Elizabeth Hidalgo Reese, Yunpoví (Willow Flower), is a nationally recognized scholar of American Indian tribal law, federal Indian law, and U.S. constitutional law, as well as a tribally enrolled citizen of Nambé Pueblo. She served as Senior Policy Advisor for Native Affairs at the White House Domestic Policy Council, where she advised President Biden and helped shape tribal policy. Her legal career includes litigating civil rights cases at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, supporting tribal governments at the National Congress of American Indians, and clerking in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. A graduate of Yale, Cambridge, and Harvard Law School, Professor Reese now teaches at Stanford Law School. As both a policy advisor and scholar, Professor Reese brings a distinctive perspective to questions of tribal sovereignty, civil rights, and constitutional law. Her work offers critical insights into federal Indian law and the legal frameworks that govern the relationship between tribal nations and the United States. In this interview, Professor Reese and the HULR discuss the exclusion of tribal nations from American legal structures, the development of tribal representation, and the broader possibilities for building a more inclusive vision of American democracy.

Professor Eva Micheler is a Professor of Law at the London School of Economics and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Economics in Vienna. She specialises in corporate law, securities regulation, and the evolving legal challenges posed by financial technology. Particularly, Professor Micheler focuses on blockchain and distributed ledger technology, which is the focus of this interview. In recent years, Professor Micheler’s research has probed the legal implications of blockchain-based systems for securities markets and corporate governance. Her work critically examines how traditional legal concepts such as ownership, property rights, and intermediated holdings are challenged and transformed by the rise of decentralized technologies, which underpin cryptocurrency. She has raised important questions about the adequacy of existing private law frameworks to support innovations, such as tokenized assets and decentralized finance.

In this interview, Professor Micheler and the HULR discussed the effect of cryptocurrency on areas of private law such as property law, securities law, and corporate law in Europe and how this impact will likely develop in the coming years.

Sidney Chalhoub is the David and Peggy Rockefeller Professor of History and of African and African American Studies at Harvard College, where he has taught for the past decade. Previously, he spent thirty years teaching at the University of Campinas in Brazil. Chalhoub’s work focuses on 19th and early-20th-century Brazil, particularly the history of slavery, labor, and public health. This interview discusses how Chalhoub approaches social history by drawing upon legal archives and sources. 

Professor Carmel Shachar is currently an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Health Law and Policy Clinic at the Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation at Harvard Law School. Her work focuses on some of the most pressing issues in healthcare today — from expanding access to care for vulnerable and underserved populations to leveraging telehealth and digital health tools to improve patient outcomes. She also studies the application of public health ethics to real-world challenges.

Emily M. Broad Leib is a Clinical Professor of Law, Director of Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, and Founding Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, the nation's first law school clinic dedicated to addressing the diverse array of issues within the U.S.' food system. Through a hands-on approach focused on policy-driven solutions, she has championed community-led food system change, reduction in food waste, food access, and equity and sustainability in food production. In this interview, Broad Leib explores the nuances of the novel field of food law, the successes she's experienced with her Clinic, and opportunities for students interested in the field.

The interview below was conducted in the Spring of 2024. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Michael Jewell is an attorney at Jewell & Associates, PLLC. Having been involved in Texas legislature and public policy for more than 25 years, Jewell’s work focuses primarily on representing clients before state and federal regulatory agencies addressing electricity, telecommunications, and professional regulation. He has worked with national and international corporations, including AT&T, Reliant Energy, Enel X, and Direct Energy, and has participated in the Association of Electric Companies of Texas and the Gulf Coast Power Association. In this interview, Jewell and HULR discuss how the intersection of legal, business, and technological experiences can help navigate the challenges in the energy industry at both a state and national level.

This interview was conducted in the Spring of 2024. It has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Professor Alan Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Professor Dershowitz taught at Harvard Law School for almost 50 years and is well-known for his work in constitutional and criminal law.

Damario Solomon-Simmons is a national civil rights attorney specializing in civil & human rights, racial justice, and wrongful death. Solomon-Simmons has been a practicing attorney for almost 17 years and is currently the Managing Partner of SolomonSimmonsLaw, an Oklahoma-based law firm.

Professor Susan Farbstein is the Director of the International Human Rights Clinic and a Clinical Professor at Harvard Law School. After receiving her B.A from Princeton University, she went on to earn an M.Phil. in International Relations from Cambridge University and a J.D from Harvard Law School. Her current work focuses on enforced disappearances in Mexico, corporate accountability for human rights abuses in the seafood supply chain, and Torture Victim Protection Act litigation in U.S. courts against perpetrators of extrajudicial killings. Other recent work includes investigations of human rights violations in The Gambia, the right to water and the right to education in South Africa, as well as efforts to advance gender equity within human rights organizations and institutions.

Britt Cramer is a litigation lawyer in the Chicago office of Kirkland & Ellis. She has worked on a variety of cases after graduating from Harvard Law School regarding the False Claims Act, product liability, and commercial disputes. At HLS, she was editor of the Harvard Law Review. Cramer emphasizes the value of hearing about other people’s experiences to determine the path one wants to take. HULR is grateful to be able to speak with Ms. Cramer about her background, current job, and some casework. The two case highlights are Teva Pharmaceuticals v. United Healthcare and Doe v. Macleod. Both have different problems and ways of addressing a solution, showing that business litigation lawyers have to be prepared for any type of case they may work on.

Andreas Føllesdal is a Professor of Political Philosophy at the Faculty of Law at the University of Oslo. Føllesdal’s work focuses particularly on international law through a philosophical lens. He has explored matters related to distributive justice, human rights in court, legitimacy and sovereignty of states, and international legal theory. In this interview, Føllesdal and HULR discussed how part of the solution for many contemporary problems lies in weaving through philosophy and law, and learning from other models of government and ways of thinking.