all Harvard Law School stories

Lessons from past explored to expedite future research

50443248 — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:22:42 -0400

People, knowledge, communication, and capitalism were front and center as authorities on innovation sought to shed light on ways to speed up the development of new medical treatments from discoveries in the lab.

The speakers, who drew on lessons from the computer industry and from past startup ventures, were part of the “Harvard Medical School Dean’s Symposium on Clinical and Translational Research,” sponsored by Harvard Catalyst: The Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center.

Harvard Catalyst grants encourage greater faculty collaboration

50443248 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:28:22 -0400

Scientists from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics are measuring how patients’ posture affects MRI imaging of their breathing.

NIH awards Harvard Medical School $117.5 million, five-year grant for patient-centered research

404132862 — Thu, 29 May 2008 12:42:32 -0400

The National Institutes of Health today announced that Harvard Medical School (HMS) will receive $117.5 million over the next five years for the establishment of a Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC) that will transform patient-oriented, laboratory-to-bedside research at HMS and its affiliated hospitals.

'Digital immigrants' teaching 'digital natives'

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 09:46:42 -0400

Students coming into universities today are 'digital natives' and fundamentally different in their use of technology than the 'digital immigrants' who teach them, according to John Palfrey, executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

Legal, ethical limits to bioengineering debated

50443248 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:43:57 -0400

It is a truism that "politics makes strange bedfellows," but late Tuesday afternoon (March 20), in the Ames Courtroom of Harvard Law School's (HLS) Austin Hall, bioethics made two sets of philosophical bedfellows as strange as any Washington has seen.

The panelists for a discussion titled "Re-engineering Human Biology: What Should Be the Legal and Ethical Limits?" were Ronald M. Dworkin, Leon R. Kass, Richard A. Posner, and Michael Sandel. Based on the bodies of their past work, Dworkin and Sandel, "liberals" by most standards, and Kass and Posner, generally seen as staunch conservatives, would have been expected to pair off together.

MacArthur Foundation honors Harvard faculty members, Radcliffe fellow

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:28:04 -0400

Harvard faculty members and a Radcliffe fellow probing the mysteries of stem cells, the early universe, the modern practice of surgery, and the significance of public sights and modern ruins were honored Sept. 19 with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's $500,000, no-strings-attached "genius grants."

The four are Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology Kevin Eggan, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management and Assistant Professor of Surgery Atul Gawande, Professor of Astronomy and of Physics Matias Zaldarriaga, and Radcliffe fellow Anna Schuleit.

The four join 21 other MacArthur Foundation fellows engaged in a broad spectrum of endeavors - from deep sea exploring to journalism to sculpting - who have in common creativity and originality.

Berkman Center helps launch StopBadware campaign

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:24:14 -0400

The problems caused by badware have very serious implications, both for every day use of computers, and for the long-term viability of the open Internet. On Jan. 25, 2006, the Berkman Center, the Oxford Internet Institute, Consumer Reports WebWatch, and a wide range of corporate sponsors announced the StopBadware.org initiative, a project aimed at stopping the creation of badware - a.k.a. spyware, malware, or deceptive adware.

In the short term, the goals of the project are ambitious but straightforward - create a community of anti-badware volunteers and researchers who will collaborate to create a clearinghouse of data and research on badware, and share that data with the world. The project Web site is http:// www.StopBadware.org. The project also will investigate the possibilities of creating a kind of "software stethoscope," which when installed by millions of users would give a global peak into the health of the Internet and the PCs connected to it.

Feelings are key to negotiation

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:40:51 -0400

In any negotiation, says Roger Fisher, the Samuel Williston Professor Emeritus of Law and the director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, "there are a handful of things you can easily do, and you'd be dumb not to do them." Expressing appreciation for one's interlocutor is one of them.

And appreciation is one of the five "core concerns" that Fisher and his co-author Daniel Shapiro, associate director of the Harvard Negotiation Project, have identified as essential to address whenever parties get together to work out a deal, whether it's the handoff of children by one half of a divorced couple to the other or a labor contract or a peace treaty.

Anyone in a negotiation wants to feel appreciated, Fisher and Shapiro maintain. They also want to feel "affiliated," want to feel some personal connection to others. Negotiators also want to preserve, and preferably expand, their autonomy. They want their status acknowledged: Perhaps this is a function of their rank within an organization, or of their specialized knowledge or institutional memory. And they want to choose and play a fulfilling role within the negotiation.

When either side in a negotiation feels these core concerns are not being addressed, the result is negative emotions, such as anger, fear, and guilt, which trigger competitive action - including old-style "I want mine" kind of bargaining. When those core concerns are addressed, positive emotions, leading to cooperative action, are fostered, and the result is much likelier to be a "win-win" agreement.

Stem cell research debate continues

50443248 — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:40:16 -0400

Stem cell research is a complicated subject, not only scientifically but ethically as well. This past Friday (April 15) a debate at Harvard Law School promised to shed light on both aspects of this urgent issue, but probably ended up raising as many questions as it answered.

Psychology of economics

50443248 — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:53:09 -0400

The much-touted concept of "interdisciplinary collaboration" was more than a concept last week at the Eric M. Mindich Conference on Experimental Social Science. Titled "Action Research in Psychology and Economics," the conference - held at the Harvard Law School on Friday and Saturday (March 4 and 5) - was the first major event to be sponsored by Harvard's new Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Developed by Harvard Professor of Economics Sendhil Mullainathan and psychology professor Tim Wilson of the University of Virginia, the conference demonstrated how methods from psychology and economics can combine to achieve common research goals.

Research in brief

50443248 — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:23:17 -0400

Dramatic gains for American Indians

Identified for decades as the poorest group in the United States, American Indians living on reservations made substantial gains, both economically and socially, during the final decade of the 20th century. A new report released by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at the Kennedy School of Government compiles the data from the 1990 and 2000 U.S. Censuses for 15 key socioeconomic indicators. The data on measures ranging from income and poverty to unemployment, education, and housing conditions indicate that although substantial gaps remain between America's Native population and the rest of U.S. society, rapid economic and social development is taking place among gaming and non-gaming tribes alike.

New study suggests staggered boards hurt shareholders

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:27:38 -0400

Staggered boards hurt shareholders of hostile bid targets even when a majority of the board is made of independent directors, and they do not appear to benefit shareholders of targets that are acquired in a negotiated acquisition, concludes a study conducted by Harvard Law School professors Lucian Bebchuk, John Coates, and Guhan Subramanian. This research expands upon an earlier study by the three Harvard professors, which provided the first empirical evidence about how staggered boards affect the outcome of hostile bids. The research found that companies with a staggered board were much more likely to remain independent and block value-increasing bids and that staggered boards produced a loss of 8 percent to 10 percent of corporate value for target-company shareholders.

New research questions competition in corporate charters

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:27:36 -0400

The dominant state in attracting the incorporations of publicly traded companies is, and has long been, the state of Delaware. Although home to less than one-third of one percent of the U.S. population, Delaware plays a central role in setting corporate governance rules for the nation's publicly traded companies. "The widely accepted justification for the existing state of affairs is that Delaware's dominant role is a product of its winning a competition among states for providing desirable corporate law rules," says Harvard Law Professor Lucian Bebchuk.