Keith Lieberthal
J.D.’99, Harvard Law School
Good professors teach you, great professors change you, and a special few stay with you the rest of your life, continuing to do both. Professor Alford has been one of those special few to so many Harvard students over the course of his career. And it is a privilege to count myself among them. As my Chinese law professor, he taught me to examine the country’s legal system through the lenses of history, culture, and politics, alongside traditional legal analysis. And he did so with an intellectual incisiveness and ethical sensitivity I’ve sought to emulate. In the two decades since I was his student, Professor Alford has been a generous mentor, ready with encouragement and counsel at each crossroads in my career, and many in my life. Thank you, Professor Alford, for being one of the special few.