ALSO INSIDE: HarvardThe curriculum focuses on Law problem-solving Summer 2010 bulletin REMIXING LANGDELL The law library goes digital c1_HLB_summer10_09 bcg.indd c1 5/6/10 2:24 PM IN THIS ISSUE volume 61 | number 2 | summer 2010 1 FROM THE DEAN 5 page 41 2 LETTERS 3 HEARSAY 4 INSIDE THE CLASSROOM A first-of-its-kind problem-solving workshop prepares 1Ls for the reality 26a Remixing Langdell of law practice. A new library for the 21st century 8 ABSTRACT Stephenson uses a Legal Realist lens to look at judicial decision-making; 36a Hard Hats Required Alstott defends the inheritance tax as family friendly. The risky business of repairing the U.S. 11 STUDENT SNAPSHOT financial system Three LL.M. students recall their experiences in Afghanistan and share their hopes for its future. 41a A Prescription for Change 15 ON THE BOOKSHELVES Rebecca Onie ’03 created a program that takes Mnookin on bargaining with the devil; a holistic approach to treating low-income It’s politics, says Tushnet, that drives constitutional change; State control of patients; one “genius grant” later, she’s the Web is on the rise, and it’s not just determined to change the health care system. the usual suspects. 20 OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM 44a HLS clinic helps secure access to A Most Disarming Warrior health care for some of society’s most A U.N. advocate is fighting to protect vulnerable. children from armed conflict. 23 NOW ONLINE HLS clinical students and law firms provide assistance to online journalists. assistant dean for communications 24 THE TEACHING TRACK Robb London ’86 Olin Fellowships pave the way for editor HLS grads who want to teach law. Emily Newburger 48 HISTORY MAKERS managing editor Linda Grant Poland’s first foreign minister after design director the fall of communism deftly straddled Ronn Campisi the divide between East and West. editorial assistance 49 CLASS NOTES Stephanie Ehresman ’10, Bruce Ramer ’58 splits his time be- Emily Dupraz, Jenny Lackey, Christine Perkins, Lori Ann Saslav, tween entertainment giants and pro 5 page 16 Erica Sheftman, Marc Steinberg bono causes; Dan Chill ’70 travels the editorial office world to bring back a forgotten genre; Harvard Law Bulletin, 125 Mount Auburn St., Cambridge, MA 02138 Paul Butler ’86 spins a hip-hop theory e-mail: [email protected] of justice; Raj Kumar LL.M. ’00 starts website: 5 page 11 www.law.harvard.edu/news/bulletin a global law school; Ory Okolloh ’05 send changes of address to: brings disaster relief to Haiti, from [email protected] The Harvard Law Bulletin (ISSN 1053-8186) is thousands of miles away. published two times a year by Harvard Law School, 1563 Massachusetts Ave., 62 IN MEMORIAM Cambridge, MA 02138. © 2010 by the President and 63 =1,000 WORDS Fellows of Harvard College. A white tern and a life’s turns Printed in the U.S.A. 64 SPRING REUNIONS on the cover: Heather Casteel ’11 66 LEADERSHIP PROFILE Photograph by Kathleen Dooher John F. “Jack” Cogan Jr. ’52 68 GALLERY 30% Night vision: A new building emerges. c2-01_HLB_Summer 10_09_r1.indd c2 5/11/10 11:07 AM FROM THE DEAN Solving Problems, Locally and Globally Creative problem-solving is the hallmark of superb lawyering. The stories in this Bulletin include a profile of Rebecca Onie ’03, whose questions about how best to meet the health needs of low-income patients started during her college years and led to a holistic approach to the problem, a MacArthur “genius” award and a new direction for health care reform. How to adapt the larg- Byron Georgiou ’74, Norm est private law library in Champ ’89, and Professors the world to the digital Allen Ferrell ’95, Jesse Fried revolution is a problem with ’92, Lucian Bebchuk LL.M. opportunities. Cyberlaw ’80 S.J.D. ’84, Bill Stuntz and visionary Professor John Elizabeth Warren each offer Palfrey’s (’01) leadership of insights into the financial the HLS library has intro- crisis and regulatory op- duced an in-house labora- tions. tory for digital innovation The HLS faculty as a and on-staff statisticians as- whole tackled the problem sisting faculty and students of improving legal educa- with empirical research. tion with the winter term All of Harvard University’s launch of the 1L Problem libraries are now benefiting Solving Workshop, experi- through Palfrey’s ideas and enced for the first time by all advice from his work on a 560 first-year students. Us- universitywide library ing role-play, teamwork and SHOUT task force. engagement with practicing How attorneys, the workshop “ The workshop challenged students to tackle should we challenged students to tack- cases from the very beginning—when clients make sense le cases from the very begin- walk in the door with a problem.” of the finan- ning—when clients walk in cial crisis the door with a problem— of ’08 and and to use creativity and Grossman ’88 and the no failure to apply sustained ’09? What analytical rigor in generat- Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, thinking will be the cause of solutions can ing real, workable solutions. work that responds directly unsolved problems. work and what measures Here, the workshop moved to the financial crisis. can prevent a recurrence? beyond the hypothetical and A new round of problem- These challenges engage theoretical, and the engage- solving is well under way Dean Martha Minow many HLS faculty, students ment of more than 100 prac- as the faculty involved in and alumni. Professor Hal ticing attorneys in instruct- the successful course assess P.S. As this issue of the Scott has taken his analyses ing and giving feedback ways to make it even better. Bulletin was going to press, to the Senate; Professor proved especially valuable In all of these and other news broke that President Howell Jackson ’82 sup- to students. efforts, we are constantly Barack Obama ’91 had ports a financial services One of the problems testing Voltaire’s wonder- nominated my predecessor, oversight council—and flags studied in the course—how ful maxim: “No problem Elena Kagan ’86, to the U.S. for special attention the to protect tenants living in can withstand the assault Supreme Court. We are monitoring of international foreclosed homes—was of sustained thinking.” Or, immensely proud of our firms that can elude atten- drawn from the vital work at the very least, we are at- former dean, colleague, tion by any single nation. of Clinical Professor David tempting to make sure that teacher and our friend! GFor more on law schools’ potential for creative problem-solving, see the text and video of Dean Minow’s recent talk “The Past, Present, and Future of Legal Education” at http://tinyurl.com/Minowtalk. c2-01_HLB_Summer 10_09_r1.indd 1 5/11/10 11:07 AM LETTERS BY LEWIS I. RICE EMERGENCY EXCEPTION DISTURBING of “Henry Kissinger, On Jan. 22, 2009, President Barack Obama ’91 signed Commendably, Professor Philip an executive order mandating that individuals detained in armed conflict will “be treated hu- Richard Nixon and manely and shall not be subjected to violence to life and person.” The order also established a task Heymann ’60 proposes establishing force to determine, after years of debate over the their cohorts” who treatment of detainees since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the most appropriate way to acquire intel- ligence that would protect the nation. ¶ Harvard “the world’s best noncoercive Law School Professor Philip Heymann ’60 had an he seems to feel answer. And his proposal may soon become the standard for the how the United States handles interrogation body” [“A Question interrogations to prevent future would be well served terrorist attacks. ¶ Last summer, A QUESTION OF INTERROGATION Heymann met with the heads of the CIA, the FBI and the Special of Interrogation,” Winter 2010] and Task Force on Interrogations and Transfer Policies breaking rocks in some to present his idea: that the government should Philip establish “the world’s best noncoercive inter- Heymann stresses that “the United States should rogation body,” he says. It would bring together proposes a federal penitentiary. top interrogators from the FBI, the CIA and the new model for military who would mobilize anywhere in the intelligence gathering always abide by its statutory and treaty in the fight While he’s at it, he against obligations.” But, disturbingly, he also terrorism takes a crack at their favors “an emergency exception that “ideological offspring would allow the president to authorize 26 harvard law bulletin winter 2010 IllustrationIllust by edel rodriguez winter 2010 harvard law bulletin 27 like … Cheney, lesser coercive techniques” under c2-37_HLB_Wntr10_03.indd 26 12/14/09 6:30 PcM2-37_HLB_Wntr10_03.indd 27 12/14/09 6:30 PM Rumsfeld and Yoo.” some circumstances. That sounds like SO FAR, ONLY THE WORKING CLASS HELD Mr. Stolzberg’s rancor appears to “torture lite,” which Sister Dianna RESPONSIBLE FOR PRISONER ABUSE be directed exclusively at Republican Ortiz [who was abducted and tortured I can only applaud Philip Heymann’s administrations, but in his call for in Guatemala] calls “an obscenity”; proposal to establish a specialized impartiality he overlooks the Truman and it apparently rests on the popular interrogation unit that would avoid the administration’s atomic bombing but false assumption that coercion systematic use of torture—so-called of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the elicits accurate, timely information “coercive” interrogation techniques— fire bombing of other Japanese cities more effectively than time-tested, that was our government’s policy for a directed by General Curtis LeMay, all of noncoercive methods do. number of years. But the logic of his which resulted in thousands of civilian The underlying problem seems to notion that those who designed, deaths.