HLS in Focus

1L and Co-Chair of the Public Interest Auction Sarah Jelsema recently sat down for a Q & A with us after this yearly highlight of the HLS calendar.

What is the public interest auction?
The public interest auction is a fundraiser run entirely by the 1L class that raises money to support students who do public interest work over the summer. We solicit donations from faculty, staff, alumni, parents, students, firms, and local businesses. Some donate money and some donate things to auction off. We receive all sorts of donations – things like Red Sox tickets, gift certificates to restaurants and salons, lunches and fishing trips with professors, cookies and brownies made by the librarians, and a tour of the Northwest Corner Construction project. The auction is one of the biggest social events of the year. Every year the auction has a theme, and we decorate Austin Hall accordingly. This year the theme was “Bright Lights: Bid City” and so the different rooms were decorated as different big cities – London, Paris, and New York.

What has gone into preparing for this event and what have you gotten out of the experience as a co-chair?
Almost all of the 1L class helps out with the auction. We divide the students up by committees and committees mostly help out either by asking for donations, calling alumni and asking them to donate, emailing firms, going door to door in Cambridge, or by helping process the donations and get them ready to sell, or by helping out on the night of the auction. As one of the auction co-chairs, I had the opportunity to work with a group of amazing people to try to plan and coordinate this huge event – it was definitely a  challenging experience for all of us. From coordinating hundreds of student volunteers to keeping track of hundreds of donations, to making sure everything comes together on the night of the auction, being a co-chair was a lot of work, but it was extremely rewarding. It was also a good opportunity to meet new students.

The event is always a lot of fun for students, faculty and staff. What was your favorite part of the evening? Did anything surprise you?
The event was a huge success. My favorite part of the evening was the live auction. Our auctioneers – this year Professors Elizabeth Warren and Jonathan Zittrain – were auctioning off the “right to be – or not be – in the 2010 parody.” The first bidder was the Dean of Students because they gave her a hard time this year in the parody, but then Professor Mann, who bought this item last year, got in a bidding war with Professor Warren and everyone was laughing so hard!

Why should admitted and prospective students seeking a strong public interest community choose Harvard? Why did you?
I think that students looking for a strong public interest community should choose Harvard because they can go anywhere and do anything with a degree from Harvard Law. We are a bigger law school, but as a result, we have so many more options to pick from than other law schools. Good public interest law jobs are really competitive – and since I want one, I’m glad I chose Harvard. I know that the connections and friends that I will make here, with professors and fellow students, will be of benefit for the rest of my life.

Starting April 15, HLS will begin accepting transfer applications for the fall. Over the last couple of years, there have been increased opportunities for Harvard Law students to study off-campus through joint degree and foreign study programs which make it possible for us to admit more transfer students than ever before.

The question of whether to apply as a transfer student is the right move is up to you, but we think that a little research will show you the vast benefits of transferring to HLS. With 102 full-time professors and more than 300 courses, HLS is home to the most intellectually stimulating legal community in the world. Outside the classroom, there are 14 journals, over100 student organizations, clinical placements in approximately 30 areas of the law, and more than enough opportunities for you to experience the incredible diversity of the HLS community during your second- and third- year. For example, the Harvard Law Review encourages transfer applicants to apply for membership and several past transfer students have been successful in that endeavor.

Bottom line? Whether you are interested in constitutional law or environmental law or human rights advocacy or any number of other areas, the breadth and depth of our offerings is incredible. Whether you want to clerk at the circuit court level, follow the path to academia, or pursue a career in public service, the opportunities presented to our graduates are unsurpassed.

For more details on the transfer application process including eligibility guidelines, deadlines, and application requirements, please visit: http://www.law.harvard.edu/prospective/j…

Also, stay tuned in the coming days and weeks for blog entries of a few students talking about their experience transferring into Harvard Law School!

While at HLS, alumnus Lam Ho was a public interest dynamo. As president of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, a supervising member of Reaching Out About Depression (R.O.A.D.), and Founder & Coordinator of the Giving Tree, which raises holiday gifts for children of the HLS clinical and student practice organization clients, Lam never shied away from going above and beyond the call of duty… including 60-90 hours a week dedicated to his clinicals.

Lam is currently on a Skadden Fellowship starting a community legal clinic for low income youths and their families in Chicago. Admissions staffer Julia Foresman recently caught up with Lam in the wake of a victory he scored with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. Lam had been trying to get Chicago Public Schools to follow through with the Individualized Educational Plan that CPS and his client Mary Greenlee had put in place for her 6 year old grandson, Rayvaughn.  “It’s been extremely rewarding to educate and empower my clients,” he said.  “… this is what gets me up in the morning.”

Podcast: Lam Ho (13:09)

If ever there were an appropriate time in history for a business ethics discussion, this is it, don’t you think? Fortunately, The Program on the Legal Profession recently invited Dr. Christine Elizabeth Parker of the University of Melbourne Law School to report on her research on the regulation of law firm ethical infrastructure. In collaboration with the Office of the Legal Services Commission (OLSC), which works as part of a co-regulatory system, together with the Law Society of New South Wales and the NSW Bar Association to resolve disputes and investigate complaints about professional conduct, Dr. Parker has written a paper the examines the ethical infrastructure in commercialized law firms.

“A major weakness of traditional approaches of regulation and discipline of legal profession,” she said, “is that the focus tends to be on individual lawyers when most attorneys work in firms, the culture of which can have a great impact on ethics…firm level policies and procedures are necessary to ensure compliance.” In light of this, scholars have suggested rethinking ways in which lawyers are regulated to encourage firms to implement ethical structures and management policies to encourage ethical behavior. Some have moved to establish law firms as collectives of a larger ethical paradigm while others have proposed that there could be a requirement on firms to implement structures and appoint a practitioner responsible for ensuring ethical behavior.

“In light of the recent deregulation of firms in Australia,” she said, “we introduced legislation that firms appoint at least one practitioner to the board of directors who is obligated to prevent and report misconduct in the practice and all legal practices must have appropriate legal management systems in place to enable the provision of legal services in accordance with professional obligations.” Central to Parker’s paper was the self-assessment of firms who were told to rate ten objective metrics (including courteous communication and timely delivery, review and follow up of legal services) of quality on a scale that ran from ‘not compliant to fully compliant plus’.

“There are a number of reasons why we wouldn’t expect management-based regulation to be a very effective strategy,” admitted Parker. “For instance, some have said that management-based regulation is a type of managerialism that isn’t appropriate to legal professionals who ought to be autonomous, sovereign decision-makers… yet this misunderstands role of management-based regulation strategies to prescribe behavior.” Another concern is that management-based regulation might be too flexible and thus becomes a simple box-ticking exercise; still, Parker maintained that the practice is still influential because it works as an educational tool when firms are going through a structural change.

So what about the results? Of the more than 600 firms that participated in the self-assessment process, Parker and her team calculated a score of complaints per year per practitioner taking in account the size of firm and number of years one had been practicing. Before self assessment, there were 0.3 complaints and after the process, the number was down to 1/3 of what it was. “Clearly,” said Parker, “self-assessment makes a difference within some firms… and in principle, there are good reasons to suggest that the management-based approach similar to that proposed by Chambliss and Wilkins is appropriate for legal profession and there is compelling empirical evidence that it had an effect in New South Wales.” “Of course,” she continued, “this raises questions about the generalized ability of this approach to work elsewhere for firms elsewhere around the world. The self assessment process forces firms to think about certain compliance issues for first time… and creates an external accountability that’s so pressing right now.”

Anyone interested in employment law, worker justice issues, or public policy work would have been intrigued by a recent discussion sponsored by the Harvard Trade Union Program and the Labor and Worklife Program. The founder and Executive Director of Interfaith Worker Justice, Kim Bobo, came to speak about her newest book that addresses rampant wage theft among employers in the U.S.

“What is wage theft?” she posed to the audience. “Wage theft is not paying workers the minimum wage.” Bobo alluded to an array of recent cases involving men and women in the service industry who have been swindled out of wages (the Department of Labor estimated $50 billion in a 2007 survey) in a variety of ways including but not limited to: being fined for fallacious infractions on the job; being misclassified; being paid as independent contractors without overtime; being paid on a per unit basis, and not hourly; employers shaving off hours at leisure; employers tip stealing; and employers withholding of last paychecks.

Statistics like these, she said, bespeak the benefits of unionization. Just last year, Interfaith Worker Justice took on the case of employees for Republic Windows and Doors, whose owners decided to close factory doors and move machinery to a new factory in Iowa without giving their employees the requisite 60-day pay stipulated under the Warren Act. “Because they had a union,” she said, “they refused to leave.”

To be clear, Bobo pointed out that while wage theft is a national crisis and while the worst offenses are perpetrated against immigrants, this is not an immigrant problem; this is a greed problem. Immigrants are the most vulnerable, but native born workers are hurt probably in even larger dollar amounts. “Greed isn’t new, but what is new is that we don’t have adequate pushback forces,” she said. “Unions are the most effective wage theft deterrent, which is why we need the Employee Free Choice Act.”

Another growing pushback force are the 200+ nationwide workers centers that focus primarily on immigrant workers but not exclusively. Shoestring operations, their primary function is to coach victims of wage theft by educating them of their recourse options which include typically joining a union, filing a lawsuit, filing complaints with government agencies, or enlisting the help of community religious leaders. Other pushbacks include forging an ethical business community appealing to trial attorneys. Yet, Bobo insisted, there is no substitute for the Department of Labor which has abdicated their responsibilities over the last several years.

Praising the appointment of Hilda Solis, Bobo urged our need for “a leader who actually knows something about labor!” Moreover, she called for more community partnerships among unions and workers centers, accountability and transparency on a public scale, more police officers devoted to this problem on the job, targeted investigations, and meaningful penalties for employers. “No one is afraid of the Department of Labor and they need to be…we need reinforcement for enforcement!”

I thought you might want to get a sense for our dean’s thoughts on being a public service-minded dean.  Now let’s see if I’m able to imbed a youtube clip into my blog…

If you missed the story, here it is.

By the way, I don’t suppose I need to blog about our new president-elect and HLS alumnus (’91)…do I? We expect to see more than a few HLS grads as part of the new administration (including the First Lady).

We did a bunch more interviews of students and faculty members to add to the HLS Speaks page off the JD Admissions home page.  New categories of interview clips include: (1) Clinical & Pro Bono Programs; (2) Criminal Law & Justice; (3) Law, Business & Economics; (4) Negotiation & Conflict Resolution; (5) Constitutional Law & Policy; (6) Why Law School; (7) Law, Science & Technology; (8) Reading Groups & Small Seminars; (9) National Security & Terrorism; (10) Social & Gender Justice, Civil Rights; (11) Career Plans; and (12) Joint Degrees.

Please visit the link to HLS Speaks off the JD Admissions home page if you’re interested in these subjects.

I’m guessing most of you out there aren’t daily Crimson readers.  So you probably missed this nice piece on the latest happenings at HLS.

I saw a nice article in the Boston Globe talking about some of the recent changes at Harvard Law School.  I hope you’ll all take a look!  Visit this link.

In our continued effort to track down recent alumni across the country, we got in touch with Charlotte Sanders ‘05. A Skadden Fellow and Legal Aid Bureau alumna, Charlotte now works in the Farmworker Division of Georgia Legal Services where she represents low-income migrant farmworkers.

Tell me a little bit about your career path since leaving HLS.

I graduated from HLS in 2005, after which I clerked for a year for the Honorable Nancy Gertner, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts. Following my clerkship, I was awarded a Skadden Fellowship to work for two years at the Farmworker Division of Georgia Legal Services, where I had interned during my 1L summer at HLS. The Farmworker Division provides legal representation to low income migrant farmworkers, most of whom migrate each year from Mexico to hand-harvest the many tons of fruits and vegetables grown on Georgia’s farms. Many of these workers are not paid the federal minimum wage or the wage guaranteed by their employment contracts, and the Farmworker Division brings lawsuits under the Fair Labor Standards Act and contract law to recover these workers’ lost wages.

In addition to these minimum wage lawsuits, through my Skadden Fellowship, I focus on the issue of retaliation. Many workers lose their jobs, are “blacklisted,” or are not invited to return to a farm in future seasons in retaliation for complaining about unlawful wages and working conditions. I represent these workers in retaliation suits, seeking their lost wages, liquidated damages, and injunctive relief such as rehire. I also work with my colleagues in the Farmworker Division to develop strategies for protecting workers’ identities earlier in the process, before retaliation can take place.

How did you become interested in employment law?

I first became interested in employment law as a result of my job between college and law school as a paralegal at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs in the Equal Employment Opportunity Project. There, I became familiar with the laws that protect employees from harassment and discrimination in the workplace. During law school, through my coursework and my work at the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, I became interested in other aspects of employment law, particularly the Fair Labor Standards Act. I saw the potential for FLSA lawsuits to be used as a tool by low income workers to vindicate their basic employment rights, and saw the disproportionate impact of wage violations on immigrant workers. These interests led me to intern at the Farmworker Division in Georgia during my 1L summer, to split my second summer between the Atlanta Regional Office of MALDEF and the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project in Florida and Mexico, and to apply for a Skadden Fellowship to continue to work on these issues after I graduated.

What activities were you involved in at HLS that honed your interests?

At HLS, my primary activity – - other than classes – - was the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau. As a member of the Bureau during my 2L and 3L years, I had the chance to represent clients under the supervision of a clinical instructor. I interviewed clients, performed legal research, conducted fact investigations, wrote motions and briefs, appeared in court, and participated in settlement negotiations. All of these experiences allowed me to begin “lawyering” while I was still in law school.

The Bureau, and particularly the supervision and seminars associated with my clinical work, also provided a chance for me to reflect on the difficulties inherent in legal services lawyering. What does it mean to represent “the whole client?” What happens when a public interest organization’s institutional goals conflict with the goals of a client? What is the best way to address a client’s complex tangle of problems with a lawyer’s tools? My exposure at the Bureau to questions such as these prepared me well for the tough, yet tremendously rewarding, job of a legal services lawyer.

Having been out in the world of public interest now for a few years, what would you tell someone interested in following a similar path?

For law students who have a sense of the area or type of law they’d like to practice, my recommendation is to use law school to get a “head start” on their career. Pursue clinical work and externships while in Cambridge, and get to know the professors on the faculty whose research agendas fit with their interests. Also, with OPIA’s help, use the 1L and 2L summers to explore policy jobs, legal services work, and organizations that specialize in impact litigation. Though all of these jobs might focus on the same issue-area, the work of a legal services lawyer is very different from a policy adviser, for example, and the summers are a chance to learn about and evaluate these differences.

For law students whose interests are not so honed, I suggest taking full advantage of the tremendous advising resources available at HLS. The OPIA staff are experts in helping students find their “dream job,” and the network of HLS alums are ready to provide advice, referrals, and even actual employment. In either scenario, HLS is an excellent place to prepare for a career in the public interest.

(Toby’s note: new HLS assistant professor Benjamin Sachs is someone to look up if you’re interested in employment law)