Most law school graduates look forward to seeing their mothers and favorite professors at their commencement ceremonies. Very few see their 4th grade teachers or the mothers of their professors cheering them on as they receive their diplomas. Michael Donohue is the exception.
As staff attorney with the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia for more than three years, Assistant Professor Andrew Manuel Crespo ’08 represented adults and juveniles charged with felonies ranging from armed robberies to homicides. Passionate about the work, he had no plans to become an academic. But early in his career, then-Dean Martha Minow engaged him in a life-changing conversation.
“Tough Cases,” a new book in which 13 trial judges from criminal, civil, probate, and family courts write candid and poignant firsthand accounts of the trials they can’t forget, was the subject of a lively discussion at a panel sponsored by the Harvard Law School Library, which drew a packed house at Wasserstein Hall in October.
After Hurricane Maria roared over Puerto Rico in September 2017, crippling the island where Natalie Trigo Reyes ’19 grew up and where much of her family still lives, she felt “completely overwhelmed.” Within days, however, she put together an event that raised about $40,000 for relief efforts, collected enough emergency goods to fill three large trucks, and joined Harvard Law Assistant Professor Andrew Manuel Crespo ’08 and Lee Branson Mestre of the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs to plan the school’s response to the disaster.
On Thursday, May 25, the Harvard Law School Class of 2018 received their diplomas at a ceremony on Holmes Field, and celebrated their graduation with family, friends, and picture-perfect New England weather.
Now in its second year, the Harvard Law School Public Interest Scavenger Hunt continued its focus on HLS history and trivia, but also highlighted alumni who have done important public interest work.
After Hurricane Maria roared over Puerto Rico in 2017, Puerto Rican native Natalie Trigo Reyes ’19 felt “completely overwhelmed.” Within days, however, she raised $40,000 for relief efforts, collected truckloads of emergency goods, and helped plan the school’s response to the disaster.
A group of 29 Harvard Law School students (led by Natalie Trigo Reyes ’19) traveled to Puerto Rico over spring break to lend a hand to local residents who are still struggling to obtain disaster relief aid.
Mentorships between Harvard Law School professors and the students who followed them into academia have taken many forms over the course of two centuries.
ImeIme Umana ’18, the Harvard Law Review’s 131st president, on how scholarship—and the Law Review itself—have changed through the centuries.
