Harvard Law School - Notable Alumni

Notable Alumni

Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th President of the United States, and Barack Obama, the 44th and current President of the United States, graduated from HLS. Obama was the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review and is now the first African-American President of the United States. His wife Michelle Obama is also a graduate of Harvard Law School. Ma Ying-jeou, the current president of the Republic of China (Taiwan), received his SJD from Harvard. Past presidential candidates who are HLS graduates include Michael Dukakis and Ralph Nader. The plurality of US Senators with law degrees, and a significant number of Massachusetts governors, graduated from HLS as well.

Fourteen of the school's graduates have served on the Supreme Court of the United States, more than any other law school, and another four justices attended the school without graduating. Six of the current nine members of the court attended HLS: Chief Justice John Roberts, and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, who also served as the Dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009. Ginsburg transferred to and graduated from Columbia Law School. Past Supreme Court justices from Harvard Law School include David Souter, Harry Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, Lewis Powell (LLM), and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., among others.

Attorneys General Alberto Gonzales and Janet Reno, among others, and noted federal judges Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Michael Boudin of the First Circuit Court of Appeals, Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and Pierre Leval of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, among many other judicial figures, graduated from the school. The current Commonwealth Solicitor General of Australia Stephen Gageler SC graduated from Harvard with an LL.M.

Famous legal academics who graduated from Harvard Law include Erwin Chemerinsky, Ronald Dworkin, Susan Estrich, Arthur R. Miller, William L. Prosser, John Sexton, Kathleen Sullivan, Cass Sunstein, Michael Kinsley, Gerald L. Neuman, and Laurence Tribe.

In addition to their achievements in law and politics, Harvard Law alumni have also excelled in other fields. Many have gone on to become influential journalists, writers, media and business leaders and even professional athletes.