Professorship in Public Interest Law Established by Wassersteins

The Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Law Professorship has been established at the Law School, according to Law School Dean Robert Clark.

The professorship is supported by a $2.3 million fund from the family of Morris Wasserstein, a New York City businessman who has been active in support of charitable causes. His wife, Lola, and their children (Wendy Wasserstein, Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright; Georgette Levis, owner of the Wilburton Inn in Manchester, Vt.; Sandra Wasserstein Meyer, senior partner at the consulting firm of Clark & Weinstock, who was recently profiled in The New Yorker as a leading businesswoman; and Bruce Wasserstein, chairman and CEO of the investment banking firm of Wasserstein Perella & Co.) have all been active in charitable causes.

"Harvard Law School's leadership in the area of public interest law will continue through the generous assistance of the family of Morris Wasserstein," said Clark. "The Wasserstein Professorship will support valuable teaching and research in this important area of law, benefiting students and society at large."

Previous contributions by the Wasserstein family have established two other public service programs at the School. The Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Summer Fellowship Program has, since 1992, supported 134 Harvard Law students who have pursued summer public interest work. The Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Fellowship Program has, since 1990, supported visits by leading public interest practitioners to inform Harvard Law students about public interest careers and to counsel those interested in such work. Fellows have included Neal Kravitz, principal deputy Democratic special counsel to the Senate Whitewater investigation; Victor Bolden, NAACP Legal Defense Fund assistant counsel; and Sally Goldfarb, NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund senior staff attorney.

Speaking for the Wasserstein family, Sandra Wasserstein Meyer said, "The Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Law Professorship is intended to further enhance the development of an outstanding public interest program at Harvard and to complement the Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Fellowship and the Public Interest Summer Fellowship programs. The Wasserstein family takes great pride in this most recent program and continues to support Harvard Law School's dedication to the area of public interest."

Bruce Wasserstein is a graduate of Harvard Law School (Class of 1970) and a member of the six-person Executive Committee for the School's recently completed fundraising campaign. While at the Law School, he worked for public interest groups, including Ralph Nader's, and, upon his graduation from the Law and Business schools, received a Knox Fellowship from Harvard to study at Cambridge University. During that period he worked on two books with Mark Green (also Law School Class of 1970), currently New York City's public advocate.

Harvard Law School supports one of the largest public interest law programs in the country. More than half of all second- and third-year students engage in real-world practice for academic credit, many of them at one of the School's three teaching clinics: the Criminal Justice Institute, the Cambridge-Somerville Legal Services Immigration Clinic in Cambridge, and the Hale and Dorr Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. The School has spent approximately $5 million in the last five years on its loan forgiveness program for graduates who undertake low paying, law-related public service work.

The Harvard Law School has graduated many lawyers who have made careers in public interest and public service. Notable former students include consumer activist Nader; former U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett; U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Deval Patrick; former American Red Cross President Elizabeth Dole; U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno; U.S. Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter, Anthony Kennedy, and Antonin Scalia; City Year founders Michael Brown and Alan Khazei; and MacArthur Foundation Fellowship recipient Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Alabama Capital Representation Resource Center and the Equal Justice Initiative.