Apsara Iyer elected Harvard Law Review President

Iyer becomes the first Indian American woman to head the prestigious publication

Apsara A. Iyer, a second-year law student at Harvard Law School, was elected the 137th president of the Harvard Law Review, becoming the first Indian American woman to hold the position.

The Law Review, founded in 1887, is among the oldest student-run legal scholarship publications. Previous editors of the organization include former President Barack Obama, who was the review’s first black leader.

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Iyer joined the Harvard Law Review following a competitive process called “write-on,” where HLS students rigorously fact-check a document and provide commentary on a recent State or Supreme Court case.

As Law Review president, Iyer aims to include more editors in the process of reviewing and selecting articles and upholding the publication’s reputation for “high-quality” work, she told the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper of Harvard University, in an interview.

“I think that right now I’m just focused on making sure we keep the lights on and everything going,” Iyer said.

The publication is “extremely lucky” to have Iyer at the helm, Priscila E. Coronado, Iyer’s predecessor, said in Law School’s Jan. 30 press release,

“Apsara has changed the lives of many editors for the better, and I know she will continue to do so,” Coronado wrote. “From the start, she has impressed her fellow editors with her remarkable intelligence, thoughtfulness, warmth, and fierce advocacy.”

“I cannot wait to see what Volume 137 will achieve under her leadership,” she added.

Iyer grew up in Indiana and attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. She graduated from Yale in 2016, receiving a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Math as well as Spanish.

Iyer discussed her interest in “the relationship between communities living around archaeological sites and the management of cultural heritage,” with The Crimson.

Her interest in understanding the “value of cultural heritage” led her to work in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit, which tracks stolen works of art and other artifacts.

She began working in the office in 2018 before attending the Law School, and she took a leave of absence after her first year studying law to return to the role.

Iyer spoke highly of her experience and peers at the Law Review. “What’s been so meaningful to me is that the Law Review has been an amazing community of incredibly talented, passionate people,” Iyer said.

“And I feel like I’ve been able to be welcomed into this organization that’s filled with individuals who are so intelligent and so interested in different parts of the law.”

Outside of the Law Review, Iyer has previously been involved in the Law School’s Harvard Human Rights Journal and the National Security Journal.

Read: Harvard Law Review Elects Apsara Iyer as 137th President (February 6, 2023)

She is also a member of the South Asian Law Students Association. In addition, she serves on the advisory committee for the Peabody Institute of Archaeology in Andover, Massachusetts.

Iyer is working on an independent paper with Law School professor Jacob E. Gersen on the destruction of cultural heritage as a type of tort — a class of civil wrongs involving injury or harm.

Iyer told the Crimson she is a “nontraditional student” and is unsure of her plans after graduating from HLS. “I hope to use the rest of my 2L and 3L years to figure out what parts of the law interest me more and do really good work there,” she said.