RONALD S. SULLIVAN JR.
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Professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. joined Harvard’s law faculty in July 2007. His areas of interest include criminal law, criminal procedure, legal ethics, and race theory. Prior to teaching at Harvard, Professor Sullivan served on the faculty of the Yale Law School, where, after his first year teaching, he won the law school’s award for outstanding teaching. Professor Sullivan is the faculty director of the Harvard Criminal Justice Institute. He also is a founding fellow of the Jamestown Project at Yale.
Professor Sullivan is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Morehouse College, and the Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Black Law Students Association and as a general editor of the Harvard BlackLetter Law Review.
After graduating Harvard, Professor Sullivan spent a year in Nairobi, Kenya as a Visiting Attorney for the Law Society of Kenya. In that capacity, he sat on a committee charged with drafting a new constitution for Kenya. He also worked with the Kenya Human Rights Commission, documenting human rights violations throughout Kenya.
Professor Sullivan returned to the United States where he was employed as a staff attorney for the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS). He represented hundreds of clients in thousands of matters, ranging from juvenile delinquency cases to first-degree murder cases.
After leaving PDS, Professor Sullivan went into private practice where he specialized in complex civil and white-collar criminal litigation. He worked with the D.C. law firms of Baach Robinson & Lewis, and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom.
In 2000, Professor Sullivan returned to PDS as its General Counsel where he served until his appointment as Director in June 2002. As Director of PDS, Professor Sullivan served as its chief executive officer, employed over 200 people, and managed a federal appropriation of approximately $30 million. In that capacity, Professor Sullivan testified before the United States Senate, the United States House of Representatives, and the Council of the District of Columbia on a range of criminal law issues. Professor Sullivan continues to testify before the Congress on various issues of national import. In 2006, Professor Sullivan testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on the nomination of Samuel A. Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court with respect to Judge Alito’s Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.
Professor Sullivan has provided legal commentary for CNN, FoxNews, and PBS on topics ranging from the Impeachment of President Clinton to the Kobe Bryant criminal proceedings.
Professor Sullivan represents clients in local and federal courts all over the United States. His clients range from national political leaders to sports figures to one of the Jena Six defendants.
Professor Sullivan lives in Newton, MA with his wife, Stephanie Robinson, and child, Ronald III. Professor Sullivan was born and raised in Gary, Indiana.
CHARLES J. OGLETREE, JR.
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Charles Ogletree, the Harvard Law School Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, and Founding and Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, is a prominent legal theorist who has made an international reputation by taking a hard look at complex issues of law and by working to secure the rights guaranteed by the Constitution for everyone equally under the law. The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, named in honor of the visionary lawyer who spearheaded the litigation in Brown v. Board of Education, opened in September 2005, and focuses on a variety of issues relating to race and justice, and will sponsor research, hold conferences, and provide policy analysis.
Professor Ogletree’s most recent book, co-edited with Professor Austin Sarat of Amherst college is From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America, was published by New York University Press in May 2006. His historical memoir, All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education, was published by W.W. Norton & Company in April 2004.
Professor Ogletree is a native of Merced, California, where he attended public schools. Professor Ogletree earned an M.A. and B.A. (with distinction) in Political Science from Stanford University, where he was Phi Beta Kappa. He also holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
In 2008, the National Law Journal named Professor Ogletree one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America. In 2006, Professor Ogletree was named by Ebony Magazine as one of the 100+ Most Influential Black Americans. He was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame for the National Black Law Students Association, where he served as National President from 1977-1978. Professor Ogletree also received the first ever Rosa Parks Civil Rights Award given by the City of Boston, the Hugo A. Bedau Award given by the Massachusetts Anti-Death Penalty Coalition, and Morehouse College’s Gandhi, King, Ikeda Community Builders Prize.
Professor Ogletree has been married to his fellow Stanford graduate, Pamela Barnes, since 1975. They are the proud parents of two children, Charles Ogletree III and Rashida Ogletree. The Ogletrees live in Cambridge and are members of St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church.