Lecture Programs and Other Academic Opportunities
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 2016–2017 academic year follows:
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. Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford, delivered the lecture, titled “Unilateral Universalism? The United States and the Promotion of Free Speech in a Connected World.”
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. Simon Levin, Moffett Professor of Biology at Princeton University, delivered the lecture, titled “Evolutionary Perspectives on Business Strategies.”
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. Martin Gilens, Professor of Politics at Princeton University, gave the lecture, titled “America’s Ailing Democracy: What’s Gone Wrong and What We Can Do About It.”
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. Shannon Price Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, gave the lecture, titled “Belief and Belonging: Reconciling Legal Protections for Religious Pluralism and LGBT Youth.”
The Judge Ralph K. Winter Lectureship on Corporate Law and Governance supports lectures on corporate law and governance and related topics. Marianne Bertrand, Chris P. Dialynas Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, delivered the lecture, titled “Breaking the Glass Ceiling: Board Quotas in Norway.”
Other named lecture and fellowship programs at Yale Law School include the following:
The Robert P. Anderson Memorial Lecture provides a forum for distinguished judges to speak on matters of general importance to law and society.
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 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 Kronman-Postol Lectureship supports lectures related to law and the humanities.
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.
Other special guest lecturers in 2016–2017 included Asma Jahangir, Pakistani human rights lawyer, who gave the 2016 Gruber Distinguished Lecture on “Empowering the Disadvantaged: Bonded Labor, Women, and the Role of Human Rights.” Rebecca Gomperts, founder of Women on Waves, delivered the 2017 Gruber Distinguished Lecture on “Putting Abortion Pills in Women’s Hands: Ships, Apps, Drones, and the Web.” Kevin Washburn, Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law, gave a dean’s lecture, titled “In the Beginning was the Federal Trust Responsibility to Indian Tribes. Then Came Tribal Self-Governance. Conflict Ensues.” Risa Goluboff, dean of the University of Virginia School of Law, gave a dean’s lecture on “Vagrant Nation: Police Power, Constitutional Change, and the Making of the 1960s.” Robert Barnett, a lawyer at Williams & Connolly LLP, gave a dean’s lecture on “A Life in the Law.” The Abdallah S. Kamel lecture series included talks by Metropolitan Museum of Art curator Navina Haidar, Columbia University professor Avinoam Shalem, joint-chair of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies Olivier Roy, Université Saint-Joseph professor Chibli Mallat, and writer Katherine Zoepf.
The Liman Center (formerly Program) for Public Interest Law held its twentieth annual colloquium on “Public Interest(s),” which was attended by seventy-five of the 123 current and former Liman Fellows and featured an appearance by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The Paul Tsai China Center held an inaugural celebration, which included a presentation by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer. The 2017 Bernstein Symposium addressed the relationships between human rights and religion. The Information Society Project sponsored the We Robot conference to discuss the future of robots, artificial intelligence, algorithms, and the law. The Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy held a one-day symposium on building an academic agenda to enhance the practice of Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs).
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.
Collaboration for Research Integrity and Transparency
The Collaboration for Research Integrity and Transparency (CRIT) is an interdisciplinary initiative launched in 2016 to enhance the quality and transparency of the research base for medical products. Through research, advocacy, and litigation, CRIT is focused on ensuring that the clinical evidence that supports and informs our understanding of the safety and effectiveness of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and other medical products is accurate, comprehensive, accessible, and reliable. CRIT is jointly led by the Yale Global Health Justice Partnership (GHJP), the Media Freedom & Information Access (MFIA) Clinic at Yale Law School, and the Yale Open Data Access (YODA) Project within the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (CORE) at Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale School of Medicine.
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, class visits, and University activities such as College Teas in the residential colleges. 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. Gruber Project initiatives have included litigation and policy advocacy on behalf of refugees and women veterans.
The Information Society Project
The Information Society Project (ISP) supports a community of interdisciplinary scholars who work on issues at the intersection of 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 (many of whom are alumni of the program) who work on cutting-edge issues of law and technology. The ISP promotes discussions of law and technology issues through its speaker series, ideas lunches, and conferences; and it influences the development of law and policy through clinical work, amicus briefs, and scholarship. The ISP functions as an umbrella organization for a range of initiatives and programs including 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; the Media Freedom and Information Access (MFIA) Clinic, affiliated with the Abrams Institute, which brings litigation to promote freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and government accountability and transparency; the Knight Law and Media Program, which sponsors law and media courses, speakers, and conferences; the Access to Knowledge initiative, which focuses on intellectual property policy, Internet access, and the preservation of cultural heritage; the Foreign Affairs in the Internet Age initiative, which sponsors programs and conferences on how foreign policy and national security concerns interact with new technologies; 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; and the Visual Law Project, a student-run organization that produces short documentaries on legal issues to advance public debate. Professor Jack Balkin founded the ISP in 1997 and serves as its director. The ISP’s executive director is Rebecca Crootof. 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 brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and researchers at Yale University and elsewhere to work on evidence-driven criminal justice reform, policy innovation, and advancement. It infuses theory with empirical research to achieve the goal of making the components of criminal justice operation simultaneously more effective, just, and democratic. In addition to engaging scholarly audiences, the Justice Collaboratory works closely and in partnership with policy makers and practitioners to ensure that the translation and implementation of the research is consistent with the data. For more information, visit https://law.yale.edu/justice-collaboratory-0.
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 at Yale Law School brings prominent scholars of Islam to the Yale campus for public lectures, seminar discussions, visiting fellowships, and visiting professorships. The center is directed by Sterling Professors Owen Fiss and Anthony Kronman. For more information on the center’s activities, including the Abdallah S. Kamel Lectures on Islamic Law and Civilization, visit http://law.yale.edu/kamel.
The Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law
The Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law was established in 1997 as the Arthur Liman Public Interest Program by family and friends of the late Arthur Liman ’57 to honor his commitment to public interest law. The center is supported today by many others who share this commitment.
The Liman Center sponsors workshops, colloquia, programs, and research and advocacy projects for current law students. The 2017 weekly Liman workshop, “Imprisoned,” considered the political, legal, and moral dimensions of incarceration in the United States and across the globe. The Liman Center also provides fellowships for Yale Law School graduates working in the public sector, and it helps to support summer fellowships for students at Barnard, Brown, Harvard, Princeton, Spelman, Stanford, and Yale.
Through the Law School postgraduate fellowships, the Liman Center funds graduates to do full-time work in ongoing or start-up projects devoted to the public interest. Liman Fellows work on behalf of criminal defendants, prisoners, persons with disabilities, migrant workers, the elderly, immigrants, and many others. Including the 2017–2018 cohort of new fellows, the Liman Center has supported 123 fellows at more than ninety public interest organizations.
Both fellows and current law students participate in workshops and plan the annual Liman Colloquium, which over the years has addressed “The Future of Legal Services,” “Valuing Low-Wage Workers,” “Welfare ‘Reform’ and Response,” “Organizing, Reorganizing: Public Interest in Individual and Global Contexts,” “Accessing Justice/Rationing Law,” “Detention on a Global Scale: Punishment and Beyond,” and “Moving Criminal Justice.” At its twentieth annual colloquium, “Liman at 20: Public Interest(s),” the Liman Center welcomed approximately ninety Liman Fellows—past, present, and future—to celebrate its past twenty years and to look ahead to the work and challenges in the years to come.
The Arthur Liman Professor of Law is Judith Resnik. The director of the Liman Program is Anna VanCleave, and the Senior Liman Fellows in Residence are Kristen Bell and Laura Fernandez. For more information, visit https://law.yale.edu/liman.
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 fifty 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.
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, Alsott, Ayres, Calabresi, Ellickson, Graetz, Hansmann, Jolls, Klevorick, Kronman, Liscow, Listokin, Macey, Markovits, Morley, Mashaw, C. Priest, G. Priest, Romano, Rose, Rose-Ackerman, Schleicher, Schuck, Schwartz, Winter, 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 other institutions and from Yale 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 Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights was established at Yale Law School in 1989 to honor Orville Schell, a distinguished New York City lawyer and partner at Hughes, Hubbard & Reed who was vice chairman of Helsinki Watch and chairman of Americas Watch from its founding in 1981 until his death in 1987. The Schell Center seeks to increase knowledge and understanding of international human rights issues, to equip lawyers and other professionals with the knowledge and skills needed to advance the cause of international human rights, and to assist human rights organizations in their efforts to promote respect for human rights.
The 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. Throughout the academic year, the Schell Center sponsors lectures, panels, symposia, and informal discussions on a wide range of human rights issues. Students convene to hear from scholars and activists at the Human Rights Workshop, held every Thursday. The Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic offers hands-on experience to work with partner organizations around the globe. The center also supports the Yale Human Rights & Development Law Journal and student projects related to human rights.
The center provides a number of fellowship opportunities for summer and postgraduate human rights experience. Each summer, the Schell Center provides students with funding for international human rights work; in 2015 Kirby Simon Summer Human Rights Fellowships allowed students to spend all or part of the summer engaged in human rights internships or research in seventeen countries, including the United States. 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 also funds recent Yale Law School graduates to do full-time human rights work, particularly with appropriate international or foreign courts and tribunals and intergovernmental human rights agencies.
The directors of the Schell Center are Professors Paul W. Kahn and James J. Silk. The executive director is Hope Metcalf. The Schell Center’s e-mail 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, field work, and publications. The Yale Health Law & Policy Society (YHeLPS), the student arm of the center, is an active partner and helps coordinate five 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. More information is available at https://law.yale.edu/solomon-center.
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, improving 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, and public interest law. The center’s work also includes efforts to improve U.S.-China relations more broadly, especially through dialogues with Chinese counterparts that bring together former senior government officials from both countries to address a broad range of economic, security, and political issues in the U.S.-China relationship. 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 the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, advances fresh thinking and analytically rigorous approaches to environmental decision-making across disciplines, across sectors, and across boundaries. In addition to its research activities, the center also aims to serve as a locus of connection and collaboration for all members of the Yale University community interested in environmental law and policy issues. The center supports a wide-ranging program of education, research, and outreach on local, regional, national, and global environmental issues. These efforts involve faculty, staff, and student collaboration and are aimed at shaping academic thinking and policy making in the public, private, and NGO sectors. One of the center’s flagship products is the biennial Environmental Performance Index (http://epi.yale.edu), which ranks countries on performance indicators tracked across policy categories covering both environmental public health and ecosystem vitality. The center facilitates a joint-degree program in which Yale Law students can additionally pursue a master’s degree at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Undertaken separately, these two degrees would take five years to complete. Together, students can earn both degrees in four years. The center provides research, educational, career development, and social opportunities for students enrolled in the joint program as well as others affiliated with the center. For additional information, visit http://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 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 hosts annually 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, and additional lectures, panels, and symposia at the Law School. It also organizes the Craig Wasserman ’86/Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz Breakfast Program panels for alumni in New York City and the Marvin A. Chirelstein Colloquium on Contemporary Issues in Law and Business. The colloquium, which is organized either as a lunch lecture series over the year or as a limited-enrollment seminar, seeks 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.
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 advisers, chaired by Robert Todd Lang ’47, with vice chairman 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, Yair Listokin, Jonathan Macey, Daniel Markovits, Noah Messing, John Morley, George Priest, and Alan Schwartz.
For additional information on the center’s upcoming and past activities, the business law curriculum at the Law School, and joint-degree programs with the School of Management, including the three-year J.D.-M.B.A. degree program, which the center supports, visit http://ccl.yale.edu.
The Yale Law School Center for Private Law
The Yale Law School Center for Private Law serves as a focal point for work in private law at the Law School and, more generally, at the University. The center, which brings together scholars, students, and practicing lawyers from throughout the United States and internationally, promotes the interdisciplinary study of private law, with a special emphasis on economically informed philosophical, sociological, and doctrinal scholarship. The center engages students, scholars, and practicing lawyers in a wide range of venues, including roundtables, guest lectures, seminars, intensive reading weekends, and other activities.
Yale Law School Latin American Legal Studies
Several initiatives are designed to increase knowledge at Yale of Latin America and to strengthen democratic institutions and practices there. 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 the summer, Yale students spend a month in Chile, Argentina, or Brazil, meeting leading legal academics, practitioners, and government officials and working with Latin American law students in small study groups. 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 and students in a range of academic and social settings. In addition, leading legal scholars from throughout Latin America, the Caribbean Basin, 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 ideas of constitutional democracy. SELA is cosponsored by Yale and a number of other law schools in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Spain and represents the hub of the Latin American Legal Studies program. From SELA are chosen the people entrusted with the programming and care of Yale students in the Latin American Linkage Program, as are the translators for the Colección Yale-Palermo de Ciencias Jurídicas, the Spanish-language book series of works by Yale Law faculty. The group also advises the faculty directors in the selection of speakers for the Law School’s in-house Latin American Series. The last and most recent initiative of the Latin American Legal Studies program at Yale is the International Arbitration Breakfast Roundtables, which hold seminars for lawyers in Latin American practice on the emerging trends in the field of international arbitration and their implications for domestic and international law. Professor Daniel Markovits is the faculty director, and Professors Owen Fiss, Claire Priest, and Cristina Rodríguez are codirectors. Additional information on Latin American Legal Studies at Yale is available at https://law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/yale-law-school-latin-american-legal-studies.
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 criminal procedure, the history of property, 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. An informal legal history program brings together students and faculty interested in legal history; it includes students and faculty from the Law School and the Yale Department of History as well as from elsewhere within and outside the University. The Law School encourages advanced study and original research in the history of law. A few students 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 make use of library facilities for their work. Each visiting researcher is charged a registration fee. For the academic year 2017–2018 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 be submitted in hard copy and 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’s undergraduate education or law degree was completed in the United States, United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland), Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Canada, or Singapore (in a school where English is the medium of instruction); and the $75 (USD) application fee. Official transcripts must be submitted in an official envelope, signed across the seal by a school official or certifying institution. All documents must be in English or accompanied by a certified English translation.
Application deadlines are April 1 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 alumni interested in careers in law teaching. For a complete list of fellowships, visit www.law.yale.edu/currentfellowships.
