Yale Law School
Encyclopedia : Y : YA : YAL : Yale Law School
Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1843, the school offers the J.D., LL.M., M.S.L., and J.S.D. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars and several legal research centers.
The institution has been ranked the best law school in the United States by U.S. News & World Report since the magazine began ranking them in 1987. [link] Former President William Howard Taft was a professor of constitutional law there from 1913 until he resigned to become Chief Justice of the United States in 1921.
Yale Law School's classes are relatively small, numbering about 180 students, and its 7.5-student-to-faculty ratio is the lowest among U.S. law schools. Its small class size and high prestige combine to make its admissions process highly selective — numerically speaking, it is the most difficult law school to gain entry to in the U.S. More of its admitted students decide to attend than those of rivals Stanford and Harvard. A high GPA, high LSAT score, and very strong non-numerical credentials are near-prerequisites to admission. Half of the class that entered in 2005 had a GPA above 3.87 and an LSAT above 171 (99th percentile), out of 180 possible points. [link]
The school is known for its scholarly orientation; a large number of its graduates (4%) choose careers in academia. Yale's curriculum is generally less geared toward corporate and commercial law than that of other leading schools, such as Columbia, Harvard and Stanford. Some 38% of its graduates take judicial clerkships, more than any other school's.
Yale Law School does not have a traditional grading system, a consequence of student unrest in the late 1960s. Instead, it grades first-semester first-year students on a simple Credit/No Credit system. For their remaining two and a half years, students are graded on an Honors/Pass/Low Pass/Fail system. Similarly, the school does not rank its students. It is also notable for having only a single semester of required classes, instead of the full year most U.S. schools require.
In recent years, some students have called for the school to make diversity a higher priority when hiring faculty. The school has one tenured female professor of color and no Hispanic professors.
Students publish nine law journals that, unlike those at most other schools, accept student editors without a competition. The only exception is YLS's flagship journal, The Yale Law Journal, which holds an admissions competition each spring.
The YLS law library, Lillian Goldman Law Library, contains around 800,000 volumes. The school's classrooms were redesigned in 1998 as part of a larger renovation begun in 1995.
Prominent faculty
- Bruce Ackerman, constitutional and political science scholar and op-ed writer
- Akhil Amar, constitutional scholar, prolific writer and consultant to the television show The West Wing
- Ian Ayres, author of Why Not? and frequent commentator on NPR's Marketplace program
- Jack Balkin, First Amendment scholar and legal blogger
- Yochai Benkler, author of The Wealth of Networks
- Guido Calabresi, judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and former dean of the law school
- Amy Chua, author of New York Times bestseller: World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability
- Drew S. Days, III, former United States Solicitor General
- Owen M. Fiss, liberalism and free speech scholar
- Christine Jolls, co-founder of behavioral law and economics
- Harold Koh, dean of the law school and former assistant secretary of state for human rights in the Clinton administration
- Anthony T. Kronman, former dean, social theorist and Max Weber scholar
- Jonathan R. Macey, corporate/banking law scholar
- Renuka Asha Rangappa, former FBI agent and Dean of Admissions
- Kate Stith, former federal prosecutor
- Ralph Winter, senior circuit judge and former chief judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Famous alumni
- Samuel Alito (J.D. 1975), 110th U.S. Supreme Court Justice (2006-present)
- John R. Bolton (J.D. 1974), current U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
- Cory Booker (J.D. 1997), mayor of Newark, New Jersey
- Karl Carstens (LL.M. 1949), 5th president of the Federal Republic of Germany (1979-1984)
- Bill Clinton (J.D. 1973), 42nd U.S. President (1993-2000)
- Hillary Rodham Clinton (J.D. 1973), U.S. Senator (D-New York)
- Gerald Ford (LL.B. 1941), 38th U.S. President (1974-1976)
- Paul Helmke (J.D. 1973), Fort Wayne mayor 1987-1999, U.S. Conference of Mayors President 1997-98, Brady Campaign against Gun Violence President 2006-
- Henry T. King, Jr., (LL.B 1943), Nuremberg prosecutor 1946-1947.
- Joseph Lieberman (J.D. 1967), U.S. Senator (D-Connecticut) and 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee
- Robert M. Morgenthau (LL.B. 1948), district attorney for New York County
- Pat Robertson (LL.B. 1955), televangelist
- Arlen Specter (LL.B. 1956), U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee chairman (R-Pennsylvania)
- Clarence Thomas (J.D. 1974), 106th U.S. Supreme Court justice (1991-present)
See also
- Yale University
- Elihu Yale
- List of Yale University people (Yalies)
- Yale School of Management
- Yale School of Medicine
External links
- [Yale Law School]
- [The Yale Law Journal]
- [The Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law, & Ethics]
- [The Yale Journal of International Law]
- [The Yale Journal of Law and Feminism]
- [Yale Law and Policy Review]
- [The Yale Law School Rebellious Lawyering Conference]
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