At Harvard, law students learn while reaching out
“Reaching out to others is how you find out who you really are,” said Daniel Nagin, vice dean of experiential and clinical education and faculty director of the WilmerHale Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School (HLS). He was quoting the late HLS Professor Gary Bellow, LL.B. ’60, who in 1979 co-founded the Jamaica Plain center with his wife, senior lecturer in law Jeanne Charn, J.D. ’70. On April 5, Nagin and others celebrated the center’s 40th anniversary, and the quote strikes at the heart of the center’s mission of improving the legal profession through experiential learning while working with community organizations to enact real and lasting change. Transformational change may be possible only through such a cooperative effort, said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, J.D. ’92. Giving the keynote address at the celebration, she pointed out that not only have more than 40,000 people used the center’s services over the...