Three years ago, the number one use for the Harvard Law Record was "lining bird cages," says Elizabeth A. Moreno, who graduated this month from Harvard Law School.

But that was before Moreno gave artistic birth in the Law School newspaper to "Alysse MacIntyre," a persona whose weekly column has shocked and amused students and faculty for the past two and a half years.

Moreno has used witty, irreverent commentaries to criticize and poke fun at the Law School's political and gender dynamics. The columnist prides herself on her bluntness.

"It strikes me in all aspects of life [that] there's what we think, and there's what we're willing to say," Moreno says. "It often amazes me that we all know what we're thinking but no one will actually say it. I was really committed to saying what I thought people were afraid to say."

Until a recent article in GQ magazine which revealed Moreno's identity as the famed Alysse, few knew that Moreno was the author of the acclaimed column.

But now, Moreno can openly join her fans in crediting the column with having introduced a dose of much-needed humor to the Law School's overly serious, heavily politicized environment.

Moreno's critiques, however, steer clear of slapstick approaches and stay with harsher evaluations, with references to Dean Robert Clark as "Mein Dean" and Law School men as "dateproof to the bitter end."

At "Beirut on the Charles," as the GQ feature termed the Law School, there seems to be little room for weak voices, moderate opinions and diluted reactions.

And debate over Moreno's brain-child is no exception. Though her fans adore her, the sentiments of her foes are just as intense. The assertion that her MacIntyre column is well-read and well-written is probably the sole point on which Moreno's readers concur.

Third-year student Andrew Greenblatt describes Moreno's writing as "quick, incisive social commentary--reality sugar-coated with enough humor that you swallow it before you realize what it is, and then it's too late."

But many view the column as medicine they'd be better off without--and they consider Moreno a quack.

Some say that "Alysse" writes only about two issues: politics and sex.

Fellow Law Record columnist and third-year student Rich Wareing classifies Moreno's work into two categories: the "I hate Bob Clark" columns and the "I hate men" columns.

But Moreno disputes the dichotomy that Wareing and others draw between her pieces on sex and her pieces on politics.

"I think that writing about female sexuality is still political," she says. "Especially writing about female sexuality for women's sakes and not as subjugated to men in any way--not even necessarily directed at men."