HLS in Focus

1L and Chair of La Alianza’s Conference on Law and Policy, Reuben Rodriguez, recently filled us in on this annual event.

Q: What is La Alianza and in particular what is the Law and Policy Conference all about?

A: La Alianza is the organization for Hispanic and Latino students here at Harvard Law School.  Our mission is to make HLS the nation’s premier center for Latino legal education by fostering a sense of community among Latino students and raising awareness of Latino legal issues.

One of the major events every year is the Latino Law and Policy Conference where we bring leaders from the world of law, business, and politics to talk about pressing issues of interest to the Latino community.  This year’s theme was “Building Bridges: Connecting the U.S. and Latin America.”  Our keynote speaker was Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Organization of American States, and we had panels on the Obama Administration’s Latin America Policy, Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime, Domestic Policy Affecting Latinos, the Summit of the Americas, and the Obama Campaign’s Latino Vote Efforts.  Finally, we topped the whole thing off with a Salsa party with a live band on Saturday night.  Planned in conjunction with the Latino Caucus at the Harvard Kennedy School, the conference is currently in its twelfth year.

Q: What has gone into preparing for this conference and what have you gotten out of the experience as co-chair?

A: We started planning the conference back in October.  Going into it, I’d never planned anything larger than dinner reservations, so I was somewhat unprepared for the experience.  I mostly learned what to do next along the way.  Starting in November I met weekly with representatives from the Kennedy School to discuss conference themes, panels, guests, promotion, and logistics.  Apart from larger thematic challenges, I was responsible for the logistical intricacies involved in any conference such as booking hotel rooms, updating the conference website, ordering tote bags, and searching for speakers.  While stressful at times, the experience taught me a lot about all the little details that go into planning an event and I made some good friends at the Kennedy School in the process.  It’s not every day you get to hang out with a major world figure  like Secretary Insulza, although perhaps it happens more frequently here at Harvard than other places.

Q: What do you think are some pressing issues facing Latinos in the legal world right now?  What is the organization doing to address them?

A: The past few decades have seen a great influx of Latinos into positions throughout the legal world, from partners at law firms to general counsels at government agencies; however, it remains a pressing issue to make sure that Latinos are continually represented at all levels of the legal world and in rates proportional to the number of Latinos in the community.  La Alianza is working to provide a community at Harvard Law School that will enable students not just to have a positive experience at HLS, but to excel academicaly, socially, and professionally.  Even before they arrive on campus, La Alianza sends incoming Latino students helpful literature like Getting to Maybe.  Once the students arrive, La Alianza is a connection to successful alumni mentors across the country and the world.  We hope these and other programs will encourage the further growth and success of the Latino legal community.

Q: Why should admitted and prospective students seeking a strong Latino community choose Harvard?

A: Harvard Law School and the Cambridge and greater Boston community is rich with culture.  The Latinos at HLS have worked diligently to create and foster strong relationships both within the Law School and the greater community.  With a dedicated student community and Latino alumni association, the Latino community at HLS is filled with opportunity to express oneself and to get involved in a variety of facets at the Law School.  From organizing social events like our much beloved Salsa Party, to working on more substantive projects like the annual Latino Law and Public Policy Conference and the new Latino Symposium Speaker Series, the possibilities for a Latino student to engage his or her new peers and the broader Latino community are many.

As for me, the thing that jumped out at me about Harvard was the sense of dynamism around here.  There’s just this sense of excitement that everyone seems to share, whether it’s about their clinic, their journal, their reading group, or a group like Alianza.  I saw it when I went to the Admitted Applicant Program and I’ve seen it throughout this year.  Being in a place where so many people are excited about what they, you can’t help but want to be a part of it.

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!

HLS has commemorated a number of historical milestones in recent months including the 40^th anniversary of Terry v. Ohio, a case which held that ‘stop and frisks’ were not a violation of Fourth Amendment rights where an officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime. Some believed this case to have been wrongly decided, including the man who argued the case before the Court, Louis Stokes. Later in 1968 Stokes was elected to the United States Congress and served 15 consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Stokes was honored at a recent event by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.

The case itself involved two men who were stopped, searched, and found to possess guns in broad day on the streets of Cleveland in 1963 by a police officer who claimed the two to be exhibiting suspicious behavior. “I had no idea that Terry would become a landmark case,” said Stokes. “The more I talked to [the suspects, John Terry and Richard Chilton], the more it seemed to me that we might have a possibility of excluding the guns based on the testimony that this event had happened on the streets.” In the wake of such landmark cases as Miranda and Escobedo that succeeded in expanding the rights of the accused, Stokes filed a motion to suppress the evidence. “The officer had no probable cause accosting them,” he said, “They weren’t brandishing guns, running, or doing anything related to a crime.

In spite of the violence and turmoil of American cities in the sixties, Stokes was confident his case would prevail before the Court. “As a black man I understood how black males were stopped in urban settings and if they didn’t have contraband as a result of stopping subjecting them to the indignity of being stopped…they were just told to move on down the street. That’s why I took this case.” Yet in the final analysis the Supreme Court based their decision upon the safety of the police officer and failed to extend Fourth Amendment protections.

“What I say to you as law students is that it pays to think outside of the box as a lawyer,” advised Stokes. “It would have been easy for me to plead them guilty and work out some light sentence. It took more to go against the custom and utilize the Constitution to try to uphold what it means in light of what people are subjected to on the streets in our country.”

Stokes presence moved the audience to emotion. As one student asked, “Did you or your brother Carl, the first black mayor of a major U.S. city ever envision this day [the election of President-Elect Obama]? You must have because surely you paved the way.” Stokes remarked that Obama’s whole campaign reminded him of 1967 when his brother became the mayor of Cleveland. “Carl built coalition in Cleveland of blacks and white. That’s how he won. For many reasons related to what Carl did and my victory as the first black congressman in Ohio the following year, Barack Obama’s meant so much. It reminded me how far we’ve come.”

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)

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.

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.

Another day, another Chayes Fellow! 2L Julia Gegenheimer recently shared the details of her summer abroad in Chad with the International Rescue Committee. A native of Lawrence, KS with a double-major in Political Science and History at Yale, Julia is involved in a range of activities including the Harvard Mediation Program, the International Law Journal, and HLS Advocates for Human Rights.

“Before coming to HLS, I took a year off to work and travel, on a post-graduate fellowship program (the Insight Collaborative Fellowship). The fellowship took me to Cyprus, Cambodia, and The Netherlands to work with grassroots organizations, universities, an ad-hoc Tribunal, and the International Criminal Court. It was during that year that my interest in various forms of post-conflict reconciliation and reconstruction grew. When going into my summer job search after my 1L year at Harvard, I was looking to work abroad again, but this time in a situation that was still undergoing conflict. I had been following the situations in Darfur and Eastern Chad for some time, and so when I was put in touch with the International Rescue Committee’s Chad Country Program, I jumped at the chance. ‘

“The International Rescue Committee is a large, U.S.-based NGO that focuses its work on humanitarian relief in conflict and post-conflict situations. It is renowned for its refugee assistance programs throughout the world as well as in the United States. I knew a number of HLS students who had worked for the IRC in past summers, either in refugee resettlement programs or in emergency conflict response situations. Based on their impressions of the IRC’s work, and on my own conversations with the IRC Chad program, I decided that fieldwork with IRC Chad would allow me to contribute to the rule of law and to help address the situation in Darfur. ‘

“The IRC is UNHCR’s main implementing partner for a camp situated a few kilometers away from the Chad-Darfur border. As a result, IRC Chad is responsible for things ranging from providing for clean water, health care, and social services. I was specifically assigned to work with their Community Services team as a legal protection intern. One aspect of this work that I found to be a particularly beneficial was the variable nature of my daily activities. My designated projects fell generally into the category of legal research; however, in practice, this meant that I would spend time both at the small law library in the national capitol and in the refugee camp in Eastern Chad. The formal legal research component of my work was comprised of looking into the protections afforded Sudanese refugees under national Chadian law. And while stationed in the East, I would spend some days at the office drafting reports and others at the refugee camp, interviewing refugee leaders and incentive workers to get a better sense of traditional conflict resolution mechanisms historically employed by the ethnic tribes represented at the camp.’

“The challenges to this work were many—most profoundly the emotional impact levied by hearing many of the refugees’ stories about their flight from Darfur and their adjustment to camp life. Working on legal protection issues, in addition, was not easy in a country with what might be called a “dual-track” legal system (that is, the law on paper versus the law in practice) and generally very little regard for rule of law. ‘

“The physical distress of living in Eastern Chad placed additional challenges on my work there—I found almost everything to be more difficult with the extreme heat, water scarcity, and very basic living conditions. These conditions were not totally inhospitable, but it did take quite a bit of time even to begin to adjust to the circumstances. Yet working in such a challenging situation also served to give me a great sense of accomplishment. I was surprised to find that I could adjust to a situation so completely different from any other I had previously experienced, or ever expected to experience. I also came away with profound respect for my colleagues in Chad, many of whom were dedicating years of their life to work there.’

“Coming back to the U.S. from Chad was almost more of a culture shock than the reverse. Now, having readjusted and taken some time to reflect upon my time there, it is clear to me that my summer experiences will continue to impact my legal education and my professional aspirations in a number of ways. At a very basic level, work with IRC Chad has given me a more complete idea of what it means to work in the field, to work firsthand with beneficiaries. It has also confirmed for me my interest in international law – particularly humanitarian and criminal law. And, perhaps more importantly, my interactions with colleagues and with the refugees have served to inform so significantly my world view that I have no doubt about their value to any and all of my academic and professional pursuits.”

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)

Archbishop Jaime Pedro Gonçalves

The Program on Negotiation hosted Archbishop Jaime Pedro Gonçalves who spoke about his experience as part of the peace process in Mozambique following a bloody struggle for independence and of the common call for all Christians to be peacemakers. PON staffer Sarah Whitman filled us in.

“Recently, the Program on Negotiation hosted Jaime Pedro Gonçalves, the Archbishop of Beira and Apostolic Administrator of Quelimane for an informal brown bag lunch. Archbishop Jaime Gonçalves is well known for his participation as a mediator in the 16 year long civil war in Mozambique after their long struggle for independence from Portugal. With the assistance of the Community of Sant’Egidio, an international Catholic lay movement that played the role of mediator. After 27 months of negotiations he successfully brokered peace, a peace that has endured for over 15 years.

“During the informal lunch the Archbishop discussed how his role as an observer of the conflict transformed into one of the key roles in resolving this protracted war. He addressed how he created a novel mediation framework between the two parties and how his unique relationships with individuals on both sides allowed him to successfully work away from the table to broker peace. The Archbishop closed the discussion with powerful advice: In conflict be ready to resist what is wrong and speak the truth to power gently but firmly.”