998, Mr. Ross spoke about the increasing importance of engaging non-state actors with a view to win compliance and cooperation from them in conflicts worldwide.
“At Human Rights Watch, there is a focus on getting non-state armed groups to address laws of war in lieu of the outright killing of civilians or prisoners… which can be a difficult feat, but then again it is also difficult to get sovereign states to comply,” said Ross. Traditionally, international human rights organizations have directed their efforts toward solely addressing government abuses, which Ross claims undercut HRW’s advocacy in the 1980s since, at the time, there was no real legal basis for claiming that non-state actors were beholden to the laws of war. In the latter half of the decade, both HRW and Amnesty International began to report abuses committed by individual groups and organizations. “This was the genesis of taking on abuses committed on a micro level,” said Ross, “Now, we’re talking to insurgent groups in Thailand, the Philippines, and Darfur, to name but a few.”
On the subject of which approaches HRW has used to gain compliance, Ross cautioned that it is difficult to measurably compare success of different methods. “It’s hard to know what works and what doesn’t,” he explained. “We investigate specific features about the group in question, and this research invariably sheds light on its background and significance.”
Another approach used by HRW is the threat of invoking the International Criminal Court to condemn the abuses of the non-state actors. “Insurgent leaders are extremely concerned about prosecution by the ICC, particularly in cases involving child soldiers, for instance,” said Ross. Beyond seeking out pressure points for vulnerabilities for various groups, HRW has a number of indirect approaches that include seeking out members of society who either support the cause of the insurgent groups or whose importance commands respect among the rebels. “Take the Muslims in Iraq, for instance… there are many people who support the aims of the insurgents, but not the means. We try to reconcile these issues and generate discussions about moving forward. Slow, steady progress is key.”
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What do you get when you cross a Pulitzer-Prize winner with a Fox News antagonist of Bill O’Reilly and a punchy staff writer for the New Yorker? Just another typical night of discussion at HLS, apparently. Moderated by Noah Feldman and sponsored by the HLS Law and the Arts Initiative, the evening elicited banter and frank colloquy on marrying the media with the law among three highly regarded journalists who also happen to be HLS alumni: James B. Stewart’76, Pulitzer Prize Winner, 3-time Loeb Award Winner, and NYT Bestselling Author of Den of Thieves and Disney War; Jeffrey Toobin’86, New Yorker Staff Writer, CNN Legal Correspondent, and NYT Bestselling Author of The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson and The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court; and Lis Wiehl ’87, Legal Analyst, Fox News and Co-Host, The Radio Factor, Author of The 51% Minority: How Women Still Are Not Equal and What You Can Do About It, and Winning Every Time: How to Use the Skills of a Lawyer in the Trials of Your Life.
Before they were bestselling journalists and media pundits, however, Stewart, Toobin and Wiehl all did time at big firms. “I never intended to stay at Cravath longer than three years,” said Stewart, “and then literally one day someone who knew I wanted to make the switch to writing approached me about getting in on the ground floor of what became American Lawyer magazine.” Wiehl’s story was a bit more happenstance, but she advocated being focused and proactive. “I had taken a class on the 1st Amendment from [New York Times columnist] Anthony Lewis… after working at a firm in Seattle for a bit, I contacted him about putting me in touch with Jonathan Landman at the New York Times… I worked on the law page at the Times for three years.”
While all three panelists had worked on their college papers or done amateur radio, none foresaw the media opportunities that became available after HLS when, in the early 1990s, the networks discovered the need for legal analysts to interpret the legalese of nationally headlining cases. When asked by Feldman about reporting on the ‘crimes of the century’ and how they explain the legal implications of the stories they cover, the panelists admitted that it is a struggle. “Crime is an incubator of stories,” said Stewart,” that sweeps in elements of public discourse that include race, gender, celebrity, you name it.” Toobin agreed. “The O.J. Simpson case was a perfect combo of high and low in terms of the legal value attached to issues of race and sex… but it was also interesting and entertaining. The challenge is to invest the sleazy coverage with a level of intelligence,” he said, alluding to the Duke rape case. Stewart’s view on the mass media onslaught was less optimistic. “I tend to stay away from larger cases… the phalanx of cameras and the circus of the mass media freaks me out,” he said.
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When Dean Kagan gave her State of the School address a couple of months ago, she alluded to several pilot programs taking hold at HLS. One such initiative was the Program on Terrorism and the Law, which was officially launched with last week’s panel discussion that brought together some of the nation’s leading authorities on terrorism, including: Congresswoman, Jane Harman HLS ’69; National Counterterrorism Center Director, Michael Leiter HLS ’00; Professor Jack Goldsmith; and Professor Phil Heymann.
“I think this program will be useful for Harvard on both an intellectual framework level and on a practical level,” said Congresswoman Harman. When Professor Minow posed the question of what Congress should be doing now to address terrorism, the entire panel expressed the need for a Congress to define and outline a new framework for identifying and lawfully prosecuting terrorists. “For one thing, Congress needs to get serious, stop the partisanship and blame game on the war… and stop dealing with this problem on an ad hoc basis.” Professor Heymann agreed. “Addressing terrorism requires that we decently, not 100%, secure America. We must strive to preserve tolerance and freedoms, and we must also preserve our alliances.”
Further, Heymann explained that since the government will not be able to stop all serious attacks in the decades to come, it must strive to reduce the enthusiasm of hostile parties to attack the U.S. “There’s no question that is a mistake to push this issue off until the next election,” Leiter added, “The gap right now really is less on the intelligence side and more on the policy side… we need to focus on the long struggle versus the war at hand, and it’s always hard to get adequate funding for long-term foreign service issues.” For his part, Professor Goldsmith focused on what he felt should be an immediate goal of Congress to address the military detention of terrorists. “As a product of this Administration’s unilateralism, there is no legitimate system for detaining them… I hope Mukasey will make this his issue,” he said, “But before the next election, I believe we will have a detention policy.”
In response to the growing concern over the Administration’s consolidation of power, Harman adamantly asserted that Congress must reinsert itself in policy drafting. “This executive has chosen to play the fear card which makes it easy for people to throw up their hands… terrorism is a tactic, not an enemy,” she said, “Congress has abdicated its duty to legislate.”
