Microsoft appeals judge Harry Edwards '62 to teach labor law at ILR

By Linda Myers

Judge Harry T. Edwards, a 1962 graduate of Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, returns to campus today, April 25, to teach an advanced course on labor law at the ILR School. Edwards presided over the Microsoft appeal case as chief judge of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Judge Harry T. Edwards, left, '62 ILR, the Jean T. McKelvey Neutral-in-Residence at the ILR School, speaks with Jaime Sussman '02 after teaching the course Legal Issues in Collective Bargaining and Arbitration, April 18, in Ives Hall. Dewey Neild Photography

In 1980, then-president Jimmy Carter appointed Edwards to the court, considered by many to be the second most important court in the nation. During Edwards' tenure as chief judge of the court, from 1994 to 2001, he presided over United States vs. Microsoft (the court agreed that the software giant had violated antitrust laws but ruled against a lower court's remedy to break up the company).

For the ILR course Legal Issues in Collective Bargaining and Arbitration, Edwards was on campus April 18 and returns today to present seniors and MILR students with labor law case studies he developed. The students are analyzing them and debating the legal issues, said ILR extension division faculty member Margaret Leibowitz '73 (ILR), who co-teaches the seven-week course and worked with Edwards to develop it.

"Judge Edwards reviews National Labor Relations Board decisions and employment cases involving mandatory arbitration," said Leibowitz. "His 'hypotheticals' are drawn from his many years of experience on the bench."

Edwards' visits are part of his appointment as the Jean T. McKelvey Neutral-in-Residence. The visiting mediator-arbitrator program is named in memory of McKelvey, one of the founders of the ILR School as well as its first faculty member, who died in 1998 at the age of 90. Both Edwards and Leibowitz took McKelvey's arbitration seminar as undergraduates and remained close friends and colleagues of hers.

"Jean taught collective bargaining and arbitration -- this was her life," said Leibowitz. "She devoted herself to her students. She mentored us and loved nothing more than to debate these kinds of questions with us." McKelvey, who was the first woman to serve as president of the National Academy of Arbitrators, often had students accompany her to arbitrations and conducted arbitration hearings on the Cornell campus, related Leibowitz. "It seems especially fitting that Judge Edwards is on campus as the McKelvey neutral-in-residence, teaching the issues Jean cared about most," she said. Leibowitz and Edwards dedicated the course to McKelvey.

After graduating from the ILR School, Edwards earned a law degree at the University of Michigan Law School. In 1965 he entered private practice with Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather and Geraldson in Chicago, specializing in labor law. Between 1970 and 1980, he was a tenured professor of law, first at the University of Michigan and then at Harvard. After joining the bench he continued to teach labor law as an adjunct professor at those institutions as well as at Georgetown, Duke, Pennsylvania and NYU law schools. An arbitrator, past vice president of the National Academy of Arbitrators, chairman of the board of Amtrak and past member of the ILR dean's advisory board, Edwards received the William T. Groat Alumni Award from the ILR School in 1978 for his professional accomplishments and service to the school. He was honored at a special reception at the ILR School April 18.