School Notes: Yale Law School
January/February 2017

Devitt Awards honor YLS alumni

The Dwight D. Opperman Foundation announced that the 32nd annual Edward J. Devitt Distinguished Service to Justice Award will be presented to Senior Judge Jon O. Newman ’56LLB of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Judge Ralph K. Winter ’57, ’60LLB, also of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, will receive the honor in 2017. Judge Newman assumed senior status in his current position on the Second Circuit in 1997. At the time of his appointment in 1979, he was a US District Court judge for the District of Connecticut. Judge Newman was chief judge from 1993 to 1997. He received his BA from Princeton University in 1953, and his LLB from Yale Law School in 1956. Judge Winter was appointed US Circuit judge for the Second Circuit in 1981 and entered duty on January 5, 1982. He received a BA from Yale College in 1957 and an LLB from Yale Law School in 1960. Judge Winter was a full-time member of the Yale Law School faculty from 1962 until entering judicial service. The Devitt Award is the American judiciary’s longest-running award and its highest honor that is bestowed upon an Article III federal judge.

Dining hall renamed to honor alumnus

The Yale Law School Dining Hall will be renamed the Derald H. Ruttenberg Dining Hall to honor Ruttenberg, who received his LLB in 1940. This gift from the Ruttenberg family is only the latest in a long history of philanthropy toward Yale Law School. Ruttenberg Hall, which is adjacent to the Sterling Law Building, was converted in the 1990s to house much-needed faculty offices and student clinics, thanks to the generosity of Derald Ruttenberg. He also endowed the Goldstein Fellowship Fund and the Derald H. Ruttenberg Scholarship. After graduating from Yale Law School, he received a business degree from Harvard. In his early career, he owned a number of midwestern industrial companies and went on to head Studebaker-Worthington.  He was also a philanthropist who helped establish cancer research and treatment centers at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.