HLS to hold symposium in honor of Arthur von Mehren

Harvard Law School will host a symposium exploring law and justice in a multistate world. The event will be held in honor of Story Professor of Law Emeritus Arthur Taylor von Mehren’s 80th birthday. The Friday (Sept. 27) symposium will feature discussions on each of von Mehren’s four areas of expertise: comparative law, choice of laws, international jurisdiction and recognition of judgments, and international arbitration. The symposium will be held in Pound Hall, second floor.

The first discussion, to be moderated by James Nafziger of the Willamette Law School, will focus on international jurisdiction and recognition of judgments. Speakers will include Fausto Pocar of the University of Milan and Trevor Hartley of the London School of Economics.

This panel will be followed by a discussion on the choice of laws. Moderated by Dean Symeon Symeonides of the Willamette Law School, the panel will feature Frank Vischer of the University of Basel and Richard Fentiman of Queens College, Cambridge, England.

The third panel will focus on comparative civil law and will be moderated by Columbia Law School Professor George Berman. Panelists will include Denis Tallon of the University of Paris and Judge Konrad Lenaerts of the Court of First Instance of the European Community. A speech on international arbitration by Alan Philip will be followed by a panel discussion on convergence in civil justice and dispute resolution moderated by Harvard Law School Visiting Professor Peter Murray. [hopefully he will have been introduced above

Born on Aug. 10, 1922, in New York City, von Mehren graduated from Harvard College in 1942 and from Harvard Law School in 1945. In 1946, he was awarded his doctorate in government and was appointed assistant professor at the Law School. Von Mehren spent the first three years of his more than 50-year career at Harvard Law School in full-time study of Swiss, German, and French law at the universities of Zurich and Paris. In 1953, he was named a full professor of law at Harvard and in 1976 assumed the Story Professorship. Since 1991, he has been the Story Professor of Law Emeritus.