The regular curriculum at Yale Law School is augmented by a host of events that enrich legal education and scholarship. Distinguished speakers—lawyers, judges, public figures, government officials, scholars, and other prominent individuals—are invited by faculty members, student organizations, and academic programs within the School to give talks or participate in panel discussions on a wide variety of topics throughout the year. Conferences sponsored or cosponsored by the School or by its faculty or students address issues of legal import both here and abroad. Additionally, an abundant resource of endowed funds allows the School to invite many specially designated fellows who not only give lectures but also spend time mentoring students with similar academic or professional interests.
Lecture Programs
A sampling of the endowed lecture programs from the 2022–2023 academic year follows:
The Robert P. Anderson Memorial Lecture provides a forum for distinguished judges to speak on matters of general importance to law and society. Justice Prof. Dr. Susanne Baer of the German Constitutional Court and Italian Minister of Justice Marta Cartabia delivered the 2022–2023 Robert P. Anderson Memorial Fellowship Lecture, titled “The Challenges to Constitutionalism.”
The Gruber Distinguished Lecture in Global Justice and the Gruber Distinguished Lecture in Women’s Rights are signature lectures featuring speakers whose exceptional achievements have served the causes of global justice and women’s rights. Lynsey Addario, a photojournalist who has covered conflict zones around the globe, delivered the 2023 Gruber Distinguished Lecture in Global Justice, titled “Of Love and War.” Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO, delivered the 2022 Gruber Distinguished Lecture in Women’s Rights, titled “Women and Unions: Solidarity Is a Force Stronger than Gravity.”
The John R. Raben/Sullivan & Cromwell Fellowship brings to the Law School a leading expert in securities law or accounting for business enterprises to deliver a public lecture. Joshua D. Rauh, the Ormond Family Professor of Finance at Stanford Graduate School of Business, delivered the John R. Raben/Sullivan & Cromwell Fellowship Lecture, titled “Regulating Investment Management and Retirement Plans in the Age of ESG.”
The James A. Thomas Lectures are given by scholars whose work addresses the concerns of communities or groups currently marginalized within the legal academy or society at large. Randall Kennedy, author and the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School, delivered the Thomas Lecture, titled “From Protest to Law: Triumps and Defeats in Struggles for Racial Justice, 1950–1970.”
The Judge Ralph K. Winter Lectureship on Corporate Law and Governance supports lectures on corporate law and governance and related topics. Lawrence H. Summers, the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and Professor Emeritus of Harvard University, delivered the 2022–2023 Judge Ralph K. Winter Lecture on Corporate Law and Governance, titled “Inflation Risks for America and the Global Economy.”
Other named lecture and fellowship programs at Yale Law School include the following:
The Timothy B. Atkeson Environmental Practitioner in Residence Program brings to the Law School practitioners from a variety of environmental law practice settings to lecture, teach seminars, and counsel students on career opportunities.
The Robert L. Bernstein Fellowships in International Human Rights are awarded annually to two Yale Law School graduates pursuing projects devoted to the advancement of human rights around the world.
The Robert M. Cover Lectureship in Law and Religion brings speakers to Yale to explore the historical, philosophical, sociological, and literary intersections between law and religion.
The Ralph Gregory Elliot First Amendment Lectureship provides for lectures, preferably on an annual basis, on some aspect of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The John Hart Ely Fellowship Lecture on Professional Responsibility highlights research and teaching in the field of ethics and professional responsibility.
The Fowler Harper Memorial Fund and Fellowship brings to Yale Law School a prominent person who has made a distinguished contribution to the public life of the nation.
The Samuel and Ronnie ’72 Heyman Lecture on Public Service is part of a gift that also supports the Heyman Federal Public Service Fellowship Program.
The Arthur Allen Leff Fellowship brings to Yale Law School individuals whose work in other disciplines illuminates the study of law and legal institutions.
The Charles S. Mechem, Jr. Fellowship provides for lectures and other presentations by senior corporate executives to foster an understanding of decision-making in the business environment.
The Judge Jon O. Newman Lectureship supports an annual lecture in global justice, or public international, human rights, or comparative law, by a distinguished individual who is not a citizen of, and does not reside in, the United States.
The Robert H. Preiskel and Leon Silverman Program on the Practicing Lawyer and the Public Interest sponsors lectures and other events celebrating private lawyers’ contributions to the public interest.
The Sherrill Lectureship brings distinguished visitors with special expertise in problems of international law and international relations.
The Storrs Lectures, established in 1889, constitute one of Yale Law School’s oldest and most prestigious lecture programs. They are given annually by a prominent scholar who discusses fundamental problems of law and jurisprudence.
Special Initiatives
Yale Law School is shaped by the intellectual interests of its faculty and students. Those interests find expression not only in the established curriculum and other academic opportunities, but also in new activities that emerge from time to time.
Michael S. and Alexa B. Chae Initiative in Private Sector Leadership
Part of The Tsai Leadership Program at Yale Law School, the Michael S. and Alexa B. Chae Initiative in Private Sector Leadership provides focused educational and professional development to Yale Law School students who aspire to nontraditional careers and leadership roles in the private sector. The Chae Initiative helps prepare students for careers in areas such as business, finance, investing, management consulting, and entrepreneurship. The Chae Initiative advises students as they master the intellectual foundations of numeracy through courses such as financial modeling, statistics, accounting, and data science. The Chae Initiative also supports professional development through programming on the values, ethics, skills, and theories of management and leadership across a wide spectrum of private sector organizations. The Chae Initiative is premised on the notion that a law degree is an all-purpose thinking and problem-solving degree and provides a crucial foundation that will serve graduates for many business leadership roles. More information is available at: https://law.yale.edu/leadership/private-sector.
Global Health Justice Partnership
The Global Health Justice Partnership (GHJP) is a program hosted jointly by Yale Law School and Yale School of Public Health that tackles contemporary problems at the interface of global health, human rights, and social justice. The GHJP is pioneering an innovative, interdisciplinary field of scholarship, teaching, and practice, bringing together diverse thought leaders to collaborate on research, policy projects, and academic exchanges.
The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School
The Gruber Program at the Law School consists of four core components: (1) the Global Constitutionalism Seminar, (2) a distinguished lecture series, (3) postgraduate fellowship program, and (4) support for clinical and experiential learning initiatives. The Global Constitutionalism Seminar is an annual event in which Supreme Court and constitutional court judges from around the world meet with faculty members to discuss issues of common concern. The two Gruber Distinguished Lectures in Global Justice and Women’s Rights are signature lectures featuring pathbreakers in those fields. The lectures are often accompanied by complementary events, which may include panel discussions, faculty workshops, and class visits. The Gruber Fellowships in Global Justice and Women’s Rights allow recent graduates of Yale graduate and professional schools to spend a year working on practice-based projects of their own design in the fields of global justice and/or women’s rights. Through the Gruber Project for Global Justice and Women’s Rights, the program also supports a number of hands-on clinical and experiential learning opportunities, including a pilot one for “visiting practitioners in residence.” Gruber Project initiatives have included litigation and policy advocacy on behalf of refugees, asylum seekers, domestic violence survivors, global health justice issues, workers rights, reproductive justice, and female veterans.
The Information Society Project
The Information Society Project (ISP) is an intellectual center founded in 1997 by Professor Jack Balkin. Over the past twenty years, the ISP has grown into a tightly knit community working to illuminate the complex relationships between law, technology, and society. The ISP hosts a core group of resident fellows, visiting fellows, Yale faculty, and student fellows; it also maintains an international network of affiliated fellows. The ISP promotes discussions through its speaker series, ideas lunches, and conferences; it also influences the development of law and policy through clinical work, amicus briefs, white papers, and scholarship. Additionally, the ISP is an umbrella organization for a range of initiatives, including (1) the Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression, which supports research on First Amendment freedoms of speech and press and promotes engagement between academics and legal practitioners; (2) the Media Freedom and Information Access (MFIA) Clinic, which brings litigation to promote freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and government accountability and transparency; (3) the Knight Law and Media Program, which sponsors law and media programming; (4) the Wikimedia/YLS Initiative on Intermediaries and Information, which generates awareness of and research on issues relevant to the global open Internet; (5) Privacy Lab, a nexus for workshops and discussions about software, hardware, and spectrum freedom; (6) the Knight Digital Public Sphere initiative, which supports research and programming at the intersection of online discourse and democracy; (7) the Majority World Initiative (MWI) which will support social media governance scholars from the Majority World, commonly referred to as the Global South; and (8) the Program for the Study of Reproductive Justice (PSRJ), which sponsors academic research on reproductive health issues and supports young scholars interested in academic or advocacy careers. More information on the ISP and its work is available at https://law.yale.edu/isp.
The Justice Collaboratory
The Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law School is a group of nationally recognized academics, researchers, and social scientists from Yale and beyond who have joined together to build a more just, effective, and democratic criminal legal system by advancing public policies that are scientifically proven to build strong and safe communities where all citizens can thrive. Our interdisciplinary network spans departments and includes academics, doctors, lawyers, historians, psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, and political scientists.
The research findings of The Justice Collaboratory, derived from a strict adherence to the scientific method, are the basis for the proven theoretical foundations that can transform historically underserved communities to ones of vitality, opportunity, and justice for all citizens. The Justice Collaboratory is also home to the Social Media Governance Initiative, which aims to create an online environment that benefits society. For more information on affiliated Yale faculty, courses, fellowships, and projects, please visit https://www.justicehappenshere.yale.edu.
Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization
The Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization is an academic endeavor entirely devoted to improving the understanding of Islamic law and civilization by organizing interdisciplinary discussions with leading scholars and thinkers and supporting the research of promising junior scholars. It brings prominent scholars of Islam and fields related to Islamic civilization to Yale Law School for public lectures and seminars, and it sponsors resident research fellowships. The center is directed by Professors Aslı Bâli, Owen Fiss, and Anthony Kronman and serves the entire university. For more information on the center’s activities, including the Abdallah S. Kamel Lectures on Islamic Law and Civilization, visit https://law.yale.edu/kamel.
The Law and Racial Justice Center
The Law and Racial Justice Center (RJC) brings together New Haveners; Yale students, staff, and faculty; local government officials; and local and national experts to imagine and implement projects that advance racial justice. The center aspires to work together in community, collaborate across disciplines, and create opportunities for student-centered experiential learning. The RJC’s signature program, Access to Law School, is an innovative law school pipeline program designed for people from the New Haven area who are first generation, low-income, formerly incarcerated, or members of an under-represented racial group who are considering attending law school. This fall seventeen fellows from our first two cohorts will be enrolled in law school at places like Quinnipiac University, UC-Berkeley, UConn, University of Vermont, and Yale. For more information, visit https://law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/law-and-racial-justice-center.
The Law, Ethics & Animals Program
The Law, Ethics & Animals Program (LEAP) at Yale Law School is a multidisciplinary think-and-do tank dedicated to developing new legal and policy strategies to address animal exploitation and its impacts on the living world, and to drawing attention to the urgent practical, legal, and moral questions raised by humanity’s treatment of animals and their habitats.
LEAP leads a diverse program of activities that empower students and scholars at Yale to drive positive change for animals, people, and the environment upon which they depend. The program includes academic courses; research and policy work; the Climate, Animal, Food, and Environmental Law & Policy Lab (CAFE Lab), a unique curricular offering in which students work with experts to develop new legal and political strategies to address the multiple externalized costs of industrial animal agriculture; a student fellows program, with active support for student research projects and publications; regular lectures, panels, roundtables, and events that bring leading thinkers—including lawmakers, scholars, scientists, artists, journalists, and advocates—to Yale’s campus to inspire and inform the program’s work; and the “When We Talk About Animals” podcast series. LEAP’s work is highly interdisciplinary, and it often partners with schools, departments, and other centers and programs across Yale University and beyond. More information is available at https://law.yale.edu/animals.
The Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law
The Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law promotes access to justice and the fair treatment of individuals and communities. Through its research, teaching, fellowships, and colloquia, the Liman Center helps develop diverse initiatives to bring about more just legal systems.
The Liman Center hosts the Liman Workshop, a seminar taught in the spring of each year; topics vary and have included “Racial Justice and Immigrants’ Rights,” “Criminal Systems at a Crossroads,” and “Imprisoned: From Conception and Construction to Abolition.” In addition, Liman Center faculty collaborate with students on another seminar, Research for Reform, to do innovative research that informs contemporary challenges in legal systems. For example, projects have included research on the use of solitary confinement, on the impact of liens imposed on individuals who are incarcerated, and on access to voting for people in detention. The Liman Center also hosts an annual colloquium to bring together scholars, students, lawyers, social scientists, and other experts to address issues in criminal and civil law reform and in legal education.
Each year, the Center awards several Liman Fellowships to Yale Law School graduates to spend a year working in the public interest at host organization around the United States. In addition, the Center supports Liman Summer Fellowships, provided to students at Barnard College, Brown University, Bryn Mawr College, Harvard University, Princeton University, Spelman College, Stanford University, and Yale University. The Liman Center is also home to in-residence Fellows, who join in teaching and research at the university.
Carol and Gene Ludwig Program in Public Sector Leadership
Part of The Tsai Leadership Program at Yale Law School, the Carol and Gene Ludwig Program in Public Sector Leadership provides focused educational and professional support to Yale Law students who aspire to nontraditional careers and leadership roles in the public sector. The Ludwig Program helps prepare students for careers in areas such as government, nonprofits, and other institutions focused on serving the public. The mission of the Ludwig Program is to ensure that Yale Law students are capable of translating principle into practice; can display a firm grasp of the political, economic, civic, and operational dimensions of policy work; and are well-equipped to engage in ethical reflection and decision-making. The Ludwig Program is premised on the notion that those who serve in the public sector should be flexible, broad-gauged thinkers who make empirically grounded decisions and are deeply committed to a vibrant democracy and the well-being of others. More information is available at: https://law.yale.edu/leadership/public-sector.
Middle East Legal Studies Seminar
The Middle East Legal Studies Seminar is an annual meeting convened by the Law School in a Middle East country or nearby venue. Occasionally the seminar meets in New Haven. It was created to provide a forum in which influential scholars and opinion leaders from the legal communities of the Middle East could exchange ideas and form productive working relationships. Every year, roughly sixty lawyers, judges, and academics from the region meet with Yale professors and students to discuss an agreed-upon topic of common importance. Recent topics have included the concept of political legitimacy, history and identity, and the causes and consequences of current unrest in the Middle East. For additional information, contact bradley.hayes@yale.edu.
The John M. Olin Center for Studies in Law, Economics, and Public Policy
The Olin Center for Studies in Law, Economics, and Public Policy is designed to facilitate the scholarly interests of the many distinguished law and economics scholars at Yale, including Professors Ackerman, Alstott, Ayres, Calabresi, Ellickson, Hansmann, Jolls, Klevorick, Kronman, Liscow, Listokin, Macey, Markovits, Morley, Mashaw, C. Priest, G. Priest, Romano, Rose, Rose-Ackerman, Schleicher, Schuck, Schwartz, and Zhang. The center supports the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization; a Working Paper Series; and the Law, Economics, and Organization Workshop, at which scholars from Yale and other institutions present papers for student and faculty criticism. The center also provides an umbrella for two programs: the Program in Civil Liability, established to promote comprehensive reanalysis of the modern law of torts, products liability, professional malpractice, insurance, and other subjects related to our civil liability system; and the Program for Studies in Capitalism, which supports research on the operation of capitalism as a mechanism of economic growth, the ethical bases of capitalism, and the relation between capitalism and the poor, and between capitalism and democracy. The center’s codirectors are Professors George L. Priest and Susan Rose-Ackerman.
The Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights
The Schell Center offers law students and graduates diverse opportunities to apply the lessons they are learning in the classroom to further the cause of human rights and to examine human rights practice critically. It also brings critical human rights discussion to the wider university community. Throughout the academic year, the Schell Center sponsors lectures, panels, symposia, and informal discussions on a wide range of human rights issues, including the weekly Human Rights Workshop and the annual Bernstein Symposium. The Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic offers hands-on experience to work with partner organizations around the globe. Outside of the clinic, students have the opportunity to engage in human rights work through the Lowenstein Project, a student-run organization, and the center’s visiting fellows, who include renowned human rights advocates and scholars from diverse backgrounds.
The center provides fellowship opportunities for summer and postgraduate human rights experience. Kirby Simon Summer Human Rights Fellowships fund students spending all or part of the summer engaged in human rights internships or research. Kirby Simon Fellowships have supported summer human rights work in ninety-seven countries to date. The Robert L. Bernstein Fellowship in International Human Rights, inaugurated in 1997, funds several recent Yale Law School graduates annually for a year of full-time human rights advocacy work. The Robina Foundation Human Rights Fellowship supports postgraduate work at appropriate international or foreign courts and tribunals and intergovernmental human rights agencies. To date, the Bernstein and Robina Fellowships have funded 123 graduates to pursue human rights work after law school.
The directors of the Schell Center are Professors Claudia M. Flores, Paul W. Kahn, and James J. Silk. The executive director is Hope Metcalf. The Schell Center’s email address is schell.law@yale.edu.
The Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School
The Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School is the first of its kind to focus on the intersection of law and the governance, business, and practice of health care in the United States. The center brings together leading experts and practitioners from the public and private sectors to address cutting-edge questions of health law and policy, and to train the next generation of top health lawyers, industry leaders, policy makers, and academics.
The center was established to meet a critical need for a new academic and legal-professional discipline that responds to the rapidly evolving environment of health care and its centrality in the nation’s economy and government. The center’s programming includes many course offerings, both academic and experiential; career planning; academic research, policy work, and litigation briefs; and numerous high-profile panels and conferences that bring academic, government, and business leaders in health care to the Law School. It hosts academic visitors from all disciplines to enrich its programming and course offerings and to actively support student research, fieldwork, and publications. The center also helps coordinate eight Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) that combine health and legal services at a single site of care for underprivileged populations and give students legal experience directly in the medical setting. The Yale Health Law & Policy Society (YHeLPS), the student arm of the center, is an active partner in events and student programming. More information is available at https://law.yale.edu/solomon-center.
The Joseph C. Tsai Leadership Program
The Joseph C. Tsai Leadership Program at Yale Law School provides students with expanded curricular and co-curricular offerings to ensure the next generation of dynamic leaders have the knowledge and professional training required to confront and embrace the biggest challenges of an ever-evolving world. Additions to the curriculum include numeracy courses such as accounting, corporate finance, and statistics; ethical decision-making; and emerging issues related to technological change, big data, and globalization. Students are able to hone professional management skills through specialized intensives, boot camps, and workshops. The Program also brings mentors-in-residence to campus to advise students on the many paths available to a graduate of Yale Law School, harnessing the power of the Yale Law School alumni community. Program opportunities are open to every Yale Law student, no matter what career path they choose. More information is available at https://law.yale.edu/leadership.
The Paul Tsai China Center
Founded by Professor Paul Gewirtz in 1999 as the China Law Center, the Paul Tsai China Center is the primary home for activities related to China at Yale Law School. The center is a unique institution dedicated to helping advance China’s legal reforms, contributing to the development of U.S.-China relations, and increasing understanding of China in the United States. In interaction with research and teaching at Yale, the center works collaboratively with top experts in Chinese universities, government, and civil society on projects in areas such as judicial reform, administrative and regulatory reform, antidiscrimination, criminal justice, and other aspects of public interest law. The center’s work also includes a range of efforts on U.S.-China relations more broadly, including analyzing and recommending U.S. government policies and leading dialogues with Chinese counterparts that bring together former senior government officials and top experts from both countries to address a broad range of economic, security, and political issues in the U.S.-China relationship. Areas of focus include multilateral diplomacy with U.S. allies and partners, technology and trade policy, Asia-Pacific regional security issues, and human rights policies, among others. As the foundation of all these projects, the center staff undertakes teaching, research, and writing that seek to contribute to the education and training of a younger generation and more widely advance understanding of China and U.S.-China relations. Yale Law School students are involved in all aspects of the center’s work.
In March 2016, Yale Law School received a gift of $30 million in honor of its distinguished alumnus, the late Dr. Paul C. Tsai ’54 LL.M., ’57 J.S.D., to support the continuing work of the Law School’s China Center. This gift was given by his son, Joseph C. Tsai ’86 B.A.,’90 J.D. In recognition of this gift, the center was renamed the Paul Tsai China Center.
More information is available at https://law.yale.edu/china-center.
The Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy
The Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, a joint undertaking between Yale Law School and Yale School of the Environment, seeks to advance fresh thinking and analytically rigorous approaches to environmental decision-making across disciplines, sectors, and scales. In addition to its research activities, the center also aims to foster discussion and collaboration across the Yale campus on environmental law and policy issues at the local, regional, national, and global levels. Current projects include the biennial Environmental Performance Index (http://epi.yale.edu), which ranks countries on their sustainability performance across eleven policy categories covering both environmental public health and ecosystem vitality; the Global Commons Stewardship Index (https://resources.unsdsn.org/global-commons-stewardship-index-2021), which ranks countries based on their impact on the shared resources of the Global Commons; the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance (https://cbey.yale.edu/yale-initiative-on-sustainable-finance-yisf); and Remaking the Global Trading System for a Sustainable Future (https://remakingtradeproject.org). Additional research themes include sustainable investing and ESG reporting, corporate sustainability metrics, rethinking environmental protection for the twenty-first century, corporate sustainability strategy, and global governance. The center also plays a role in leading a major YSE initiative, Yale Environmental Dialogue, that aims to promote conversations on challenging sustainability issues with a goal of bridging political divides. For additional information on the center, please visit https://envirocenter.yale.edu.
The Yale Center for Law and Philosophy
The Yale Center for Law and Philosophy was founded in 2005 as a joint venture of the Law School and the Yale Philosophy department. It aims to encourage advanced work, including research degrees, at the interface of philosophy and law. Members of both faculties are affiliated with the center, as are a number of visitors. The center’s programs include regular workshops and conferences, attracting leading philosophers of law from around the world. The center supports a postdoctoral fellowship, which provides substantial funding for research. The center also helps to coordinate courses across the Law School and the Philosophy department. Professor Scott Shapiro is the director. More information is available at https://law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/yale-center-law-and-philosophy.
The Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges
The Yale Law School Center for Global Legal Challenges bridges the divide between the legal academy and legal practice on global legal issues. It provides a forum where academic experts and students regularly interact with public and private sector actors responsible for addressing global legal challenges. By bringing these communities together, the center aims to inject new ideas into legal policy debates and grow a new generation of lawyers with a sense of their capacity and responsibility to use international law, foreign affairs law, and national security law to address real challenges facing the nation. For more information, visit https://law.yale.edu/glc.
The Yale Law School Center for Private Law
The Yale Law School Center for Private Law serves as a focal point for research and teaching in private law at the Law School and, more generally, at the University. The center, which brings together scholars, students, and practicing lawyers from across the United States and abroad, promotes the interdisciplinary study of private law, including contracts, property, torts, and private dispute resolution. It emphasizes economically informed philosophical, sociological, and doctrinal approaches. The center engages students, scholars, and practicing lawyers in guest lectures, seminars, workshops, and other activities.
The Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law
The Yale Law School Center for the Study of Corporate Law was established in 1999 to promote teaching and research in the business law area. The center’s focus of study is wide-ranging, reflecting the shifting priorities of the business and regulatory environment. It includes corporate and commercial law and the law of other nongovernmental organizations; the regulation of financial markets and intermediaries; the legal framework of finance, including the law of bankruptcy and corporate reorganization; and antitrust law and the law of regulated industries.
The center annually hosts the Weil, Gotshal & Manges Roundtable, a one-day event on the issues of the day, and two endowed lectures, the John R. Raben/Sullivan & Cromwell Fellowship Lecture and the Judge Ralph K. Winter Lectureship on Corporate Law and Governance. Throughout the year, the center sponsors the Bert W. Wasserman Workshop in Law and Finance, which invites scholars from other universities to present their current research; the Marvin A. Chirelstein Colloquium on Contemporary Issues in Law and Business, which is organized as a lunch lecture series; and additional occasional lectures, panels, and symposia, such as the 2022–2023 Hilibrand Panel Series on current white-collar issues. These programs seek to convey to students a broad spectrum of career experiences through presentations by distinguished alumni and other members of the bar, judiciary, government, and investment and business communities. The center also hosts the Craig Wasserman ’86/Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Alumni Breakfast Program, which features panels on contemporary business law issues held over breakfast for alumni in New York City. Finally, the center provides support for the Law School’s joint J.D./Ph.D. in finance program with the Yale School of Management, which is a program intended for students wishing to pursue an academic career in the business-law area.
Professor Roberta Romano is the center’s director. Nancy Liao is the John R. Raben/Sullivan & Cromwell Executive Director. The center has a Board of Advisors, chaired by Robert J. Giuffra Jr. ’87. Faculty members serving on the center’s Executive Committee are Ian Ayres, Amy Chua, Heather Gerken, Henry Hansmann, Christine Jolls, Alvin Klevorick, Anthony Kronman, John Langbein, Zachary Liscow, Yair Listokin, Jonathan Macey, Daniel Markovits, Noah Messing, John Morley, George Priest, Sven Riethmueller, Sarath Sanga, Natasha Sarin, and Alan Schwartz. David Zornow ’80 and Victoria Cundiff ’80, members of the center’s Board and frequent visiting lecturers at the Law School, are center fellows who, among other activities at YLS, provide mentoring to students regarding careers in the private sector and litigation.
For additional information on the center’s upcoming and past activities, the business law curriculum at the Law School, and the joint J.D./Ph.D. in finance program with the School of Management, which the center supports, visit https://ccl.yale.edu.
Yale Law School Latin American Legal Studies
Several initiatives are designed for the mutual production and dissemination of knowledge between Yale and leading Latin American law schools. The Latin American Linkage Program is a summer exchange of law students from Yale, two universities in Chile, one in Argentina, and four in Brazil. During their summer recess, Yale students spend three weeks meeting leading legal academics, practitioners, and government officials and working with law students in Argentina, Chile, or Brazil. In the spring, students from the Latin American partner schools visit Yale for a three-week behind-the-scenes look at legal education at Yale, sitting in on classes; giving presentations; participating in study groups; and meeting with faculty, student leaders, and judges and lawyers in various academic and social settings. In addition, leading legal scholars from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain, and the United States meet each June for the Seminario en Latinoamérica de Teoría Constitucional y Política (SELA), a three-day seminar exploring the foundational principles of constitutional democracy. SELA is cosponsored by Yale and law schools in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Spain and represents the hub of the Latin American Legal Studies program. SELA not only provides the institutional basis for the Linkage exchange but also for an in-house speaker series at Yale (the Latin American Series), innumerable faculty visits, and many collaborative research and translation projects. Professor Daniel Markovits is the faculty director at Yale. For additional information on Latin American Legal Studies at Yale see https://law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/yale-law-school-latin-american-legal-studies or contact bradley.hayes@yale.edu.
Opportunities for Study in Legal History
The study of legal history occupies an important place in the Law School’s curriculum. Recent, current, and future offerings include courses on the history of the common law, constitutional history, American legal history, European legal history, Chinese legal history, the history of the administrative state, the history of mass incarceration, the history of criminal procedure, the history of property, the history of human rights, the history of empire, and the history of the laws of war. Faculty from the Yale Department of History offer further courses in South Asian legal history, the legal systems of antiquity, and more. Seminars and lectures by outside scholars supplement the regular curricular offerings. The Legal History Forum, a workshop dedicated to scholarship in legal history, brings legal historians from around the world to present new scholarship to interested faculty and students from the Law School and other Yale departments. The Law School encourages advanced study and original research in the history of law. Students may obtain course credit for supervised research with individual professors. Students interested in pursuing a career in the field of legal history might pursue the joint J.D./Ph.D. Program in History or in American Studies.
Visiting Researchers
Each year the Law School has in residence a small number of visiting researchers engaged in nondegree research. Visiting researchers may audit up to two courses per term (with the consent of individual instructors) and use library facilities for their work. Each visiting researcher is charged a registration fee. For the academic year 2023–2024 the fee is $4,000 per term, or $8,000 per academic year. No financial aid is available from the Law School for participants in this program.
The visiting researcher application is available on the Law School website at https://law.yale.edu/vr. Applications must include the application form; a current résumé or curriculum vitae; a description of the proposed research, including a statement explaining why Yale Law School is a particularly appropriate affiliation for the proposed work; two letters of recommendation; all official transcript(s) of the applicant’s academic record; the proposed length and dates of stay at Yale Law School; an official Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) report, unless the applicant is a native English speaker or the applicant’s undergraduate education or first law degree was completed at an institution where English is the language of instruction; and the $75 (USD) application fee. The admissions committee requires a minimum score of 100 on the Internet-based TOEFL test. Yale Law School does not accept the IELTS examination. Final official transcripts may be certified electronic transcripts or traditional paper transcripts. In either case, they must be sent to the Law School directly from the issuing institution or its authorized agent. All documents must be in English or accompanied by a certified English translation.
Application deadlines are March 15 for the fall term and September 1 for the spring term.
Fellowships for Postgraduate Research
Yale Law School offers a number of fellowships for alumni interested in pursuing careers in public interest law or academia. The Yale Law School Public Interest, Bernstein, Liman, Heyman, Gruber, Ford Foundation, and Robina Fellowships, among others, support work in various types of public interest positions. The Cover Fellowships, as well as fellowships affiliated with a number of centers and programs, are available for Yale Law School alumni interested in careers in law teaching. For a complete list of fellowships, visit www.law.yale.edu/publicinterestfellowships.