2021

Chang Seung-Wha 
Professor at Seoul National University School of Law and Chairman of Korea Trade Commission

Platform Nine and Three-Quarters in Harvard Law Station

It is my great honor to write a tribute to Professor William Alford for his retirement from his vice deanship at Harvard Law School (HLS). I have had the pleasure of getting to know Professor Alford in a number of different capacities over the years. Thirty years ago, he was my academic co-advisor at HLS. He was also my colleague when I was invited to teach at HLS as a visiting professor twice. He was always an enthusiastic supporter whenever I applied to academic or other professional positions including the WTO Appellate Body. Recently, during my tenure for the deanship for Seoul National University School of Law (SNU Law), he was my partner (counterpart) representing HLS for the two institutions’ academic collaboration. He has been a life-long mentor and consultant (of course, free of charge) whenever I needed to make important personal and professional decisions in my life. Most importantly, I am proud to call him one of my best friends. I guess I am entitled to write this humble tribute to Professor Alford.

HE WAS A GATEWAY TO THE HEART OF HLS: It was back in 1991 when I first met him at HLS. At that time, I was a former Seoul District Court judge who had decided to pursue graduate studies with an aim to become an academic. Before then, I had never been in English-speaking countries and naturally felt like an alien upon my arrival in Cambridge. To me, all the HLS professors were Professor Kingsfield in The Paper Chase. Even though I was a member of the HLS community, besides attending several classes, I was very scared and intimidated before many Professor Kingsfields, perhaps for linguistic and cultural reasons. Hence, I could not attempt to genuinely enter the HLS academic community.  Then, Professor Alford approached me with the warm, human smile that every student who has worked with him knows so well. He opened the door wide open for me to enter the HLS world (not just classrooms) through his office. His office at the end of the Pound Hall corridor was like Platform Nine and Three-Quarters in King’s Cross Station leading into the magical world of Harry Potter! I recall that including myself, many international students always knocked on the door of his office not only to see him, but also to enter the HLS academic forum through his kind guidance. Without his heart-warming welcome in his office, hundreds of international students like myself might merely have lingered around the HLS campus as “muggles” until graduation, without ever finding the entrance to the magical “H world”.

HE IS A KIND AND ENTHUSIASTIC, BUT STRICT TEACHER: For the last thirty years, I suspect Professor Alford has supervised several hundred students’ theses on international and comparative law subjects. In September every year, several dozen incoming students ask for his supervision of their dissertations. Whenever he can not do it himself, he always kindly advises many students on how to find suitable professors within HLS. At this time, I cannot avoid revealing a secret between us, which he may not remember now. As he was a very popular professor and many students approached him for his academic mentorship, I assumed my chance to have him as an advisor was slim. I instead approached another professor for my L.L.M. thesis supervision, but this professor was hesitant because my LLM thesis topic was not about U.S. law, but too international and comparative for him. At that difficult time, Professor Alford saved me by persuading that professor to co-supervise my LLM thesis with him. Many times, I proudly told others that Professor Alford volunteered to co-supervise my thesis, but the truth is he actually saved me when I was frustrated with serious difficulties in finding a thesis supervisor. He was this kind and enthusiastic teacher, but at the same time very strict and demanding when teaching and supervising his students. For example, I needed to see him for comments and advice on my draft LLM and SJD dissertations, perhaps more than thirty times.

HIS ACADEMIC MENTORSHIP NEVER ENDS: Professor Alford’s academic mentorship did not end when his students left HLS. For example, when I practiced at a Washington, D.C., law firm after my SJD program, he always encouraged me to pursue an academic career, which led me to teach at Georgetown as an adjunct professor. Without his encouragement, I might have ended up as a practicing attorney, rather than becoming a fulltime academic at my alma mater, SNU Law. I believe he has done the same thing for at least a hundred of his former HLS students. His own academic achievements in the field of international and comparative law are enormous and so difficult to summarize in this short tribute. Instead, I would rather highlight that Professor Alford has produced dozens of avatars who are now recognized as leading scholars in international and comparative law all over the world, although not in the exoplanet of Pandora.

His mentorship again did not end with helping his former students become academics in international and comparative law. For the last thirty years, he has quietly created an unnamed global academic circle under the big umbrella of HLS. For example, he often helped his former students and HLS visitors establish connections and collaborate with each other in various academic activities in international and comparative law. He was also an active co-organizer of the Harvard-Stanford International Junior Faculty Forum where he invited talented junior scholars in international and comparative law from various countries.

HE PERSISTENTLY PUSHED HIS FORMER STUDENTS TO BROADEN THEIR LIMITS: Whenever I encountered critical decision-making moments in my professional life, Professor Alford always encouraged me to reach further and jump higher. Without him, I might have turned to other easier and more comfortable jobs. Without his support, I would not have pursued my SJD degree. Without his encouragement, I would not have moved from Washington, D.C., to Seoul to become a full-time academic. Without his guidance, I would not have tried to teach at many leading law schools in the world beyond Korea. Whenever I hesitated to broaden my horizon, he kindly, but persistently said, “You can and should do it!” Again, what I want to emphasize here is not that Professor Alford was special only to me, but that he did the same thing for his other former students who are now recognized as leading scholars in international and comparative law.

HE CONVERTED HLS INTO A GENUINELY GLOBAL LAW SCHOOL: Three decades ago, surely HLS was a leading law school in the United States, but it did not appear to function as a global center for international and comparative legal studies. In the eyes of a new foreign student, it was ironic that although many world-renowned scholars in the field of international and comparative law visited HLS, and many of the most talented foreign students were there, not many HLS professors were interested in international subjects, nor was the HLS curriculum very internationally oriented. Ever since Professor Alford took on the role as an international face of HLS, things have gradually, but vividly changed. Under his leadership, HLS has become a world leader in the field of international and comparative studies.

Under his vice deanship, the HLS curriculum improved in terms of its international focus. Compared to the early 1990s when I was a student, diverse courses in international subjects have become available for HLS students. His effort to make mandatory at least one international or comparative law course for all HLS JD students undoubtedly contributed to opening all HLS students’ eyes to the world beyond the United States.

This curriculum change seemed to go hand in hand with his extra efforts to invite more world-renowned international scholars to visit and teach at HLS, which enriched the curriculum to be far more diverse and international. I realized HLS began to change when I was invited to teach WTO law courses in the 2007–08 academic year. When I came back to HLS once again in 2011, I witnessed even more meaningful changes in the same direction.

Professor Alford’s effort to make HLS the leading international law school did not end with changing the curriculum or inviting more renowned foreign professors to HLS. He also engaged HLS professors for the purpose of helping them broaden their horizons beyond U.S. law and policy. Many times, he connected HLS professors and their counterparts in foreign law schools while sparing his valuable time to make arrangements for many HLS faculty members to visit foreign academic institutions in order to share their ongoing research or exchange academic wisdom. For example, during his vice deanship, a dozen HLS faculty members visited Korea and in particular SNU Law. SNU was just one of many leading academic institutions outside the United States that benefitted from Professor Alford’s leadership.

HE WAS AN EXPORTER OF THE HLS MODEL: Perhaps it is not well-known that Professor Alford has been exporting the best of the HLS model of legal education to other leading law schools outside the United States. His effort in this regard also contributed to making HLS a model law school around the world. For example, he was keen to help other foreign law schools follow the HLS model not only in international and comparative legal studies, but also in other subjects such as clinical education and pro bono programs as well. A few years ago, he himself welcomed the SNU Law delegation’s visit to HLS and encouraged HLS clinicians and pro bono work leaders to share their clinical education and pro bono program models with the SNU delegation. In exchange, he also sent out HLS pro bono program representatives to SNU Law to pave the path for HLS in the future to send HLS students abroad for their pro bono work. Following the HLS model, SNU Law under my deanship further activated the clinical education and pro bono programs, with an ambition to become an Asian role model in those programs. This is merely one example of how Bill contributed to turning HLS into a global legal education center, one that exports desirable models of legal education for many foreign law schools to follow.

I cannot imagine what my professional life would look like without Bill Alford. I would suspect that more than a hundred of his former students might feel the same way. What would HLS would look like in the absence of his eighteen-year commitment and service as Vice Dean? I cannot imagine that either.

Mark Wu
Vice Dean for the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies & Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Lessons in Virtue:

Tribute to Professor William P. Alford

“A flower cannot blossom without sunshine nor a garden without love”

Unlike many of the esteemed contributors to this volume, I never had the privilege of learning from Professor William Alford in the classroom formally or having him serve as my dissertation supervisor. But what I have gained from Bill, through a decade as his colleague and mentee at Harvard Law School, are life lessons in how to develop wisdom as a teacher and embody virtue as a person.

The lessons gained from this wise, yet humble, master are hard to reduce to words. When pondering how to do so, I stumbled across a Chinese proverb, which I quote at the beginning of this tribute. One could read this proverb as discussing the necessary ingredients for sustaining natural beauty in an otherwise harsh world. But an equally apt interpretation of the proverb is that it discusses the necessary ingredients for human relationships. Bill’s endless bounty of sunshine and love has sustained so many of us through our years at Harvard Law. It is that radiant energy in its many forms that we honor in this volume and will cherish for many years to come.

Through his rigorous devotion to countless individuals, Bill has cultivated thousands of flowers in the garden that is the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. As several of the other tributes in this volume attest, these individuals have pollinated ideas, often uncovered thanks to Bill, throughout the academy and legal profession worldwide. Bill’s tireless dedication literally has transformed not only how we think, but also how we advocate for others, in dozens of societies worldwide. Meanwhile, each summer, Bill begins the process anew, carefully cultivating yet another crop of new Harvard Law School students to make their mark in the world at-large. Throughout the year, we, his colleagues, enjoy the benefit of his toil, without necessarily appreciating the care and devotion necessary to sustain the annual bounty. Under his leadership, the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies have become unparalleled world-renowned gems, widely recognized as the best in the world.[1]

Bill, and his equally talented wife, Yuanyuan, have always preferred to have the focus shine on others, without regard for the many sacrifices that they have made to allow others to thrive. Like so many others, I consider myself to be one of the lucky beneficiaries. Each of us can recount the precise moments when one of Bill’s actions took on outsize meaning in our lives, at a moment when we needed it most. Certainly, Bill has taught me plenty over the years about what it means to be an academic, a policy advocate, and an administrator. But what he has taught me most, simply through his actions, is what it means to be both a mensch and a hao laoshi (好老師).[2]

Through three snapshots captured from different periods of my past decade spent with Bill at Harvard Law, I hope to capture a bit of how his wisdom and virtue have enriched my life and those of countless others.

Hold Open Doors for Others to Walk Through

My first sustained interaction with Bill took place in June 2010, while I was still an Academic Fellow at Columbia Law and before I joined the Harvard Law faculty. Bill and I had been introduced through Professor Ben Liebman, but at the time, we did not know each other well. Yet, Bill decided to invite me to come up from New York City to attend the 80^th birthday festschrift that he was hosting for Professor Jerry Cohen in Cambridge. Needless to say, I was a fish out of water. In a room full of some of the world’s most eminent scholars of Chinese law, I was but a mere post-doctoral fellow and not yet an assistant professor. Yet, Bill took it upon himself to introduce me to many of them individually.

Bill had no reason to invite me to the festschrift; at the time, he had no idea that I had been a devoted attendee of Jerry’s China series at the Council on Foreign Relations.[3] Nor did he have anything to gain from spending time introducing me to so many of his friends. Yet, Bill gladly did so. He derives genuine joy from opening doors for the next generation, affording them the opportunity to develop their own connections in the rich network that he has cultivated over the years. Indeed, I have seen him do so on numerous occasions for others throughout the years.

As is true of the esteemed birthday honoree that weekend, Bill always takes an interest in wanting to understand the interests and motivations of young people. He sees a potential in them that they often have yet to discover for themselves. He makes you believe that you can achieve great things, and he is genuinely committed to assisting you in pursuing your dreams. That weekend was the moment that I knew that I had been embraced into the fold of the community of China law scholars that Jerry and Bill had cultivated at Harvard Law.[4]

Several of the individuals whom I first met that June weekend later became friends and professional collaborators. The event was but the first of many times when introductions from Bill have facilitated my own scholarship. Whether in Beijing, Geneva, Seoul, or Taipei, I am always encountering individuals asking of Bill, and whose own generosity toward me is based on their admiration and respect for Bill. From so many of those individuals and from Bill himself, I have learned much that has shaped my views of contemporary China. But from Bill that weekend, I learned something more—how a small gesture, such as inviting one more young person to a conference, can open large doors that smooth the way for others to pursue their dreams.

Care About the People Who Are Most Important to Those Who Matter to You

We are taught to separate the professional from the personal at the workplace. Bill, however, has always understood that it is impossible to separate someone from those whom they care most about. He has made it his mission to care not only about his students and colleagues, but also about their families and those who matter most to those who matter to him. I am always astonished at how Bill’s razor-sharp memory can recall details of not just those whom he taught more than a decade ago, but also details of their families. Indeed, when overseas, I often find that it is not just his former students who inquire about him, but also their spouses, who share fond memories of their time spent with Bill and Yuanyuan.

I experienced this deep caring myself during a particularly difficult period in my life when I was a junior faculty member at Harvard. The article that I was planning to submit as the final piece for my tenure file had garnered negative reactions from some of my colleagues, yet I was determined to not alter it dramatically even if it meant that my tenure promotion would be delayed.[5] Most weeks, my wife traveled for work, so on several nights, I was left to care for my two young children alone. But the straw that broke the camel’s back was when my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. She was unwilling to allow others to care for her and having a particularly difficult time acclimating to the assisted living center to which we had moved her.

Years before, during my first year on the Harvard Law faculty, I brought my toddler to the faculty lunch room. Later that day, a friendly colleague approached me to say I should avoid doing so, lest other colleagues develop the wrong impression that my family obligations was detracting from my scholarship. Ever since then, I’ve kept details of my family life fairly guarded from my colleagues. But despite my best efforts to do so, Bill could intuit that something was off.

Sitting alone in his office, I succumbed to confiding to Bill about my mother’s disease and the immense pressure and grief that I felt watching as she helplessly morphed into an entirely different person. Bill took it all in, listened with empathy, and at the end of it, gave me a hug. He then shared his own wise thoughts about how to handle the difficult journey that lay before me. Concerned as he might have been about my professional life at that precarious moment, he was most concerned about me as a person.

It would be that way throughout my remaining years as junior faculty. Almost every encounter, whether in the hallway or discussing one of my drafts, would begin with Bill asking, “How is your mother?” He genuinely wanted to know, and I was more than happy to share. The imprint of Bill’s scholarship on mine is quite evident, across a range of issues from intellectual property[6] to anti-dumping[7] to the Chinese legal profession.[8]  But what is less apparent is the imprint of his humanity on my own. Through his own example, he taught me that to care about others, you need to also care about those who matter the most to them. Only then can you truly learn how to have an impact on the lives of others.

If It Matters to Someone, Give It Your All

In the midst of a global pandemic, I stepped into the large shoes that Bill had left for me to fill as Vice Dean. Each week, I am reminded of how much more there is for me to learn about this job, in order to nurture the garden that Bill has so carefully cultivated throughout his deanship.[9] Together with the outstanding senior administrators in the program, we have sought to tackle the challenges thrown our way—from ever-changing immigration rules to uncertain delays in the administration of the bar exam.

What I have most admired about Bill in this most recent shared experience is his devotion to any matter, no matter how big or small, if it matters to someone else’s well-being. The impact of Bill’s advocacy may be obvious to others, when it comes to an immigration issue or securing additional seats in a classroom for LL.M. students. The same is true of human rights and disability issues—two areas very close to Bill’s heart, which others have highlighted in this volume.

What I have witnessed firsthand over the past few months is how Bill engages with the same relentless, creative energy on issues that, to others, may not seem to be of the magnitude worthy of the sustained attention of a former Vice Dean and one of the most eminent scholars of Chinese and comparative law. For example, several LL.M. students highlighted the difficulties they faced when experiencing temporary connectivity issues from overseas and then asking for notes from classmates for the missed portion of class. Some might react by saying that these students simply need to conjure up the nerve to ask a classmate. But Bill took it upon himself to examine why they faced difficulties and probe for possible solutions. He also decided to highlight to colleagues why small steps to fix a problem that might appear seemingly trivial at first glance nevertheless mattered greatly to particular students.

No matter the issue, if it matters to someone, Bill has taught me the importance of giving it one’s all. Indeed, Bill’s devotion is so relentless that I find myself reminding him of the need to take care of himself as well as others. After all, there is a lot more wisdom to be shared and a lot more virtue to be gained from the infinitely kind, humble, gracious person that is Bill Alford. May he continue to transform the lives of many more, with his sunny disposition and his love, as he embarks on the next chapter of his professional life in the years to come.

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[1] See QS World University Rankings, Law, https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2020/law-legal-studies.

[2] Please refer to the relevant contributions by Professor Michael Stein and Ambassador and former Justice Chang-fa Lo for further elaboration of these terms, as applied to Professor Alford.

[3] For an overview of Professor Cohen’s tremendous impact on the development of China’s legal system and Western understanding of it, see Pamela Krueger, China’s Legal Lion, NYU Law Mag., https://blogs.law.nyu.edu/magazine/2009/jerome-cohen-profile/.

[4] It is therefore only fitting that Bill is the inaugural holder of the Jerome A. and Joan L. Cohen Professor of Law. Bill’s excellent lecture, “Learning from the Past to Appreciate the Present,” commemorating this occasion is available at https://youtu.be/tb56AFcY11Q.

[5] Bill’s guidance was instrumental in my decision to leave much of the article unaltered and to further emphasize the difficulty of resorting to legal solutions. Soon thereafter, the article was published in an earlier volume of this journal. See Mark Wu, The ‘China, Inc.’ Challenge to Global Trade Governance, 57 Harv. Int’l L.J. 261 (2016).

[6] See William P. Alford, To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization (1995); William P. Alford, Making the World Safe for What? Intellectual Property Rights, Human Rights and Foreign Economic Policy in the Post-European Cold War World, 29 NYU. J. Int’l L. & Pol’y 135 (1996); William P. Alford, How Theory Does—and Does Not—Matter: American Approaches to Intellectual Property Law in East Asia, 13 UCLA Pac. Basin L.J. 8 (1994).

[7] See William P. Alford, When is China Paraguay? An Examination of the Application of Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Laws of the United States to China and Other “Nonmarket Economy” Nations, 61 S. Cal. L. Rev. 79 (1987).

[8] See William P. Alford, Tasselled Loafers for Barefoot Lawyers: Transformation and Tension in the World of Chinese Legal Workers, 141 China Q. 22 (1995); William P. Alford, “Second Lawyers, First Principles”: Lawyers, Rice-Roots Legal Workers, and the Battle Over Legal Professionalism in China, in Prospects for the Professions in China 43 (William P. Alford, Kenneth Winston & William C. Kirby eds., 2010).

[9] For a fitting tribute to Bill’s achievements as Vice Dean, see After 18 Years, Professor Alford Completes Tenure as Vice Dean for the Graduate Program and ILS, Harv. L. Today, Aug. 17, 2020, https://today.law.harvard.edu/after-18-years-professor-alford-completes-his-tenure-as-vice-dean-for-the-graduate-program-and-ils/.

Michael Ashley Stein
Co-founder and Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability; Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School

Scholar, Mensch, and Disability Rights Champion:

A Tribute to Professor William P. Alford

It is a deep honor and a sheer delight to join this Tribute for my very wonderful friend and colleague Professor William P. Alford, celebrating the eighteen years he enabled Harvard Law School (“HLS”) as vice dean for the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies. That period is part of the more than thirty years dedicated by Bill to developing international legal studies in and beyond the HLS community. Bill has been HLS’s backbone (or, in Chinese, gugan “骨干”) in these endeavors, fostering the international and comparative law curriculum, facilitating and supporting many of the globe’s leading international scholars to visit and teach; tirelessly and freely giving his already overextended time as a mentor to thousands of JD, LLM, and SJD students; chairing East Asian Legal Studies (“EALS”) the country’s oldest and most prominent related law program; and co-founding and chairing the Harvard Law School Project on Disability (“HPOD”), considered one of the globe’s most preeminent disability rights research and advocacy center—and all the while generating top-notch scholarship and being recognized as one of HLS’s most beloved teachers. Other contributors to this Tribute will take up Bill’s many virtues which have rightfully earned him generations of student devotees, an honorary doctorate, honorary professorships and fellowships, and the HLS Association’s highest accolade. As HPOD’s co-founder and executive director, and as his extremely fortunate collaborator, I will instead focus on Bill’s essential role in developing and encouraging HPOD and point out some of the work we have achieved worldwide over the past sixteen years. Readers seeking further details are encouraged to visit our website at www.hpod.org.
Bill and I were introduced in 2002 by our mutual and good friend Professor Martha Minow, who said, “You have complementary interests in disability rights and international law, and have a similar sense of humor.” As usual, she was correct. Bill was working with Special Olympics International and was thinking in advance about how to utilize the upcoming 2005 World Winter Games in Nagano and the 2007 World Summer Games in Shanghai to raise awareness about the rights of persons with intellectual disabilities in those countries, as well as globally. I was teaching at William & Mary Law School, was moving to HLS in 2003 to focus on scholarship as a visiting fellow at the Human Rights Program, and had just began the first of five years commuting to the United Nations in New York in order to participate in the negotiation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (“CRPD”), the first international human rights treaty specifically empowering disabled persons. We chatted for over an hour, and Bill’s been stuck with me ever since.

Bill and I co-founded HPOD in 2004, driven by our shared desire to conduct research and advocacy that would empower the over one billion disabled persons across the globe, with a special emphasis on individuals with intellectual disabilities. Since then, HPOD has been responsible for the development of a wealth of scholarship and numerous human rights education materials; the latter are available open-source and free on our website in multiple languages, including easy-to-read versions for self-advocates with intellectual disabilities, and videos featuring some of the self-advocates with whom we collaborate. Notably, we have worked in some forty-four countries, including increasingly at home in the United States, and always pro bono, on a range of projects ranging from law and policy reform to fomenting support groups for parents to advocate with and for their children with various disabilities. Our projects always involve local disabled persons and their representative organizations (“DPOs”) on the notions that everyone knows her own needs and priorities best, and that stakeholders must take pride and ownership in any activity. In doing so, HPOD adheres to the international disability rights mantra of “nothing about us without us.” We also have worked with a wide range of U.N. agencies, and like-minded civil society organizations and academic institutions. HPOD activities are developed and governed by an ethos of serving persons with disabilities, with humility, by learning from their lived experiences and scrupulously avoiding imperialistic presumptions. We also have intervened in dozens of cases involving disability rights at the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, national level Supreme and Constitutional courts, as well as other venues.

HPOD’s academic footprint has also been global. To give just one example, in 2007, HPOD partnered with Renmin University of China Law School (“Renda”) to convene the first disability rights conference in China. To do so, we brought disability rights scholars from around the world to discuss openly the different approaches that countries take to creating and enforcing national level obligations. Following on this cooperative dialogue, Renda created the first disability law clinic in China, exchanged scholars and students with HLS, and generated scholarship revolving around disability rights. Similarly, former HPOD visitors have gone on to teach the first disability rights courses in their home countries, and to generate the first disability rights scholarship in those nations.

HPOD activities include marvelous HLS students who bring their energy and enthusiasm and often develop life-long interests in advocating for persons with disabilities in their professional and personal lives after law school. In addition to sponsoring talks and other events, often featuring self-advocates with disabilities, Bill and I each teach disability rights courses, supervise student research, support visiting scholars, and endeavor to facilitate an evolving culture at HLS toward valuing disability as part of an overall culture of valuing diversity.

* * *

Beyond being able to celebrate some of HPOD’s terrific achievements since 2004, writing this tribute is a pleasure because it permits me to extol the virtues of the otherwise incredibly diffident Bill without his being able to deflect that praise. HPOD has succeeded in no small measure for the same reasons that EALS and international legal studies at HLS have succeeded—because of Bill’s wisdom, generosity, kindness, and devotion. He is an absolutely extraordinary person, and his friendship has been essential to HPOD as well as a great blessing in my life.

We, at HPOD, have been very fortunate to receive numerous awards for our work, collectively and individually, although our practice has been to accept these accolades communally, recognizing that our endeavors reflect teamwork and support. Among these manifold awards: the Parent Advocates for Visually Impaired Children (“PAVIC”) of the Philippines conferred their “National Advocate Award” to HPOD following on joint activities that resulted in 600 visually impaired children being enrolled in school; HPOD was feted by the National Grassroots Disability Organization and the National Counsel of Women with Disabilities, both of Bangladesh, for “tireless efforts, dedication, and solidarity” with local disability rights groups; Bill received the Li Buyun Law Prize for outstanding contributions to Chinese legal research, disability rights, and educational exchange; and I was named by Boston Globe Magazine as being among those “Bostonians Changing the World.”

Naturally these accolades encourage us and serve as affirmation of our work, and we are grateful for the attention they direct to HPOD. Yet Bill always seems happiest in the company of the self-advocates that HPOD serves, most pleased when members of HPOD’s DPO partners come to HLS and interact with our students, and proudest of the achievements that directly impact the lived experiences of those self-advocates and their families. Aside from the love he expresses to his family, no joy compares to the look on Bill’s face when moderating a panel of Special Olympic athletes or self-advocates with intellectual disabilities from Massachusetts Standing Strong or the Self-Advocacy Association of New York discussing their lives and how being able to claim their rights and be more active in their communities has improved their day-to-day experiences. Related, and emblematic of his tremendous empathy, it was a close competition between Bill and my own father as to who was happiest when I was given the inaugural Morten E. Ruderman Award in Inclusion, more recently bestowed on former U.S. Senator Tom Harkin who, among other achievements, sponsored the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Selfishly, and despite my deep regard for HLS, Bill’s stepping down makes me glad because it means he’ll be able to channel more of his working days toward HPOD, and we’ll have more time together to pursue justice for persons with disabilities and to engage on related teaching and scholarship. As I have made a point of reciting at every annual HPOD Open House, I feel supremely lucky to be able to work daily on projects I love, on behalf of individuals I love, and with colleagues I love. Thank you, Bill, for making that possible.

Benjamin L. Liebman
Robert L. Lieff Professor of Law, Columbia Law School

A Tribute to Professor William P. Alford

In the summer of 1988, travelling from Dengshikou, in the center of Beijing, to the Xiyuan Hotel, just across from the Beijing Zoo, seemed like travelling to the outer edge of Beijing. I was back in Beijing visiting my host family at the end of the summer, and they were worried about me travelling so far on my own. But I had an invitation to dinner with an American professor, and my host family reluctantly let me travel across Beijing on the electric trolley bus to attend the dinner. 

I do not remember how I managed to make arrangements to meet Professor William Alford for dinner (home telephones were still rare). But I do remember the dinner, at which we were joined by a handful of Bill’s students from UCLA. I also remember that Bill took me seriously, despite the fact I was 19, still years away from law school, and probably a bit self-focused in describing the summer I had just spent in Chengdu. The image I have of that dinner is one that has stayed with me: Bill, surrounded by students, showing deep concern for and great interest in each of his students, and for me. The scene repeated itself two years later, when I again met Bill in Beijing, and he took me along the following night to attend a Cui Jian concert in Ritan Park—in what may have been Cui’s first public appearance since Tiananmen Square the year before. This was my first inkling of how Bill always manages to stay connected to the pressing issues of the day. 

A few years later it was Bill who single-handedly convinced me to go to law school. I was considering pursuing a Ph.D. in Chinese literature. Bill made the persuasive argument that a law degree was the best way to study and be engaged with China. I am not sure if I ever really decided I wanted to go to law school, but I did decide that I wanted to be Bill’s student. It was the most important career decision I have made, and one that transformed me into Bill’s student for the decades that have followed. Bill’s argument—that a degree in law opens up an enormous range of opportunities for those with an interest in and passion for China—has been one that I have found myself repeating countless times over the years. 

Bill’s career has itself reflected this advice: he has combined scholarship with engagement throughout his career. He has written eloquently and insightfully on a stunning range of topics from Qing legal history, to trade, environmental law, the legal profession, disability law, and intellectual property law. In many of his writings he has been prescient, writing about important issues, such as Chinese environmental law, before their importance has been apparent to others. He has pursued nuanced understandings of law in China, most notably intellectual property law, even when doing so has not been fashionable. And he has sought to highlight the legal needs of those often overlooked by legal systems undergoing rapid change. At every step of his scholarly career Bill has also pursued constructive engagement with the world outside the academy, from his work with the Committee on Legal Education and Exchange with China in the 1980s and early 1990s, his efforts helping China draft environmental laws in the 1990s and 2000s, and his crucially important work on disability law and tireless efforts for the Special Olympics over the past twenty years. He has never shied away from doing what is right, be it hosting dissidents seeking refuge from oppressive regimes abroad, or fighting bias here in the United States. In much of this work he has been joined by Yuanyuan Shen, herself a distinguished scholar, and also a mentor to many of Bill’s students. 

Many can attest to Bill’s almost super-human commitment to serve others:  his devotion to his colleagues, to Harvard Law School, to scholarship that advances our understanding of China, to the Special Olympics and those with disabilities, and to his family. For me the greatest manifestation of Bill’s dedication to those around him has always been his devotion to his students. I am sure that I am not alone in recalling the long hours Bill spent with me during my 1L year as I struggled to find relevance in the first-year curriculum, given that it was my interest in China that had brought to law school. Likewise, I am sure I am not the only one who can remember Bill reading multiple drafts of everything I wrote, and at times calling me with a few last-minute suggestions before I submitted my work for publication. Bill came up with a very creative way to spend my 1L year in China (simultaneously navigating the equally challenging Harvard Law School funding bureaucracy and Chinese visa regulations). Even more importantly, he guided me throughout my law school career as I sought to balance my interest in pursuing all things related to China with the need to establish myself as a student of American law. It was Bill who first suggested that I clerk (and later spent hours on the phone with prospective judges on my behalf, convincing them to take me despite my somewhat thin background in U.S. constitutional law), and who explained to me why experience working within the U.S. court system would make me a better scholar of China. It was probably Bill who convinced me to take Federal Courts during my final semester at Harvard Law School. It was certainly Bill who, a few years later, helped me prepare for academic job interviews. 

When you become Bill’s student, you become his student for life. Bill has been a reader of my draft papers throughout my career, in particular in my pre-tenure years. His comments today are as detailed and thoughtful as they were when I was in law school. He takes obvious delight when his students thrive. And he is there for students when they run into challenges along the way.

Bill set an extraordinarily high bar for all of us who followed him and became teachers and scholars ourselves. He has worked tirelessly to make the study of Chinese law more than just a niche subject, best manifested by his large 1L class on Chinese law at Harvard. He writes more letters or recommendation than any professor I know. His work, and in particular his teaching, reflects the passionate belief that through the study of foreign legal systems we become better scholars of and practitioners in our own legal systems.

What does it mean to be a great teacher?  For me, it means trying to be like Bill Alford. It means combining principled scholarly insight with compassion and academic rigor inside and outside the classroom. It means always being there for your students, even decades after they graduate. But perhaps more than anything, it means inspiring generations of students from China, the United States, and the rest of the world to seek to deepen their understanding of a range of legal systems and of each other, and to engage in the world outside the academy to effect positive change, regardless of the geopolitical winds. 

Angela Ciccolo 
Chief Legal Officer & Secretary, Special Olympics
Tim Shriver
Chair of Board of Directors, Special Olympics

Bill Alford: A Legacy of Inclusion

Professor William Alford is a recognized expert in international legal studies. He has been awarded an honorary doctorate degree, delivered endowed lectures, held honorary professor roles in multiple countries, and received prestigious awards, accolades, and fellowships. He is a prolific author, having written dozens of books and publications. He has served as founding Chair of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability. Professor Alford is undeniably a star.

To us, and to the Special Olympics movement, he is all that and so much more. He is Bill. Bill is a considerate, calm, conscientious force for good. His dedication, inspiration, ethics, collaborative spirit and incredible intellect have helped our organization to reach people with intellectual disabilities all over the world. As Lead Director and Chair of the Executive Committee of the International Board of Directors for Special Olympics, Bill’s decades of experience transcending barriers and borders are a natural fit with how we use sports as a catalyst for social inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities. 

Bill has been involved as a volunteer for Special Olympics since the early days of the movement. He has applied the depth and breadth of his expertise to strategic plans, key milestones, and our raison d’être. Today, Special Olympics has six million athletes with intellectual disabilities and Unified partners participating in sports in over 240 local programs in over 190 countries and territories. His persistence and presence were instrumental in bringing the promise of inclusion for people with disabilities to China, and in ensuring the resounding success of the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai. Indeed, although it took decades for the seeds of hope planted during his 1979 trip to China with Sargent Shriver to germinate, the fruits of that initial visit and legacy of those World Games are present today in vibrant programming for over one million Chinese athletes and their families. Bill is to thank for this, because he tied the country’s historic roots and benevolent approach to disability with the present need to give people with intellectual disabilities opportunities to display their gifts and to be productive citizens. 

Bill understands the significance of hearing the voices of the underrepresented. When he sees a barrier, he brings everything in his arsenal to tear it down. One facet of his leadership style is to clear paths for equity. His first initiative on being named Lead Director five years ago was to start a diversity and inclusion task force, with himself and our Chief Legal Officer as co-chairs, in an effort to empower staff at all levels in the organization to create a work environment and organizational culture that understands, values, and expects diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Bill shares his many gifts freely. He is generous to a fault with his time. Some would never imagine an esteemed Harvard Law professor sitting in a school gym on the Southside of Chicago chatting and laughing with students with intellectual disabilities like they were long lost friends. They might not be able to imagine him treating Special Olympics athletes to ice cream in Abu Dhabi just because he really wanted to hear about their lives and hopes for the future. Whether it is being a champion for inclusion, a wonderful friend, counselor, listener, hockey fan, husband and father, lawyer, student of history, volunteer and more, Bill is an extraordinary, inspiring advocate for justice. He’s often heard saying, “However much I work, I always receive more than I could possibly contribute.” You will often hear us saying, “We have received so much more from Bill than we could possibly acknowledge.” Thank you, Bill.

Jean (Jee Eun) Lee
J.D.’19, Harvard Law School

Professor Alford is a wonderful teacher and a caring, generous mentor to so many, including myself. I first met Professor Alford as an undergraduate student, when he came to speak at a policy seminar session focused on U.S.-China relations at Princeton. I still vividly remember how inspiring it was to hear about his initiatives on disability rights and insights on public interest law issues in China, and to discuss further with him after the seminar. Through short, but memorable interactions with him, I quickly learned how much impact one can make as a legal scholar. Thereafter, I participated in various events in New York and Cambridge, where Professor Alford spoke on various issues of comparative law relating to China. Professor Alford, the wonderful East Asian Legal Studies Program, and the rich international and comparative law opportunities at Harvard Law under his leadership were undoubtedly the main reasons I decided to join Harvard Law School.

While Professor Alford’s tremendous achievements in legal education and legal exchange are truly inspiring, Professor Alford’s dedication to mentoring and cultivating the next generation is just as special. As a teacher, Professor Alford provides thought-provoking comments on each student’s seminar paper, and he would be genuinely interested in discussing ideas after class and even suggestions to further improve the class. He was a caring advisor and mentor for the Harvard International Law Journal (HILJ) when I was the Lead Executive Editor. During my time as the HILJ Co-Conference Chair, Professor Alford helped us invite the keynote speaker of our choice, Song Sang Hyun, former President of the ICC, who fondly remembered Professor Alford and gladly accepted. Whenever I had to make important decisions in my career or academic life, I would reach out to Professor Alford for his advice, and he was always happy to share his thoughts. Not only did he offer me very helpful practical advice, but he also pushed me to think about my deep interests and desires in the long run. These are just a few examples of Professor Alford’s willingness to listen to students’ experiences and his dedication to enriching student academic life, as well as co-curricular activities on campus.

I am indebted to Professor Alford for his generosity, mentorship, and support in many ways, and it brings me much joy and gratitude to know that I’m only one of so many stories of Professor Alford having a wonderful impact on his students’ lives.