With students and faculty members joining in the celebration, a delegation from Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, a leading international law firm, came to Harvard Law School on September 18 to formally announce the establishment of the Sullivan & Cromwell Visiting Professorship of Law at HLS. The professorship, which was established last year, was endowed by a generous gift from HLS alumni practicing at the firm, after a fundraising effort led by H. Rodgin Cohen ’68 and Christopher L. Mann ’89.

“The chance to recruit a talented and accomplished professor to visit here is the opportunity to extend the depth and richness of Harvard Law School’s superb faculty. We are honored and grateful that our friends at Sullivan & Cromwell have so generously chosen to enable us to enhance our roster of talented teachers and scholars with this terrific new visiting professorship,” said Martha Minow, Morgan and Helen Chu Dean and Professor of Law.

The inaugural Sullivan & Cromwell Visiting Professors of Law include:

  • Laura Rosenbury ‘97, Professor of Law at Washington University School of Law, who taught courses on Children and the Law, Feminist Legal Theory and Property at HLS during the 2012-2013 academic year. Rosenbury has written extensively on how the law influences private relationships and conduct between adults, between adults and children, and between children. Her research interests also include trusts and estates, family law, and employment discrimination.
  • Justin Driver ’04, Assistant Professor of Law at University of Texas at Austin, School of Law, who is teaching a reading group on Law and Race and a section of the course Constitutional Law: Separation of Powers, Federalism, and Fourteenth Amendment in fall 2013. Driver’s research interests include constitutional law and theory, and the intersection of race and legal institutions, and his scholarly work has appeared in a number of prestigious law journals.
  • George Triantis, the Associate Dean for Strategic Planning and the James and Patricia Kowal Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, who will teach a course on Bankruptcy in the January 2014 term. An expert in the fields of contracts, commercial law, business law, and bankruptcy, Triantis was the Eli Goldston Professor of Law at HLS from 2008 to 2011, and has also taught and held visiting professorships at the University of Virginia, the University of Toronto, the University of Chicago and Columbia.

Cohen, who serves as senior chairman of the firm’s New York office, said that there has always been a very strong bond between Harvard Law School and Sullivan & Cromwell. He noted that 20% of the firm’s partners, including 20% of its women partners, are HLS alumni. In total, more than 100 HLS-trained attorneys — spanning eight decades, from the Class of 1948 to the Class of 2012 — practice at Sullivan & Cromwell. “I graduated from the Law School about a decade ago, and it is thrilling to return on other side of the lectern,” said Driver, the current Sullivan & Cromwell Visiting Professor. “Apart from teaching, I have also particularly enjoyed interacting with the many outstanding scholars working in my fields who help to make this community so intellectually stimulating.”

Faculty members, administrators and students with ties to Sullivan & Cromwell attended the reception on September 18.

Founded in 1879 and headquartered in New York City, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP has more than 800 lawyers in 12 offices, with an international presence in Beijing, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London, Melbourne, Paris, Sydney, and Tokyo. The firm’s clients include industrial and commercial companies, financial institutions, private funds, governments, educational, charitable and cultural institutions, and individuals, estates and trusts. Sullivan & Cromwell has been recognized as a top-tier law firm by US Legal 500, Latinvex, Chambers USA, and Best Lawyers in America, among others, and was honored in June 2013 as the U.S. Leading Diversity Law Firm by American Finance Magazine.