Michael Thomas Jr. has been elected the 132nd president of the Harvard Law Review, making him the fourth African-American to hold the position. The first Black president of the Review was Barack Obama who was elected to the post in 1990.
Edited and managed by students, the Harvard Law Review publishes legal articles written by professors, judges, and practitioners, and serves as both a research tool for attorneys and a means for student-editors to sharpen their research and writing skills. Students apply to become editors of the Review at the end of their first year at Harvard Law School and are chosen through a combination of grades and scores in a writing competition. Every year, 92 student-editors elect their president.
Thomas will serve as the Review‘s president from November 2018 through June 2019. He has already secured two clerkships after his law school graduation. In 2019, he will clerk for Chief Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In 2020, he will clerk for Judge Barrington D. Parker Jr. of the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.
Thomas holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Princeton University and will receive his law degree from Harvard in 2019.
