Transfer alumnus Matthew Perault graduated from HLS in June 2008. A native of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, he received a BA from Brown University in 2002, and is now a law clerk for Judge Gladys Kessler in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. Admissions staffer Julia Foresman recently had the chance to catch up with Matthew about how his interests in international development and human rights drew him to HLS.
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!
If someone told you that the solution to save the planet was building more skyscrapers, you probably wouldn’t believe it. Yet, as explained by Harvard economics professor, Ed Glaeser, in a recent discussion with the HLS Real Estate Association, if you want to be good to the environment, you should stay away from it. In fact, suburbanite Americans are guilty of leaving some of the deepest carbon footprints on the national landscape. Professor Glaeser’s most recent work looks at “the greenness of cities,” with a particular focus on carbon dioxide emissions and urban development. “When environmentalists resist new construction in dense cities,” he said, “they inadvertently ensure that it will take place somewhere else with higher carbon emissions.”
In his study with Professor Matthew Kahn of UCLA, Professor Glaeser began by estimating the amount of carbon dioxide an average household (measured by family size and income) would emit if it settled in a variety of major metropolitan areas in the U.S. and then measured comparative data between projected central city versus suburban emissions within new or recently built homes. “We calculate carbon emissions from four different sources,” said Glaeser, “including home heating, electricity, driving, and public transportation, which make up approximately 40% of America’s carbon footprint.”
When examining the results, it may not come as a surprise that the five metropolitan areas with the lowest levels of carbon emissions are all in California. Naturally temperate climates and dedicated environmentalists battling for the use of energy efficient appliances and hydroelectric power are two factors that make colder or warmer cities like Rochester (with more heating emissions) or Houston (more electricity use) appear ‘browner.’ And New York, in spite of low electricity usage and impressively low transportation-related CO2 emissions, tends to use dirtier sources of power such as coal. Sunbelt cities, like Atlanta and Memphis, ranked worst not by heating their homes but rather by electricity (dirtier sources of energy and hot summers) and the geographic sprawl that demands driving. “The data suggests that households in dense urban areas have significantly lower carbon emissions than households in the suburbs,” said Glaeser.
The question of environmental damage associated with carbon emissions nationwide remains. Even by the most conservative estimates, new homes in Memphis do more than $600 worth of environmental harm per year than homes in San Francisco, which are associated with fewer tons of carbon. “Before carbon taxes,” said Glaeser, “the country should rethink its land-use policies which currently push people towards high emissions areas and away from greener ones.” Specifically, Glaeser referred to California’s strict land use regulations that inhibit the growth both upward and outward of cities. “By restricting local development, California regulators just make that construction occur elsewhere… [more] building in the state would reduce average commute lengths and improve per-capita emissions. Higher densities could also justify more investment in new, low-emissions energy plants.”
Professor Glaeser is the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics at Harvard, where he also serves as Director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston.
Interested in working in India doing either public interest or private practice work? If so, a recent panel hosted by the South Asian Law Students Association (SALSA) would have been right up your alley.
2L Nitya Shekar, whose interests include public interest litigation and activism, got her internship last summer with the Alternative Law Forum (ALF) in Bangalore through the Human Rights Program here at HLS. “It was really a great experience in a great city,” she said. “Bangalore is on the rise with public interest movements.” While she was there, Shekar was involved with the city’s first GLBT pride parade and anti-road widening litigation.
3L Lauren Birchfield and SJD student Iain Frame were also involved in public interest with the Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) in New Delhi were. “The Human Rights Law Network provides pro bono legal services, conducts public interest litigation, participates in advocacy, and collaborates with social movements and human rights organizations. Maintaining both litigation and publishing departments, HRLN works on issues such as right to food, women’s justice, dalit rights, disability rights, and rights for persons living with HIV/AIDS,” explained Birchfield who worked specifically with the Right to Food Campaign. “I greatly appreciated how much HRLN invested in us and in our project, and how much freedom was given to us regarding the project’s construction and implementation. I found HRLN a fantastic organization to work for, and I was pleased to walk away from the internship having recognized that this – this kind of work, this kind of project – is what I want to pursue as a career.”
On the private-sector side was 2L Erin Walczewski, who spent Winter Term with Nishith Desai Associates in Mumbai. “I was interested in alternative dispute resolution and arbitration and got to do lots of research on the differences among arbitration tribunals,” she said. “I met with clients, and the attorneys walked me through how litigation worked in India. The attorneys were especially interested in how business practices differed between the U.S. and India.”
When asked how to approach the application process for public interest firms, the panel advocated being direct and having a project in mind. Respect for interns at HLRN? “It of course depends on the supervisor you get,” said Frame. “Because HRLN was so large it helps to have an idea about what you want to do when you get there… your experience will be more dynamic if you take charge.”
Concerned about needing experience in Indian or international law? “I dealt almost entirely with Indian law which was totally new to me,” said Shekar. “But since ALF is so small, the work they do is very focused and my relationship with them was more intimate… there was no hierarchy and everyone was happy to answer questions for me.” “I found my international law class from 1L year to be very helpful,” said Walczewski, “particularly in terms of understanding how international agreements work.”
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)
One of the newest and fastest growing programs at HLS is the Harvard Immigration Project. Designed to advocate for positive changes in U.S. immigration law with an emphasis on protecting immigrant’s rights, HIP provides a forum for HLS students interested in immigration law and policy, and to raise the profile on campus of immigration policy issues.
Admissions staffer Julia Foresman recently sat down with HIP Co-President 2L Nikki Flores. After graduating from Northwestern, Nikki became involved with the Workers’ Rights Center in Madison, WI. Working with the issues facing migrant workers and immigrant communities there led her to HLS, where she’s now Co-President of the Harvard Immigration Project and is involved with the Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.
Have a listen: Nikki Flores (8:52)
If you weren’t fully aware of the scope of opportunities available to you here at HLS, 3L Michelle Galdos’ winter term project gives a glimpse. In a brief interview with staffer Julia Foresman recently, Michelle discussed her project writing on reproductive rights and emergency contraception in Chile.
Check it out: Michelle Galdos (6:07)
Her interest in reproductive rights began at a young age by watching her father, a Peruvian OB-GYN, participate in medical missions to South America. She joined HLS Advocates for Human Rights during her 1L year and interned at the South African Human Rights Commission at the end of the proceeding summer. Following coursework in Women’s Human Rights, she enrolled in the Harvard International Law Clinic during her 3L year to work on women’s health issues. Michelle will be traveling to Santiago, Chile during Harvard’s 2009 Winter Term to research the recent banning of emergency contraception distribution in Chilean public health centers.
We hope to track Michelle’s story, as well as that of other students abroad for winter term, through January… so check back!
Clara Long ‘11 has been working on a web-based documentary project called Border Stories. As she and her partners put it, “Border Stories, a web-based documentary exploring the length of the longest boundary between the developed and developing world, is an effort to promote tolerance by showcasing the humanity behind border issues. We present a mosaic of hyper-focused films from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border that illustrate, among other rights, everyone’s right to live in freedom and safety, and to work and get a salary.”
Internews, a non-profit organization dedicated “to empower local media worldwide,” recently awarded Border Stories their Every Human Has Rights Media Award in a public ceremony. Check out Border Stores here.
Since it’s a beautiful sunny day in Cambridge today, I thought I’d post another summer story…
I ran across 2L Matt Carpenter-Dennis, a current Chayes Fellow and a Columbia grad with a degree in Economics and Philosophy. Driven by his interest in international commercial law, human rights and development studies, Matt spent his summer in the legal department of the African Development Bank in Tunisia. Here’s what he had to say about the experience both in person with us and during the Chayes International Public Service Fellowship debriefing dinner a few weeks ago:Matt Carpenter-Dennis
How did you choose your internship at the African Development Bank
I have had an interest in economic development and emerging market economies since college. However, I never had an opportunity to expand that curiosity outside of the classroom in any substantive way. Coming to Harvard, I was dead-set on going abroad and doing public interest work during my 1L summer. The only question was: where? As I thumbed through the OPIA summer job guide they disseminated at the beginning of 1L year, I found that students in the past had gone to work in the legal department of the African Development Bank. This looked to be a perfect way to combine my interest in development studies with substantive legal work abroad. I spoke with several people in OPIA, OCS and former interns at the Bank about the application process and to get a sense of what this internship entailed. After some further independent research, I concluded that this was the right path for me to take. Looking back, working at the Bank gave me everything that I initially wanted out of my 1L summer.
What is one thing about HLS that you think everyone should know about?
One thing I think stands out most for me about Harvard Law School is the amount of academic freedom it provides its student body. There are so many resources on this campus; from various student organizations to the diversity of professors to easy access to the university at large. Law students, like me, who walk into this institution without a perfect grasp of which areas of law to pursue are able to cast a wide net of academic interests.
In my opinion, this is largely a function of encouragement from the administration as well as the sheer size of the law school. Allowing 1Ls to join journals and offering two electives in the first year curriculum are just two examples of the school’s willingness to respond to student requests to have flexibility and autonomy in shaping their legal education. Meanwhile, the size of the student body and the faculty help facilitate discussion a wide array of interests and make it more likely that students will be able to find a community of people at HLS who share similar interests.
How have you taken advantage of the resources and opportunities offered at HLS?
The most notable opportunity I have taken advantage of at HLS was landing my internship at the African Development Bank. The intern program there has only been in existence for 5 years and traditionally only takes HLS students for the summer. My experience in Tunisia was phenomenal and would likely not have happened were I not at Harvard. Further, SPIF funding and my Chayes Fellowship made it economically feasible for me to take this opportunity. OPIA and the ILS encouraged me and guided me during the entire job search process and at the end of the day helped me realize an unforgettable summer.
