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general: authors
About the Authors

These materials were developed by seven members of the Harvard law faculty (the late Abram Chayes, William Fisher, Morton Horwitz, Frank Michelman, Martha Minow, Charles Nesson, and Todd Rakoff) assisted by staff affiliated with LEXIS®-NEXIS®. Adaptation for the WorldWideWeb was done by Thomas R. Bruce of Cornell's Legal Information Institute.

Abram Chayes

The late Abram Chayes was Felix Frankfurter Professor Emeritus at Harvard Law School. Professor Chayes began teaching at Harvard in 1965.

Professor Chayes earned an A.B. magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard 1943. LL.B., magna cum laude, Harvard Law School 1949. Professor Chayes has served as Associate General Counsel of President's Materials Policy Commission, Law Clerk to Mr. Justice Frankfurter, Associate with Covington & Burling, Legal Adviser to the U.S. State Department and Professor of Law since 1965.

His publications include:

Global Engagement: Cooperation and Security in the 21st Century, edited by Janne E. Nolan, The Brookings Institution, 1994

Abram Chayes and Antonia H. Chayes, Alternatives to Escalation, The United States and the Use of Force in the Post-Cold War Era, published by The Aspen Institute, 1995

Abram Chayes and Antonia H. Chayes, The New Sovereignty: Compliance with International Regulatory Agreements, 1995

Abram Chayes and Antonia H. Chayes, Preventing Conflict in the Post-Communist World:

Mobilizing International and Regional Organizations, (Washington, D.C.Brookings, 1996)

Chayes, Chayes, and Olson, eds., Preventing Conflict in the Former Soviet Space (1996)

Abram Chayes and Antonia H. Chayes, After the End, in The World and Yugoslavia's Wars: Implications for International Politics, Richard Ullman, ed., (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1996)

Chayes, Chayes, and Raach, Beyond Reform: Restructuring for More Effective Conflict Intervention, (Cambridge, MA: Conflict Management Group Occasional Paper Series, November 1996)

William Fisher

Professor William Fisher received his undergraduate degree (in American Studies) from Amherst College and his graduate degrees (J.D. and Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization) from Harvard University. Between 1982 and 1984, he served as a law clerk to Judge Harry T. Edwards of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. Since 1984, he has taught at Harvard Law School, where he is currently Professor of Law and Director of the Harvard Program on Legal History. His academic honors include a Danforth Postbaccalaureate Fellowship (1978-1982) and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California (1992-1993). He is the author (with Morton Horwitz and Thomas Reed) of American Legal Realism (Oxford Univ. Press, 1993), The Law of the Land (forthcoming from Oxford Univ. Press), and many articles on property law, intellectual-property law, and American legal history.

Morton Horwitz

Morton J. Horwitz is Charles Warren Professor at Harvard Law School, where he teaches Torts and American Legal History. Professor Horwitz has taught at Harvard since 1970. Professor Horwitz's books include: Transformation of American Law, 1780-1960 and Transformation of American Law, 1870-1960. He has also co-edited (with William Fisher III and Thomas Reed) American Legal Realism.

Frank Michelman

Frank Michelman is Robert Walmsley University Professor, Harvard University. Since 1963, he has regularly taught first year Property courses at Harvard Law School, and more recently has taught courses on "Property Rights in Morals and Law" for Harvard undergraduates. He has published numerous articles on property law in relation to more general ideas about rights and social utility, starting with "Property, Utility, and Fairness: Comments on the Ethical Foundations of 'Just Compensation' Law," 80 Harvard Law Review 1165 (1967). Professor Michelman also teaches and writes in the fields of constitutional law and democratic theory. Over the past few years, he has participated in several discussions among lawyers and judges in South Africa concerning that country's newly established constitutional order.

Martha Minow

Martha Minow is a Professor of Law, Harvard Law School, where she teaches Family Law and Civil Procedure. She is the author of Making All the Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion, and American Law (Cornell University Press, 1990) and Not Only For Myself: Identity, Politics and Law (The New Press, 1997).

She has served on the Boards of the American Bar Foundation, the W.T. Grant Foundation, the Judge David Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, The Covenant Foundation, The Family Center (Somerville, MA) and the Judge Baker Children's Center, and on the Carnegie Commission Task Force on Education in the Early Years. Before entering teaching, Professor Minow was a law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, and for Judge David Bazelon. She received her J.D. from Yale, her Ed.M. from Harvard, and her A.B. from the University of Michigan.

Charles Nesson

Charles Nesson is the William F. Weld Professor of Law, and Director of the Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. He earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his law degree from Harvard Law School.

Before joining the Harvard faculty, he clerked for Mr. Justice Harlan on the United States Supreme Court, and served as Special Assistant to John Doar, the Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice. He is known for his work in Evidence, a subject on which he has authored numerous articles and a leading casebook.

Throughout his career, Professor Nesson has participated in cases of national interest. He was an organizer of the Lawyer's Military Defense Committee, which provided counsel to servicemen in Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and was counsel in prominent cases related to the war, including United States v. Dellinger, United States v. Berrigan, United States v. Ellsberg, and Halperin v. Kissinger. In recent years he has been counsel in several prominent toxic tort cases, including Anderson v. Grace, the subject of Jonathan Harr's best-selling book, A Civil Action, and Daubert v. Merrell-Dow, in which the Supreme Court articulated the judicial "gatekeeping" role to insure that judicial verdicts are not based on unreliable science. Professor Nesson has organized and is currently conducting a series of conferences for state judges exploring the contours of their gatekeeping role.

Professor Nesson has been a moderator of the Fred Friendly Seminars since their inception in 1974, including the acclaimed PBS series The Constitution: That Delicate Balance, Managing Our Miracles: Health Care in America, and Liberty and Its Limits. He has hosted the Court TV series, The Art and Science of Litigation.

Professor Nesson has pioneered the use of technology in teaching at Harvard Law School. He directed the Harvard Evidence Film Project, which produced films used in teaching. He is a member of the Harvard Bridge Project, which is producing an integrated electronic first year law program. He initiated the school's Seminar on the Internet, co-edited Borders in Cyberspace (MIT Press, 1997), and is Conference Chairman for Harvard's Internet & Society Conference '98.

Todd Rakoff

Todd Rakoff is Byrne Professor of Administrative Law at Harvard University, and co-author of a leading casebook on Administrative Law. He has also taught contracts to first year students for many years, and written in that field as well. Deeply involved in the development of legal education, he has chaired curricular reform committees at Harvard, and professional development activities for the Association of American Law Schools. When not working, he likes to cook.