Ten of the world’s top young scholars converged on the Stanford campus last October to present their work at the inaugural Harvard-Stanford international Junior Faculty Forum. Established by Stanford Law and Harvard Law as a yearly event, the conference highlights innovative scholarship from new academics who hail from outside the United States.

“From an intellectual standpoint it was a huge success,” says Lawrence M. Friedman, Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law, who, along with Harvard Law Professor William P. Alford, organized and directed the forum. “There were vigorous discussions and debates among paper presenters, judges, and the audience, on topics ranging from the scholastic medieval jurisprudence to adjudicating Islamic divorce law in Western courts.”

The forum also brought together a distinguished panel of U.S. and foreign judges, including senior law faculty from Australia, China, Colombia, Italy, Mexico, South Korea, and the U.K. Stanford Law Faculty serving as judges included Friedman, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar (MA ’96, PhD ’00), professor of law and Deane F. Johnson Faculty Scholar; Richard Thompson Ford (BA ’88), George E. Osborne Professor of Law; and Deborah R. Hensler, Judge John W. Ford Professor of Dispute Resolution and associate dean for graduate studies. Prior to the conference, judges read and rated 50 papers drawn from a pool of more than 200 abstracts submitted for the consideration. From the 50 papers, 10 were selected to be presented at Stanford.