Laurence Henry Tribe is a professor of constitutional law

Constitutional law

Constitutional law is the body of law which defines the relationship of different entities within a state, namely, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary....

 at Harvard Law School and the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard University. He also works with the firm Massey & Gail LLP on a variety of matters.

Tribe is widely recognized as a leading liberal scholar of constitutional law. He is the author of American Constitutional Law (1978), a treatise in that field, and has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court 35 times.

Early life and education

Tribe was born in Shanghai

Shanghai ghetto

The Shanghai ghetto, formally known as the , was an area of approximately one square mile in the Hongkou District of Japanese-occupied Shanghai, to which about 20,000 Jewish refugees were relocated by the Japanese-issued Proclamation Concerning Restriction of Residence and Business of Stateless...

 to parents of Eastern European Jewish descent. He attended Abraham Lincoln High School

Abraham Lincoln High School (San Francisco)

Abraham Lincoln High School is a California Distinguished, fully accredited comprehensive public high school located in the Sunset District of San Francisco, California...

 in San Francisco, California. He holds an A.B. in mathematics, summa cum laude from Harvard College (1962), and a J.D.

Juris Doctor

Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...

, magna cum laude from Harvard Law School (1966), where he was a member of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau

Harvard Legal Aid Bureau

The Harvard Legal Aid Bureau is the oldest student-run legal services office in the country, founded in 1913. Located at 23 Everett Street in Cambridge, MA, the Bureau's mission is to provide an important community service while giving student attorneys the opportunity to develop professional...

. Tribe was a national champion policy debater at Harvard, and later a college coach and high school summer institute teacher.

Career

Tribe served as a law clerk

Law clerk

A law clerk or a judicial clerk is a person who provides assistance to a judge in researching issues before the court and in writing opinions. Law clerks are not court clerks or courtroom deputies, who are administrative staff for the court. Most law clerks are recent law school graduates who...

 to Matthew Tobriner on the California Supreme Court from 1966–67, and as a law clerk to Potter Stewart

Potter Stewart

Potter Stewart was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. During his tenure, he made, among other areas, major contributions to criminal justice reform, civil rights, access to the courts, and Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.-Education:Stewart was born in Jackson, Michigan,...

 of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1967–68. He joined the Harvard Law School faculty as an assistant professor in 1968, receiving tenure in 1972.

In addition to his record as a scholar, Tribe is noted for his extensive support of liberal legal causes. He is one of the co-founders of the liberal American Constitution Society, the law and policy organization formed to counter the conservative Federalist Society

Federalist Society

The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, most frequently called simply the Federalist Society, is an organization of conservatives seeking reform of the current American legal system in accordance with a textualist and/or originalist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution...

, and is one of a number of scholars at Harvard Law School who have expressed their support for animal rights

Animal rights

Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...

. He has argued many high-profile cases, including one for Al Gore

Al Gore

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....

 during the disputed U.S. presidential election, 2000. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Tribe's client in Bowers v. Hardwick

Bowers v. Hardwick

Bowers v. Hardwick, , is a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld, in a 5-4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults when applied to homosexuals. Seventeen years after Bowers v. Hardwick, the Supreme Court...

in 1986, holding that a Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

 state law criminalizing sodomy

Sodomy

Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...

, as applied to consensual acts between persons of the same sex, did not violate fundamental liberties under the principle of substantive due process

Due process

Due process is the legal code that the state must venerate all of the legal rights that are owed to a person under the principle. Due process balances the power of the state law of the land and thus protects individual persons from it...

. However, he was vindicated in 2003, when the Supreme Court overruled Bowers in Lawrence v. Texas

Lawrence v. Texas

Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 , is a landmark United States Supreme Court case. In the 6-3 ruling, the Court struck down the sodomy law in Texas and, by proxy, invalidated sodomy laws in the thirteen other states where they remained in existence, thereby making same-sex sexual activity legal in...

. He wrote the ACLU's amicus curiae

Amicus curiae

An amicus curiae is someone, not a party to a case, who volunteers to offer information to assist a court in deciding a matter before it...

 brief supporting Lawrence, who was represented by Lambda Legal

Lambda Legal

Lambda Legal is an American civil rights organization that focuses on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender communities as well as people living with HIV/AIDS through impact litigation, education, and public policy work.Lambda's founder William J. Thom, Esq...

.

Tribe also represented General Electric

General Electric

General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...

 in its defense against its liability under Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act ("Superfund"), in which GE and Tribe unsuccessfully argued that the act unconstitutionally violated General Electric's due process rights.

He actively supported the candidacy of President

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

 and described Obama as "the best student I ever had," a phrase he also used to describe Kathleen Sullivan

Kathleen Sullivan

Kathleen Marie Sullivan is a professor at the Stanford Law School and name partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, a litigation-only law firm with offices in California, New York, Silicon Valley, Chicago, San Francisco, Germany, London, and Tokyo where she chairs their national appellate...

. Alongside Harvard's Cass Sunstein

Cass Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein is an American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics, who currently is the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration...

, Tribe served as judicial adviser to Obama's campaign

Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008

Barack Obama, then junior United States Senator from Illinois, announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States in Springfield, Illinois, on February 10, 2007. On August 27, 2008, he was declared nominee of the Democratic Party for the 2008 presidential election...

. In February 2010, he was named "Senior Counselor for Access to Justice" in the Department of Justice

United States Department of Justice

The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...

. He resigned this position, citing health reasons in November 2010 http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2010/11/18_tribe.html.

Academic investigation

In 2004, Tribe admitted he had failed to attribute several specific phrases and a sentence in his 1985 book, God Save this Honorable Court, to a 1974 book by Henry J. Abraham. After an investigation headed by former Harvard President Derek Bok, Tribe was reprimanded by Harvard President Lawrence Summers

Lawrence Summers

Lawrence Henry Summers is an American economist. He served as the 71st United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1999 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He was Director of the White House United States National Economic Council for President Barack Obama until November 2010.Summers is the...

 and Law School Dean Elena Kagan

Elena Kagan

Elena Kagan is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 7, 2010. Kagan is the Court's 112th justice and fourth female justice....

 for "a significant lapse in proper academic practice", but they concluded that Tribe's error was unintentional.

Personal life

Tribe has two children, Mark

Mark Tribe

Mark Tribe is an American artist. He is the founder of Rhizome, a not-for-profit arts organization based in New York City....

 and Kerry, who are both nationally recognized visual artists.

Cases

A complete list of the 34 cases Tribe has argued in the U.S. Supreme Court as of the end of 2005 is as follows:

Case	Citation	Year	Outcome
Richmond Newspapers v. Virginia		1981	win
Heffron v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness		1981	loss
Crawford v. Board of Education		1982	loss
Larkin v. Grendel’s Den		1982	win
White v. Massachusetts Council		1983	win
Pacific Gas & Electric v. California		1983	win
Hawaii Housing Auth. v. Midkiff		1984	win
Northeast Bancorp v. Fed. Reserve		1985	win
Board of Education v. National Gay Task Force		1985	win
Fisher v. City of Berkeley		1986	win
Bowers v. Hardwick Bowers v. Hardwick Bowers v. Hardwick, , is a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld, in a 5-4 ruling, the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults when applied to homosexuals. Seventeen years after Bowers v. Hardwick, the Supreme Court...		1986	loss
Pennzoil v. Texaco		1986	win
Schweiker v. Chilicky Schweiker v. Chilicky Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487 U.S. 412 , was a United States Supreme Court decision that established limitations on implied causes of action. The Court determined that a cause of action would not be implied for the violation of rights where the U.S...		1988	loss
Granfinanciera v. Nordberg		1989	loss
Sable Communications v. FCC		1989	draw
Adams Fruit v. Barrett		1990	win
Rust v. Sullivan Rust v. Sullivan Rust v. Sullivan, , was a United States Supreme Court case decided in 1991. The case concerned the legality and constitutionality of Department of Health and Human Services regulations on the use of funds spent by the U.S. federal government to promote family planning...		1991	loss
Cipollone v. Liggett		1992	win
TXO v. Alliance Resources		1993	win
Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg Honda Motor Co. v. Oberg, 512 U.S. 415 , was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that held that an amendment to the Oregon state constitution disallowing judicial review of the size of punitive damages was a violation of due process.-Decision:In a products liability action,...		1994	loss
U.S. v. Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone		1996	draw
Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party		1997	loss
Vacco v. Quill Vacco v. Quill Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793 , is a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the right to die. It ruled that a New York ban on physician-assisted suicide was constitutional, and preventing doctors from assisting their patients, even those terminally ill and/or in great...		1997	loss
Amchem Products v. Windsor		1997	win
Baker v. General Motors		1998	win
AT&T v. Iowa Utilities Board		1999	loss
Ortiz v. Fibreboard		1999	win
Bush v. Gore I Bush v. Gore Bush v. Gore, , is the landmark United States Supreme Court decision on December 12, 2000, that effectively resolved the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. Only eight days earlier, the United States Supreme Court had unanimously decided the closely related case of Bush v...		2000	loss
New York Times Co. v. Tasini New York Times Co. v. Tasini New York Times Co. v. Tasini, 533 U.S. 483 , is a leading decision by the United States Supreme Court on the issue of copyright in the contents of a newspaper database...		2001	loss
U.S. v. United Foods		2001	win
FCC v. NextWave		2002	win
State Farm v. Campbell		2003	loss
Nike v. Kasky		2003	loss
Johanns v. Livestock Marketing Association		2005	loss

Tribe has argued 26 cases in the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals:

Case	Citation	Circuit	Year	Outcome
Worldwide Church of God v. California	623 F.2d 613	9th Cir.	1980	loss
Grendel's Den v. Goodwin	662 F.2d 102	1st Cir.	1981	win
Pacific Legal Foundation v. State Energy Resources	659 F.2d 903	9th Cir.	1981	win
United States v. Sun Myung Moon	718 F.2d 1210	2d Cir.	1983	loss
Romany v. Colegio de Abogados	742 F.2d 32	1st Cir.	1984	win
Westmoreland v. CBS	752 F.2d 16	2d Cir.	1984	loss
Colombrito v. Kelly	764 F.2d 122	2d Cir.	1985	win
Texaco v. Pennzoil	784 F.2d 1133	2d Cir.	1986	loss
U.S. v. Bank of New England	821 F.2d 844	1st Cir.	1987	loss
U.S. v. Gallo	859 F.2d 1078	2d Cir.	1988	loss
U.S. v. GAF Corporation	884 F.2d 670	2d Cir.	1989	loss
U.S. v. Western Electric Company	900 F.2d 283	D.C. Cir.	1999	win
Fineman v. Armstrong World Industries	980 F.2d 171	D.C. Cir.	1992	draw
U.S. v. Western Electric Company	993 F.2d 1572	D.C. Cir.	1993	win
Lightning Lube v. Witco Corporation	4 F.3d 1153	3d Cir.	1993	draw
Hopkins v. Dow Corning Corporation	33 F.3d 1116	9th Cir.	1994	win
Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone v. U.S.	42 F.3d 181	4th Cir.	1994	win
Georgine v. Amchem Products, Inc.	83 F.3d 610	3d Cir.	1996	win
BellSouth Corp. v. F.C.C.	144 F.3d 58	D.C. Cir.	1998	loss
SBC Communications v. F.C.C.	154 F.3d 226	5th Cir.	1998	loss
City of Dallas v. F.C.C.	F.3d 341	5th Cir.	1999	draw
U.S. West v. Tristani		10th Cir.	1999	loss
U.S. West v. F.C.C.		10th Cir.	1999	win
Southwest Voter Registration v. Shelley		9th Cir.	2003	loss
Pacific Gas and Elec. v. California		9th Cir.	2003	loss
General Electric v. E.P.A.		D.C. Cir.	2004	win

Publications

Books

• The Invisible Constitution (2008)
• American Constitutional Law (treatise) (1978, 1979, 1988, and 2000)
• On Reading the Constitution (1991) (co-author with Michael Dorf)
• Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes (1990)
• Constitutional Choices (1985)
• God Save This Honorable Court: How the Choice of Supreme Court Justices Shapes Our History (1985)
• The Supreme Court: Trends and Developments (1979, 1980, 1982, 1983)
• When Values Conflict: Essays on Environmental Analysis, Discourse, and Decision (1976) (ed.)
• The American Presidency: Its Constitutional Structure (1974)
• Channeling Technology Through Law (1973)
• Environmental Protection (1971) (co-author with Louis Jaffe)
• Technology: Processes of Assessment and Choice (1969)

Articles

• 'The Curvature of Constitutional Space: What Lawyers Can Learn From Modern Physics' (1989) 103 Harvard Law Review
  Harvard Law Review
  The Harvard Law Review is a journal of legal scholarship published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School.-Overview:According to the 2008 Journal Citation Reports, the Review is the most cited law review and has the second-highest impact factor in the category "law" after the...
  
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