Toby\’s blog

Anyone considering HLS for whom the allure of law school is sweetened by the promise of never having to endure Science again might be advised to consider the number of fields in which scientific research is altering the way law is administered. Take child advocacy work, for instance. A recent panel of experts including Charles Nelson, the Richard David Scott Chair in Pediatric Developmental Research at Harvard Medical School, and Cindy Lederman, a judge of the Miami/Dade County Juvenile Court joined HLS Professors Charles Ogletree, Martha Minow, and CAP Director Elizabeth Bartholet in exploring the short and long-term effects of toxic stress related to child abuse and neglect, parental substance abuse, maternal depression, and exposure to violence.

To frame the issue, Dr. Nelson provided the clinical background for examining maltreatment and neglect. “Early experiences have a particularly strong influence,” said Nelson, “Timing of abuse, the nature of it, and one’s genetic predisposition can be long-lasting due to fundamental changes in mental circuitry.” To illustrate his point, Nelson explained the findings of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a randomized trial of foster care as intervention for social deprivation associated with the institutionalization of nearly 200 children in Romania. “Due to negative experiences as infants, many of the children had stunted growth, anxiety disorders, and reductions in brain activity.” Nelson stressed that we must improve our understanding of the neurobiology of early adversity to improve the court’s understanding of neural plasticity… we must translate science to policy.”

Judge Lederman agreed with Nelson and admitted that the cases she sees involve, by and large, parents unengaged with and apathetic to their babies. “Mothers that come before me are there as a last resort; they don’t understand why their children have been taken away from them,” she explained. “We’re forced to make clinical and mental health decisions all the time. Dealing with the deterioration is not something they teach you in law school.” Judge Lederman insisted that to properly attend to the needs of children jurists must become students of the science of early childhood development.

Presented with the clinical side of child maltreatment, Professors Bartholet and Minow weighed in. “I see two very important policy implications arising from these social science findings,” said Bartholet. “It involves enabling as many parents as possible to be able to nurture and support their kids… and it further involves intervening early and coercively to place abused children under foster care.”

“We know that when the phrase ‘in the best interest of the child’ is uttered with a lawyer in the room that it’s already too late for these kids,” explained Minow. “We’re looking now for the least worst thing that can happen…time matters when you’re talking about kids, and new brain research can help us facilitate their well being.”

In a recent discussion moderated by Professor Noah Feldman, five student veterans drew on their range of experiences in Iraq, including the Second Battle of Fallujah in 2004, counterinsurgency operations, and the challenges they faced.

3L Robert Merrill, a marine infantry officer in the Second Battle of Fallujah who served from September 2004-February 2005, reflected on Iraqi attitudes during the evacuation and later repopulation of the city. “We were trying to put a good face on what we were doing… I’d say about 70% were unhappy with the occupation.”

When probed by Professor Feldman to discuss the identification of enemy forces, former special forces officer 1L Hagan Scotten characterized them as “anyone opposed to political order.” For Sunnis, he continued, most of the resistance consisted of anti-Al-Qaeda indigenous forces concerned mainly with local politics. “The Sunnis for the most part were underground and it required a bit of detective work… the Shiite forces, and particularly the Maadi Army, had few if any ideological aims.” 2L Erik Swabb, a former platoon commander in Fallujah, underscored the importance of making alliance with the local, often underprivileged, sheiks. “Gaining the trust of a knowledgeable sheik meant gaining access to immense intelligence.”

Beyond the operational dilemmas and security risks the panelists encountered, most of them agreed that the greatest challenge they faced as leaders was conveying the importance of treating the Iraqis well to their fellow soldiers and to the Iraqi soldiers they were training. “Particularly because we spend so much time encouraging soldiers not to be trigger shy,” said Swabb, “it’s difficult to junior officers to heighten the risk to themselves to avoid mistakenly killing an innocent civilian. Doing so creates new insurgents, family members avenging the death of their loved one.” Scotten agreed and commented on the Iraqi operatives he trained. “Particularly on the point of understanding local politics, I couldn’t convince the Iraqi leaders we were training that they were morally wrong to want to shoot dangerous insurgents who intended harm to them and their families.”

When asked by an audience member what they were least prepared for during their tours and about the cultural willingness to adapt among Iraqis, Swabb emphasized how struck he was by the realization that Iraqis mirror Americans in their values. “They care about the future of their families, and most don’t have an ideological agenda,” he said. “As far as adaptation, it’s really about finding mutual interests.” The final question of the afternoon went to the heart of what many Americans are thinking going into the next election: what needs to change? “I would change the pervasive view that anything can be safe and successful. There’s always going to be loss,” said Scotten.

Webcast of HLS Veterans Discussion

Andrea Saenz, a 3L and board member of the Harvard Immigration Project, filled us on a recent event at which Jeanne Butterfield, Executive Director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, spoke on the topic of immigration and national security.

“How does a HLS student interested in immigration find out exactly what’s going on in Washington? Like in so many other issue areas, by going straight to the source. Recently, Professor Debbie Anker’s immigration policy seminar hosted Jeanne Butterfield, executive director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Her visit was also sponsored by the Harvard Immigration Project, a student organization dedicated to immigration and asylum law. We invited Butterfield for her extensive experience working with the White House and Congress on immigration reform over the past few years, and she had plenty to say on the subject of immigration and security.

“There are several layers of national security that intersect with immigration, Butterfield explained, including visa security, the entry and inspection process, and monitoring immigrants while in the country. We definitely need good enforcement, she said, but ‘the political desire to ’secure the borders’ and the idea that we can do so before looking at our broken system is the heart of the contradiction Congress faces.’ She noted that she was part of a White House briefing in early September 2001, when President Bush was enthusiastic about immigration reform…before the terrorist attacks of 9/11 changed the focus to security alone.

“She also urged students to think not only in terms of national security and terrorism, but in terms of the economic security of America and its relationship with the low-paying work that millions of undocumented immigrants to. ‘To talk just about enforcement without talking about the economic factors that come into play is misleading,’ she said. Butterfield pointed out that spending on border enforcement quintupled between 1994 and 2004, but the number of undocumented people in the country doubled during that time. ‘We will be throwing money at the border until we’re old and gray and we still won’t be solving the problem,’ she said.

“Butterfield then took student questions on everything from whether a President McCain would be good for immigrants to the demise of last summer’s immigration bill to where to get good fact sheets to counteract misconceptions about immigrants (try the Immigration Policy Center, she recommended.)

“Only minutes after the class ended, someone with a very different take than Jeanne Butterfield was also speaking at the law school: Assistant Secretary Julie Myers, head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Armed with one point of view, a large group of us headed off to hear the other for ourselves – as always, straight from the source.”

If someone were to ask you the difference between an equity basket derivative and an equity index swap, would you be able to? Have an answer? No? Well you might want to ask HALB president Ben Wu, a 2L who worked at a boutique investment bank and Goldman Sachs before coming to HLS. He joined Michael Sherman ’87, a Managing Director at Lehman Brothers, who is co-head of the Firm’s U.S. Equity-Linked and Hybrid Securities group for a lunchtime discussion on investment banking as an alternative career path for law students

“Lehman is a full service investment bank whose elements include mergers & acquisitions, equity financing, and sales and trading,” explained Sherman. “I spent four years at a law firm after HLS and saw an opportunity to act on my experience doing transactional securities work.”

Wu admitted that his success in making the leap from a boutique banking firm that specialized in technology M&A is atypical. “It’s usually easier to have a bulge bracket [large bank] name on your resume… in most instances, I think you get more exposure and better training with a greater number of products,” he said. “I could not have planned for my current trajectory.” Wu plans to work at Fortress Investment Group upon graduation.

But how does a law student attract the attention of an investment bank? Can’t the bank just recruit across the river at HBS? “It definitely helps to be quantitatively minded,” said Sherman, “but experience you can get through internships with tax law, securities, or M&A transactional work will be a bonus.”

“Bottom line,” said Wu, “is that many banks value the aptitude and analytical rigor of students from a variety of backgrounds.” Sherman agreed and pointed out that students should not be afraid to start out at an analyst level. “You figure that many analysts come right out of college and then work for 2-3 years before returning to law or business school to return as an associate… if you go to law school first, aren’t you just reversing the order a bit?”

Sometimes Hollywood finds its way to us (The Paper Chase or Legally Blonde, anyone?) and sometimes we find our way to Hollywood. Or at least our alumni do. Take Zola Mashariki ’97 for instance. A Vice President of Production at Fox Searchlight Pictures, her credits to date include The Namesake, Phat Girls, and Antwone Fisher. Before transitioning into the limelight, er “searchlight”, Mashariki worked as a corporate attorney for Proskauer Rose, LLP in New York. She began her tenure at Fox Searchlight in 2000 as a production intern, was promoted to Creative Executive in January 2001, and to Director in November 2003.

“While I loved corporate law, my background in college had been drama and I was still yearning to do something creative. I just couldn’t invest the energy at the time” Mashariki said. Heeding her passion, she headed out to Los Angeles where she enrolled in the Peter Stark Producing Program. “[While different from what I expected], I did learn about production. I was shooting, editing, splicing, and cutting sound the old fashioned way,” she said. “As an intern, I realized that producing is about anticipating everything that can go wrong and working against it.” In what she dubbed a “sink or swim” environment, Mashariki became a “highly underpaid” executive.

“My job became networking… I looked at relationships I had with folks on the outside.” What relationships did she have? From her days growing up in Brooklyn, Mashariki knew Jay-Z, Tupac, and Ice Cube. Her next project, in fact, is The Notorious B.I.G., the story of the life and death of infamous hip hop rapper Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. Notorious B.I.G.

When asked by one student how viable Mashariki’s path was for other law students to follow, she encouraged him to decide what it was he wanted to try, embrace every “menial” task and be prepared to lose his ego. “In the end, it’s all about getting the creative result you want… it’s about negotiating your wants and trying to achieve a common ground. And you’re at HLS, what better preparation could you ask for?”

I attended the big dinner for the graduating class a week or so ago and was reminded that some of the first students I’ve had the privilege of admitting were on track to graduate: the transfer students we admitting during my first year back on campus in the summer of 2006.

It reminded me that it’s almost time once again for the transfer admissions process. We continue to be big fans of bringing in students as 2Ls who performed at a high level at their first law school.

My earlier entries can be found pretty easily by clicking on the category “Admissions Process” or searching for “transfer” but here’s an earlier Q&A that may be helpful.

Professor Jim Greiner just sent me an e-mail about a major project he’s undertaking in the next few months. See the attached document for a description.

Jim says the following:

Students can be involved in various ways with the Election Improvement Project, with credit/incentives consisting of pro bono hours against the HLS 40-hour graduation requirement, cash, or academic credit.

1. As an exit pollster/external poll watcher. HLS students would be part of a team administering an exit poll to voters as they leave polling areas and would document any violations of election law they observe. The time commitment is about 10 hours total, a 1.5-hour training session + a 7-hour shift at the polls + approximately 1.5 hours transportation time to & from the polling location. Students can receive pro bono credit (against the 40-hour graduation requirement) for this time.

2. As a “Precinct Captain” of an exit polling team. Students would lead a group of 3-4 exit pollsters/poll watchers (as described above), with the other members of the team comprised primarily of undergrads from local area colleges. The time commitment is about 12 hours total: 1.5 hour training session + 2 hours meeting with the team and traveling once (a day or two before election day) with its members to the polling location + a 7-hour shift at the polls + approximately 1.5 hours transportation time. Students can receive EITHER pro bono credit OR be paid by the hour at the standard HLS research assistant rate.

3. As a member of the “crisis team.” The crisis team will do as its name suggests, namely, respond to emergencies as they arise. The time commitment is less predictable but generally longer than that of a Precinct Captain. Pro bono credit or by-the-hour payments available.

4. As an organizer. Students can become involved in the construction and implementation of the Project. Pro bono credit and/or academic credit (if the student’s involvement is folded into a paper on election-related issues) is available.