In 1997 he founded the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, which he helmed until just this week, when he announced he was stepping down to make time for other projects. Professor William W. Fisher III will replace him.

The offices on the fifth floor of Griswold Hall are still empty when Nesson arrives at his office. Pictures of his wife and daughters decorate the walls and computer monitors. Hard-drives and video cameras litter the room and a hand-rolled cigarette sits besides a lighter on his desk.

He begins discussing a project he started with Ogletree that will use the Internet the educate Jamaican prisoners.

“Jamaica is a perfect example of a country that has made the transition from colonialism to independence and been taken to the cleaners by the capitalist system and the International Monetary Fund,” he says.

“We’re not certifying anybody, we’re not selling Harvard degrees.” Nesson says. “The whole point is to change people’s perceptions, including that of the staff and the guards and community nearby. We want people not to see a prison as where people are banished, but as a school for the toughest kids who have failed, failed society. ”

He puts on some music, Foreigner, as he settles into his office.

“The morning routine is e-mails,” he says, singing along.

After answering e-mails he reads a clipping from the Boston Herald’s gossip column about his marijuana use.

In February, he told the Harvard Law Record that he has experimented with numerous drugs, including LSD and cocaine, and likes to take “a puff or two of a joint” on his morning walks, sometimes before teaching. This was picked up national news.

But Nesson wants to put aside those controversies.

“I think I’d like to stay away from recent history, it’s so close to the present that I’d like to focus on that,” he says.

Nesson and Students

His unconventional style has sometimes put him at odds with his students.

Earlier this month he received criticism for a proposal that there be a mock trial for Matthias Scholl, a first-year law student who sent an e-mail to a classmate defending the use of the word “nigger.”