In the News – Page 6 – Clinical and Pro Bono Programs

Category: In the News (page 6 of 11)

CHLPI Faculty Director to be Honored by Harvard Law School Student Government

Via Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation

Robert Greenwald, CHLPI’s Faculty Director and Professor of Law, will be honored by Harvard Law School’s Student Government in April 2016 with the newly created Teaching & Advising Award. The Award is meant to recognize both exemplary instruction and the ability of an instructor to inspire personal and intellectual development outside the classroom.

The criteria for HLS Student Government Teaching & Advising Award included:

Meaningful impact on the student experience at Harvard Law School;
Development of student learning outcomes;
Dedication to teaching and advising activities; and
Ability to inspire personal, professional, and intellectual growth.

Congratulations to Professor Greenwald on receiving this award.

Law Professors Form Innovative Academic Organization To Promote Field Of Food Law And Policy

March 30, 2016 / clinicalandprobono / 0 Comments

Via Food Law and Policy Clinic

Over the past decade, the field of Food Law and Policy has grown by leaps and bounds in law schools across the country. On a variety of metrics, the field is strong and growing, with more than 20 of the top 100 law schools offering courses in the field, and 30 clinics at 23 schools conducting related clinical work. But until now, Food Law and Policy has had no dedicated academic association to serve as a forum for individuals and institutions involved in its teaching and scholarship.

The Academy of Food Law and Policy (AFLP) is a newly-formed academic organization created to address this need. AFLP’s founding Board of Trustees includes Emily Broad Leib, Harvard Law School; Peter Barton Hutt, Covington and Burling (Adjunct Faculty, Harvard Law School); Neil Hamilton, Drake University Law School; Baylen Linnekin, Adjunct Faculty, George Mason Law School; Michael Roberts, UCLA School of Law; Susan Schneider, University of Arkansas School of Law; and Margaret Sova McCabe, University of New Hampshire School of Law. Founding institutional members include Harvard Law School, UCLA School of Law, University of Arkansas School of Law, and Drake Law School.

“As the first food law and policy clinic in the U.S., the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic has great interest in supporting other faculty and law schools in entering the field of food law and policy. I have worked with the other members of the Board of Trustees to establish the Academy of Food Law and Policy in order to provide a space for sharing ideas, knowledge and research, and nurturing social exchange among food law and policy colleagues. I look forward to working with the Board and members to build this into a vibrant organization that serves the needs of the growing community of food law and policy faculty and programs.” – Emily Broad Leib, Director of the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic and Founding Member of the Academy of Food Law and Policy.

Counsel from a Councilor: An interview with Michelle Wu ’12

March 24, 2016 / clinicalandprobono / 0 Comments

Via HLS News

Earlier this year, Michelle Wu ‘12, currently the youngest member of the Boston City Council, was elected as its president, making her the first Asian American to hold that role. Wu, who grew up in the Chicago area, became interested in politics during her time at HLS, where she was a student of Elizabeth Warren’s and worked on her campaign for the U.S. Senate. Wu came back to HLS this year to participate in a panel on women in politics at the Women’s Law Association annual conference. She spoke with Harvard Law Today reporter Rebecca Rattner ’17 about her time at HLS, experience as a woman in politics, and vision for her new role on the Boston City Council.

Credit: Lorin Granger
Michelle Wu ’12, the recently-elected president of the Boston City Council, returned to HLS in February to participate in a panel discussion on women in politics at the Women’s Law Association annual conference.

What stands out from your time at HLS? Were you involved in journals, clinics or related student practice organizations?

MW: I took part in the Community Enterprise Project, part of the Transactional Law clinics, which was then based at the Wilmer Hale Legal Services Center in Jamaica Plain. That was an incredible experience of getting to guide small business owners and non-profits through the regulatory red tape that Boston creates and to understand the struggles that they have to go through. I did student legal services work for survivors of domestic violence around immigration law issues. I participated in the Tenant Advocacy Project and Harvard Mediation Program. I loved the opportunity to really explore a wide of variety of things, through all of the classes that are offered: the different strands of what makes up a vibrant society and positive government.

At Harvard Law School symposium, military and academic leaders explain legal and cultural issues in counterterror operations

March 14, 2016 / clinicalandprobono / 0 Comments

Via HLS News

On March 5, Harvard Law School hosted the first-ever Legal, Cultural and Strategic Issues in Counterterror Operations Symposium bringing together military officers from the 3rd Legal Operations Detachment and academic scholars whose work focuses on areas of Islamic and human rights law as well as on cultural and international security issues.

John Fitzpatrick ’87, HLS Clinical Instructor and a major in the US Army Reserve Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps with Harvard Law School Lecturer on Law Bonnie Docherty, at the Legal, Cultural and Strategic Issues in Counterterror Operations Symposium, at HLS on March 5.

More than 30 military personnel from the U.S. Army, Air Force, and Navy attended the daylong symposium, which featured presentations by faculty from Harvard Law School, Harvard Kennedy School, Boston University and Tufts. Presentations focused on the effects of war on civilian populations in areas of armed conflict; the sources and representative doctrines in Islamic family and domestic relations law; and the cultural, political, and legal issues impacting current operations in Afghanistan.

The symposium was organized by John Fitzpatrick ’87, a senior clinical instructor at HLS, with assistance from Staff Sergeant Derek Piatt of the Army’s 3rd Legal Operations Detachment.

Boston police aim to lower backlog of routine complaints

January 26, 2016 / clinicalandprobono / 0 Comments

Via Boston Globe

The Boston Police Department has launched a mediation program aimed at reducing a backlog of routine complaints against officers — an idea first suggested a decade ago.

Even though the number of complaints dropped in 2014, the time it takes to resolve the cases has frustrated both citizens and the officers who live in the shadow of possible action pending against them.

Police officials hope that the program, which will be managed by the Harvard Mediation Program at Harvard Law School, will help clear less serious complaints quickly. That will free up time for the department to focus on investigating high-priority complaints, such as those involving misconduct or excessive force.

Officials also hope the program will strengthen the relationship between the police department and the community.

Commentary: The Horror of Incendiary Weapons and the Need for Stronger Law

December 18, 2015 / clinicalandprobono / 0 Comments

Via International Human Rights Clinic
By Bonnie Docherty

This post, “Unrivaled Cruelty: The Horror of Incendiary Weapons and the Need for Stronger Law,” was originally published in Jurist

Incendiary weapons inflict almost unrivaled cruelty on their victims. Photos taken after an incendiary weapon attack on a Syrian school show the charred bodies of children, who must have experienced unimaginable agony. The weapons cause excruciatingly painful burns, and treatment for survivors requires sloughing off dead skin, which has been likened to being flayed alive. While individuals often react to accounts of such suffering with horror, government efforts to minimize the harm from these weapons by strengthening international law have been unacceptably slow.

Many countries have expressed outrage at the use of incendiary weapons over the past five years, including at meetings of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW), the treaty that regulates the weapons. The voices of these countries are crucial and they should continue to raise the issue. But it is time to move from condemnation to concrete action. A major disarmament conference scheduled for next year presents an excellent opportunity for progress.

Incendiary weapons produce heat and fire through the chemical reaction of a flammable substance. They can be designed to burn people or materiel, serve as smokescreens or provide illumination. People who survive attacks with incendiary weapons not only experience physical injuries, but also frequently endure psychological trauma, permanent disfigurement and difficulties reintegrating into society.

Summit convenes future leaders in the emerging field of food law and policy

December 14, 2015 / clinicalandprobono / 0 Comments

Via HLS News

As more and more people are becoming deeply concerned about what they’re eating and what it means for our health, the economy, the environment, and social justice, participants in a recent gathering at Harvard Law School hope to spark the growth of a nationwide student network for making significant contributions to the emerging field of food law and policy.

The first Food Law Student Leadership Summit brought together 100 law students from 50 law schools from around the country for a weekend-long meeting with national experts in the food law field. The Summit, which took place from October 2-4 at Harvard Law School, was hosted by the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC), a division of the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation of Harvard Law School (HLS).

“The Food Law Student Leadership Summit was conceived as a way to convene interested law students from around the country to learn from national experts about a variety of key food law issues; develop strategies to start or expand student food law organizations; and build a national network of colleagues,” said Emily Broad Leib, director of FLPC and assistant clinical professor of law at Harvard. “Additionally, we wanted to learn how the Food Law and Policy Clinic, and Harvard Law School, can play a role in supporting a food law student network by providing information and resources.”

Food Recovery Act Introduced in Congress Includes key policy recommendations from the Food Law and Policy Clinic

December 10, 2015 / clinicalandprobono / 0 Comments

Via Food Law and Policy Clinic

Today, Maine Congresswoman Chellie Pingree introduced the Food Recovery Act, a groundbreaking comprehensive piece of legislation aimed at reducing food waste and promoting food recovery. The Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) enthusiastically supports Congresswoman Pingree’s bill, which incorporates many of the key policy changes recommended by FLPC. FLPC staff and students believe that food waste is one of the most pressing environmental, social, and moral challenges facing our food system. The Food Recovery Act includes valuable reforms in key areas in order to increase food recovery in our nation.

First, the Food Recovery Act includes various provisions to encourage farms, groceries, restaurants and institutions to donate excess food to food recovery nonprofits. The legislation strengthens federal tax incentives that can increase food donations and recovery efforts by offsetting the costs associated with food donation.

A shout-out to the Recording Artists Project

November 20, 2015 / clinicalandprobono / 0 Comments

Via Billboard
By Shirley Halperin

Aaron Rosenberg, From The Desk Of

When a client list reads like the Billboard Hot 100 — Justin Bieber, Jason Derulo, Meghan Trainor, Future, John Legend and Jennifer Lopez, to name a few — one has to wonder: What came first, the attorney or the hit act? In the case of young 38-year-old Aaron Rosenberg, the youngest partner in the history of entertainment firm Myman Greenspan Fineman Fox Rosenberg & Light, the question is often moot, especially with regard to two long-standing clients: Rosenberg had just graduated law school when he began representing Legend and took on Bieber when the would-be pop star was just 13.

To hear Rosenberg tell it, the Kansas City, Mo., native’s music business roots were planted back at Harvard Law School, where a clinical program called the Recording Artists Project paired law students with aspiring musicians around Boston “to provide legal advice under the supervision of a faculty member,” he explains. “It was literally hands-on training. And being a music lawyer is really about learning by doing.”

Chayes Fellows journey abroad to serve the public good

November 4, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via HLS News

In the summer of 2015, 86 Harvard Law School students worked in 37 countries on a diverse array of projects; 19 of those students traveled to 15 countries through the Chayes International Public Service Fellowships. Chayes Fellows spend eight weeks working within the governments of developing nations, or with the inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations that support them. As seen in the slideshow below, their projects take many forms, this year ranging in topic from school transportation and sanitation concerns in South Africa to environmental provisions in international trade agreements at the United Nations, or transitional justice processes in Colombia. The profiles below highlight the experiences of four of the 2015 Chayes Fellows.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Aditya Pai

Aditya Pai ’17

Sehgal Foundation

Gurgaon, India

Credit: Photo courtesy of Aditya Pai

Aditya Pai returned to India, the country of his birth, to work with the Sehgal Foundation. As part of an initiative to improve villagers’ access to government benefits, he analyzed the effectiveness of the foundation’s legal literacy camps in the Mewat district of Haryana. His interviews—all of which he conducted in Hindi—of camp attendees, members of government legal aid centers, and foundation field staff members, documented cases of successes and setbacks. The assessment was developed to better understand why some citizens achieved positive results from what they had learned (for example, securing an old age pension that had not been provided previously), while others did not. His final report made recommendations for improving future legal literacy camps. “Meeting and interviewing the villagers in Mewat, who face serious challenges of poverty and political corruption, provided an incredible education in the hard realities of the world —especially after a useful, but largely theoretical, 1L curriculum.”

As a student attorney for the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, Pai will apply the lessons he learned in India to the Bureau’s efforts to promote legal literacy about eviction and foreclosures among disadvantaged communities in Boston. “Getting plugged in to the legal empowerment community enriched my understanding of both international development and the practice of poverty law in America. These two communities do not often talk to each other, but the work of one has obvious relevance for the other. I’m now better prepared for a career in public service, whether at home or abroad.”

Court by Court, Lawyers Fight Policies That Fall Heavily on the Poor

October 23, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via New York Times

CLANTON, Ala. — In January, Christy Dawn Varden was arrested in a Walmart parking lot, charged with shoplifting and three other misdemeanors, and taken to jail. There, she was told that if she had $2,000, she could post bail and leave. If she did not, she would wait a week before seeing a judge. Ms. Varden, who lived with her mother and two children, had serious mental and physical health problems; her only income was her monthly food stamp allotment.

Two days later, a civil rights lawyer named Alec Karakatsanis sued on behalf of Ms. Varden, alleging that bail policies in Clanton, a city of 8,619, discriminated against the poor by imprisoning them while allowing those with money to go free.

The response was quick: Clanton, while defending its policies, told the court that defendants would be able to see a judge within 48 hours. Within a couple of months, the city agreed to release most misdemeanor defendants immediately, without their posting bail.

Since then, Mr. Karakatsanis has sued six additional jurisdictions in four different states, representing single mothers, homeless men and people with mental disabilities, all who would have been free but for some ready cash. His novel legal strategy has proved effective: So far five of the cities have changed their policies. The suits, which are now being replicated around the country, have won support from the federal Justice Department and rulings that endorse his assertion that the money bail system is unfair to the poor.

Peter A. Carfagna JD ’79 wins Harvard Alumni Association Award

October 23, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via Harvard Alumni

The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) Awards were established in 1990 to recognize outstanding service to Harvard University through alumni activities.

This year’s awards ceremony honored Lecturer on Law and Director of HLS’s Sports Law Clinic Peter Carfagna.

Peter A. Carfagna AB ’75, JD ’79, of Shaker Heights, Ohio, has demonstrated his commitment to Harvard both locally and in Cambridge. He has served as a member of the Harvard Club of Cleveland’s Schools & Scholarships Committee since 1979 and held the office of secretary. From 1990 to 1994, Carfagna was the president of the Harvard Law School (HLS) Association of Cleveland. For his College class, he was elected a senior class marshal and has been active in the quinquennial reunion campaign committees through the Harvard College Fund. In 2002, the alumni body voted for him as an elected director of the HAA, and he later served as chair of the Continuing Education Committee, a member of the Executive Committee, and a member of the Committee to Nominate Overseers and Elected Directors. Carfagna has also served as visiting lecturer in sports law and faculty advisor to the Sports Law Clinical Placement Program at HLS since 2006.

A Rhodes Scholar himself, he has served on both the Ohio Rhodes Scholar State Selection Committee and the board of directors of the Association of American Rhodes Scholars. Carfagna currently holds the positions of chairman and chief executive officer of Magis LLC, a sports marketing, consulting, and investment firm.

Myanmar: New report finds police used excessive force during crackdown on protesters in Letpadan

October 15, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via HLS News

Myanmar police officers used excessive force during a crackdown on protesters and arrested more than 100 individuals in Letpadan, Bago Region in March, according to a new report released by Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic and Fortify Rights. Authorities should release individuals wrongfully detained for exercising their rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of expression, the organizations said.

Compiling evidence from dozens of eyewitness accounts, more than 500 photographs, and 40 videos, the Clinic and Fortify Rights found that police brutally punched, kicked, and beat unarmed protesters with batons on their heads, backs, and legs in the town of Letpadan on March 10. Police also beat protesters in police custody, including at least one protester being treated in an ambulance and others whose hands were bound behind their backs.

The new report, Crackdown at Letpadan: Excessive Use of Force and Violations of the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Expression in Letpadan, Bago Region, Myanmar (PDF) also details how not all police officers at the scene participated in violence during the crackdown. Some police officers used riot shields or their own bodies to protect protesters from attacks by other police officers, providing further evidence of the unjustified use of force by some officers.

Students from the International Human Rights Clinic—Roi Bachmutsky ’17, Roni Druks ’17, Courtney Svoboda ’16, Matthew Thiman ’16, Yao Yang Harvard/Berkeley ’16, and Sharon Yuen LLM ’16—provided essential support in reviewing evidence as well as with writing and editing for the report. The team worked under the direction of the report’s lead researcher, Matthew Bugher ’11, who was a Global Justice Fellow at Harvard Law School as well as Clinical Professor Tyler Giannini, co-director of the Clinic.

Harvard Defenders: 65 years of legal service to the community

October 13, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via HLS News

“The role of a criminal-defense lawyer is rarely comfortable, and never popular,” renowned defense attorney Jack T. Litman ’67 liked to say, “but it remains among the more noble professions.”

Credit: Brooks Kraft

For the 85 Harvard Law students who each year participate in Harvard Defenders, a student practice organization in which they represent low-income clients in criminal show-cause hearings, that sentiment informs everything they do. Open to 1Ls and upperclassmen, Defenders over the past 66 years has assisted thousands of indigent people while offering students invaluable courtroom experience and exposure to the realities of the criminal justice system.

“I just ran into a former student who is clerking for a magistrate judge in federal court. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of years, and she said Harvard Defenders was the best thing she did in law school,” says John Salsberg, a criminal defense attorney who’s been the supervising attorney at Defenders for 35 years, and was chosen for a 2015 Dean’s Award for Excellence at Harvard Law School. “Now, if that isn’t gratifying, I don’t know what is.”

Fighting Injustice in the Tennessee Court System

October 6, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

: HLS Students pictured with Alec Karakatsanis ’08 (third from the left) during Spring Break 2015.

: Group Photo of Students who worked with Equal Justice Under Law.

: Photo of a notice students took while working for indigent defendants in Tennessee.

Last Spring, a group of HLS students traveled to Tennessee to work with Equal Justice Under Law, a non-profit civil rights organization started by alumni Alec Karakatsanis ’08 and Phil Telfeyan ’08 with the help of a Public Service Venture Fund seed grant to challenge inequalities in the criminal justice system. The pair met during their first year of law school and both participated in Harvard Defenders, a clinical student practice organization, and the Criminal Justice Institute, HLS’s public defense clinic.

On October 1st, Equal Justice Under Law filed a Complaint against Rutherford County and the private company it contracts to collect court debts. The lawsuit, brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), the United States Constitution, and Tennessee law, alleges “an extortion scheme” aimed at extracting as much money from people who could not afford to pay their court fines. An important aspect of the problem, the complaint states, is a private company, acting as a “probation officer” to collect not only court debt but also fees and surcharges “through repeated and continuous threats to arrest, revoke, and imprison” those who can not pay.

Harvard Law students together with Equal Justice Under Law helped uncover the debt collecting practices while working on behalf of indigent defendants and their families in Tennessee over Spring Break 2015.

Karakatsanis said that HLS students observed some unusual things going on and began interviewing people outside the private probation company and reviewing documents. They ended up “discovering the shocking and illegal things alleged in the Complaint.”

For more details on this issue please read How to Fight Modern-Day Debtors’ Prisons? Sue the Courts. article published by The Marshall Project.

Inter-American Court of Human Rights Summons Brazil to Answer for Violence at Aníbal Bruno Prison

September 29, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via International Human Rights Clinic

September 22, 2015 – After three major riots and at least sixteen deaths (including one police officer killed and one prisoner quartered) within the last year, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has taken the rare step of summoning the Brazilian state to a public hearing at the end of the month to answer for recurring violations at the Aníbal Bruno Prison Complex (renamed Curado Complex), one of the largest prisons in Latin America.

The Court has ordered the Brazilian state to protect the life and integrity of prisoners, staff, and visitors of the notorious prison since May 2014, when it analyzed hundreds of complaints of abuse presented by a coalition of human rights organizations. At the hearing—set to take place on September 28 and be broadcast live from Costa Rica at 1:00 p.m. EST on the Court website (http://www.corteidh.or.cr) the coalition will present new evidence demonstrating the continuation of grave abuses at the Complex, including decapitations, gang rapes, beatings, and knife attacks.

The Federal Circuit at Harvard Law School

September 28, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via Cyberlaw Clinic

The Cyberlaw Clinic is delighted to announce that on October 8, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit will be holding oral arguments at Harvard Law School, in the Ames Courtroom in Austin Hall. The court will hear four cases, starting at 2:00pm.

The Federal Circuit was established in 1982, and has exclusive jurisdiction to hear appeals from federal district courts in patent cases. The Court also oversees appeals from administrative tribunals, including the Court of Federal Claims and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (an administrative body created in 2012 under the America Invents Act to review issues of patentability of inventions). Given its focus on matters of patent law, the Court is popularly considered the most important technology law court in the country.

The event on October 8 is an actual session of the Federal Circuit, and the Court will be hearing real cases. As such, the event is free and open to all members of the public who wish to attend. The cases heard will include:

Hirmiz v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, No. 15-5043, a claim under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, on behalf of a child who suffers from neurological damage, which her parents claim is the result of a flu vaccine.

Two Project on Predatory Student Lending Alumni Testify to Department of Education

September 18, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via Legal Services Center (LSC)

Two alumni of the Project on Predatory Student Lending testified to the Department of Education in support of the rights of borrowers treated unfairly by for-profit colleges to a fair, effective, and efficient process to get their federal student loans discharged. Over the past two weeks the Department held hearings in Washington, D.C. and San Francisco to allow the public to comment on its upcoming rulemaking, and to propose new topics to add to the agenda.

Megumi Tsutsui was a student in the clinic in 2013, after working with the Project as a volunteer in 2012. She is currently an Equal Justice Works Fellow at Housing and Economic Rights Advocates (HERA) in Oakland, California, where she works to eliminate barriers to affordable credit. Megumi shared the story of a borrower deceived and ripped off by one of the Corinthian schools campuses in California, and urged the Department to create “a clear and transparent process that is easily accessible for students eligible to receive a discharge of their loans under defense to repayment.” She also highlighted the need for automatic relief for groups of borrowers who are affected by widespread misconduct within a given program, school, or group of schools, and encouraged the Department to investigate when it sees signs of widespread misconduct and to identify students who have been affected and are eligible for discharge.

Mike Firestone, a student in the clinic in 2012-13 and current Director of Strategic Initiatives and Assistant Attorney General in the office of Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, delivered powerful testimony urging the Department “to establish simple processes for impacted students to seek the relief to which they are entitled by law and by contracts,” and asking the Department to “rely on conclusions and investigative findings reached by state Attorneys General regarding state law violations and provide discharges without requiring individual students to make a submission to the Department.” He described some of the impressive efforts that Attorney General Healey’s office has pursued to help borrowers harmed by for-profit schools, including lawsuits against several schools, as well as hundreds of hours of outreach to borrowers. He said, “Relief must not be limited just to those who can hire a lawyer, or those who know the magic words about placement rates to communicate in an attestation. . . . These students are counting on us to enforce the law and fight for them.”

We are incredibly proud of their advocacy on behalf of low-income people who have been harmed by widespread lawless, unfair, and deceptive conduct by for-profit schools, and gratified that they continue to work on behalf of their clinical clients’ interests years after each of them left the clinic.

President Obama’s Department of Injustice

September 4, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via the New York Times

By Alec Karakatsanis, HLS J.D. ’08

WASHINGTON — LAST month, President Obama used his clemency power to reduce the sentences of 46 federal prisoners locked up on drug-related charges. But for the last six years, his administration has worked repeatedly behind the scenes to ensure that tens of thousands of poor people — disproportionately minorities — languish in federal prison on sentences declared by the courts, and even the president himself, to be illegal and unjustifiable.

The case of Ezell Gilbert is emblematic of this injustice. In March 1997, he was sentenced to 24 years and four months in federal prison for possession with the intent to distribute more than 50 grams of crack cocaine. Because of mandatory sentencing laws, Mr. Gilbert was automatically sentenced to a quarter-century in prison, though even the judge who sentenced him admitted that this was too harsh.

Continue reading the full story here.

Replacing “Kid Food” with “True Food” in School Cafeterias

August 26, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via the Center for Health Law and Policy Clinic

On June 10, the Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) co-hosted the first annual Healthy Food Fuels Hungry Minds conference at Harvard University to discuss how to improve the quality of food in schools. Those attending the conference held diverse roles from school administrators to health experts to parents to school food service workers. Many attendees discussed the importance of getting rid of “kid food” in schools and instead serving our children “true food,” a term coined by Minneapolis public schools to describe flavorful, nutritious menu items in lieu of the stigmatized “healthy food” term.

As a third-year law student that previously had only a rudimentary knowledge of school food, I left the conference feeling invigorated. I realized that everyone, including me, has a role in creating positive changes in the school food environment and that we can create change on multiple levels: at an individual school, within a school district, and through state and federal policies.

FLPC Director Emily Broad Leib focused her presentation on how federal policy change affects school food, highlighting the upcoming Childhood Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR). The current CNR, the 2010 Healthy and Hunger Free Kids Act, will expire in September 2015. Advocates are pushing for a wide variety of improvements to school food regulations, including: increased funding for reimbursable meals, food literacy programing, kitchen equipment grants, kitchen staff training, and farm to school grants.

Continue reading the full story here.

CHLPI Director Quoted in NY Times Article on Hepatitis C Medication

August 25, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation

The New York Times released an article on August 25, 2015 on the call for increased access to life-saving medications for individuals with hepatitis C from health care experts and advocates. Robert Pear, the reporter behind “White House Is Pressed to Help Widen Access to Hepatitis C Drugs via Medicaid,” interviewed CHLPI director Robert Greenwald about the Center’s research on health insurance coverage of the Hepatitis C medication Solvaldi throughout the United States.

Excerpt from the article:

“Federal and state Medicaid officials should widen access to prescription drugs that could cure tens of thousands of people with hepatitis C, including medications that can cost up to $1,000 a pill, health care experts have told the White House.

The experts, from the Public Health Service and President Obama’s Advisory Council on H.I.V./AIDS, said restrictions on the drugs imposed by many states were inconsistent with sound medical practice, as reflected in treatment guidelines issued by health care professionals and the Department of Veterans Affairs…

…But Robert L. Greenwald, an expert on health law and policy at Harvard Law School, said: “These criteria defy clinical guidelines and best practices. Rather than recommending the exclusion of people who inject drugs, we should encourage earlier treatment as a way to prevent transmission of the virus.””

Read the full article

Hands-on Work Has Always Been Vital

August 24, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via the New York Journal

Until even the middle of the 20th century, many attorneys entered the legal profession through the process of apprenticeship. As we know, the legal profession has evolved and entry to the legal profession today requires a three-year J.D. degree program followed by the bar exam. Solid legal education has always contained the element of hands-on learning, whether in an apprenticeship or now in law school clinics or jobs with legal employers. Today, law schools are taking practical skills to a higher level to achieve the type of readiness that legal employers require and demand. But what does this new “practice ready” movement currently taking place in law schools mean for current law students?

New Hiring Criteria

Recently, Google told the New York Times that GPA is “worthless as a criteria for hiring,” while law firms, some even while acknowledging this as a fact, continue to hire based almost entirely on academic credentials. Thankfully this is changing, but slowly. Now firms are increasingly looking for performance and experience rather than an “A” in Con Law. Firms have taken steps to identify who the MVPs are at the firm and are beginning to realize that it may not be those from the top schools or with the top grades. What is coming more slowly is the movement in hiring criteria to reflect these new understandings.

Read the full story here.

HLS represented at White House event celebrating 25 years of the Americans with Disabilities Act

July 30, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via HLS News

This month marks the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. President George H.W. Bush signed the ADA on July 26, 1990, committing the nation to eliminating discrimination against people with disabilities. A special reception was held at the White House on July 20 to celebrate the landmark act.

On hand to introduce President Barack Obama ’91 and Vice President Joe Biden was Harvard Law School graduate Haben Girma ’13, who is currently a Skadden Fellow at Disability Rights Advocates in Berkeley, Calif. Girma was the first deafblind student to graduate from HLS. While studying at the law school, she was named a White House Champion of Change for her advocacy on behalf of deafblind individuals and her efforts in promoting educational excellence for African Americans. Read more about her journey to HLS and career as an advocate.

“For my grandmother back in Africa, my success in law school seemed like magic,” said Girma in her introduction. “For all of us here, we know people with disabilities succeed not by magic, but through opportunities in America, and the hard won power of the ADA.”

Continue reading the full story here.

Budget Victory for the Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative

July 20, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Students in the Education Law Clinic / Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI) traveled back and forth to the Massachusetts State House on numerous occasions over the last few months to encourage state legislators to fund An Act Relative to Safe and Supportive Schools.

This month, their work paid off, when both the House and Senate chambers approved $500,000 for the implementation of the statute. The funding will allow $400,000 in grants to schools and $100,000 for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to establish safe and supportive learning environments and cultures. The funding will also help schools and districts through provisions for technical assistance, state and regional conferences, and sharing best practices related to the implementation of the framework.

This marks a second victory for TLPI and the students who last August prevailed in having the provisions of the bill enacted into law.

The Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative, which is a joint program of the Massachusetts Advocates for Children and Harvard Law School, continues to lead efforts in supporting schools to meet the learning needs of all children. TLPI is also working on a research study to assess school culture outcomes for three schools that are using the Safe and Supportive framework.

Housing Law Clinic’s Julia Devanthery wins appeal against Wells Fargo

July 2, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Julia Devanthéry,
Attorney and Clinical
Instructor, Housing Law
Clinic (LSC)

Attorney and Clinical Instructor Julia Devanthéry of the Housing Law Clinic (LSC) recently won an appeal in the case of Wells Fargo Bank v. Cook, et al. Her clients were two homeowners from Mattapan who had been fighting eviction after the unlawful foreclosure of their home.

The central issue in the case was whether a massive 2008 foreclosure prevention workshop held at Gillette Stadium qualified as a “face-to-face” meeting between lenders and borrowers under the regulations which govern Federal Housing Administration insured mortgages. The Appeals Court concluded that Wells Fargo had failed to demonstrate that the Gillette event met the requirements of the regulations since the bank representative rejected the borrowers’ attempt to make a payment, and didn’t have the requisite authority to modify their loan at the event.

Devathéry, quoted in a Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly article, says “Wells Fargo tried to argue that the HUD regulation merely requires that a lender representative have a meeting in the same room with borrowers,” but that in fact, the regulation contemplates “something much more nuanced and personalized.” Devanthéry says she and her clients are hopeful that the decision will “translate into compliance by FHA-insured lenders to really work with borrowers in a way that allows them to avoid foreclosure if at all possible. In giving FHA-insured mortgages to borrowers, lenders take on additional consumer protection obligations in exchange for mortgage insurance from the federal government. By foreclosing on the Cooks’ home without first complying with the HUD regulations, Wells Fargo is essentially trying to take the benefits of this federally subsidized insurance program, and none of the obligations or responsibilities that go along with it.”

“The win would not have been possible without the work of several outstanding clinical students and the leadership of Housing Clinic director Maureen McDonagh,” Devanthéry said.

You can read the full article on Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly here. (Subscription is required).

CHLPI study finds life-threatening barriers in access to breakthrough Hepatitis C drugs

July 1, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via HLS News

A team of researchers from Harvard Law School’s Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, Brown University’s Department of Medicine, Rhode Island’s Miriam Hospital, Treatment Action Group, and Kirby Institute of Australia, has released findings from a nationwide study of Medicaid policies for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV), which affects over 3 million Americans. The study examined reimbursement criteria for sofosbuvir (Sovaldi), a highly effective medication to cure HCV in the overwhelming majority of patients. The article, which was published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine, details the coverage restrictions put in place by most Medicaid programs, and calls for policy change to improve access to new life-saving HCV treatment.

“Federal Medicaid law requires coverage of sofosbuvir, yet reimbursement criteria for Medicaid programs effectively cut off access to treatment. Intentional or not, the denial of treatment by the overwhelming majority of states goes against the spirit of the federal law,” said Dr. Lynn E. Taylor of Brown University Department of Medicine, lead author of the study.

Continue reading the full story here.

Former President of Harvard Legal Aid Bureau wins Echoing Green Fellowship

June 26, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Community Activism Law Alliance (CALA), headed by former Harvard Legal Aid Bureau President Lam Ho, HLS J.D. ’08, was awarded an Echoing Green Fellowship. The fellowship is awarded to emerging leaders working to bring about positive social change. Of 3,629 applicants, 52 were selected to receive Fellowships.

CALA is a non-profit organization that unites lawyers, communities and activists to bring legal services directly to the most disadvantaged in the Chicago area. Ellen Craig, President of CALA’s Board of Directors, remarked, “CALA’s staff, community partners and Board of Directors are very pleased that Echoing Green, an internationally-recognized nonprofit that is building a global community of emerging leaders in social change, has awarded one of its coveted Global Fellowships to Lam Ho, CALA’s founder and Executive Director. We appreciate Echoing Green’s generous support which will enable CALA to continue to provide our underserved communities access to justice and to pursue social change in collaboration with our community partners.”

Food Law Student Leadership Summit

June 26, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via Food Law and Policy Clinic

Food law and policy is a fast-growing field of interest among law students, legal professionals, and society at large. Communities around the country and the world are searching for ways to improve the environmental, public health, and social impacts of the food system. Law students and lawyers are uniquely situated to make significant contributions to this emerging field. In response, growing numbers of law schools now offer food law and policy courses, operate student food law organizations, have undertaken clinical work related to food policy, and have hosted conferences on various food law and policy topics.

The Food Law Student Leadership Summit is the first conference to convene law students from around the country who share a passion for food law and policy. Participants will hear from national experts about key food law and policy issues related to the environment, health, food safety, and food waste; develop strategies to start or expand student food law organizations; build a national network of food law and policy colleagues; and begin to develop coordinated strategies for addressing some of society’s most pressing food law and policy concerns.

Continue reading here.

Joint Publication Released on Encryption, Online Anonymity and Human Rights

June 23, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via International Human Rights Clinic

The International Human Rights Clinic and Privacy International released a publication today that examines the vital role that encryption and anonymity tools and services play in safeguarding human rights. The 30-page publication, “Securing Safe Spaces Online: encryption, online anonymity, and human rights,” complements a landmark report by the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye.

Kaye’s report, which he will present to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva today, calls on states to ensure security and privacy online by providing “comprehensive protection” through encryption and anonymity tools.

The clinic’s joint publication explores measures that restrict online encryption and anonymity in four particular countries – Morocco, Pakistan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. In all four countries, these restrictions impede private and secure online communication and inhibit free expression. The publication also points to opportunities for governments, the corporate sector, and civil society to eliminate or minimize obstacles to use of encryption and online anonymity.

The Clinic’s collaboration with Privacy International dates back to last fall, when we supported a coalition of NGOs calling for the creation of a new Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy. In March 2015, the Human Rights Council established this new Special Rapporteur.

The Clinic began work on the encryption and anonymity publication this past spring. Clinical students Sarah Lee, JD ’16, and Mark Verstraete, JD ’16, worked on the publication throughout the semester and participated in a meeting of Privacy International’s global partners in April.

Put Lawyers Where They’re Needed

June 19, 2015 / ispaho / 0 Comments

Via the New York Times

OAK PARK, Ill. — MILLIONS of Americans lack crucial legal services. Yet enormous numbers of lawyers are unemployed. Why can’t the supply of lawyers match the demand?

In Nebraska, 20 out of 93 counties have fewer than four lawyers. Eleven counties have no lawyers at all. The Montana Legal Services Association, a nonprofit group that is partly federally funded, reports having only 13 case-handling lawyers for the entire state. Throughout the country, millions of low-income people have no access to free or affordable lawyers, even for life-altering civil matters like child-custody disputes or home foreclosures, where legal representation really matters.

Continue reading the full article here.

Providing clinical and pro bono opportunities to Harvard Law School students

Category: In the News (page 6 of 11)

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Aditya Pai ’17

Sehgal Foundation

Gurgaon, India

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By Alec Karakatsanis, HLS J.D. ’08

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New Hiring Criteria

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