Apsara Iyer Makes History as 1st Indian-American Woman Elected President of Harvard Law Review

Harvard Law School has made history with the recent election of Apsara Iyer as the 137th president of the Harvard Law Review. She becomes the first Indian-American woman to hold this position in the prestigious publication’s 136-year history.

Iyer, a second-year law student at Harvard, was elected to lead the Harvard Law Review, which was founded in 1887 and is among the oldest student-run legal scholarship publications. As the new president, she aims to include more editors in the process of reviewing and selecting articles and to maintain the publication’s reputation for high-quality work.

Iyer, who graduated from Yale in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in Economics, Math, and Spanish, has a passion for understanding the value of cultural heritage. This led her to work in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit, where she tracked stolen works of art and artefacts. In 2018, before attending Harvard Law School, she worked in the office and took a leave of absence after her first year of law school to return to the role.

Iyer joined the Harvard Law Review following a competitive process called “write-on,” where Harvard Law School students fact-check a document and provide commentary on a recent State or Supreme Court case. In addition to her work in the Law Review, Iyer has also been involved in the Harvard Human Rights Journal, and the National Security Journal, and is a member of the South Asian Law Students Association.

Her immediate predecessor, Priscila Coronado, described Iyer as an impressive and talented leader who has already changed the lives of many editors for the better. “Apsara has impressed her fellow editors with her remarkable intelligence, thoughtfulness, warmth, and fierce advocacy,” said Coronado.

Iyer’s election as the president of the Harvard Law Review follows in the footsteps of her distinguished predecessors, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and former President Barack Obama. These predecessors have set a high bar for Iyer, but she is confident in her ability to lead the publication forward and make her own mark on its history.