School Notes: Yale Law School
May/June 2017

Constitutional law expert will be next YLS dean

Professor Heather Gerken, J. Skelly Wright Professor of Law, has been selected as the next dean of Yale Law School, effective July 1. Gerken is one of the country’s leading experts on constitutional law and election law. A founder of the “nationalist school” of federalism, her work focuses on federalism, diversity, and dissent. She brings a rich practice experience to the deanship, having worked as an appellate lawyer in Washington, DC, and served as a senior adviser to the Obama campaign in 2008 and 2012. At Yale, Gerken created and runs the country’s most innovative clinic in local government law, the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project, which she will continue to run. Gerken is also a renowned teacher who has won awards at Yale and Harvard. She will be the 17th dean of Yale Law School and the first woman to serve in this role.

New clinics debut at Yale Law School

Six new clinics have launched as part of a growing experiential learning program at Yale Law School: the Arbitration Project, Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, Environmental Justice Clinic, Reproductive Rights and Justice Clinic, Legal Assistance: Domestic Violence Clinic, and the Rule of Law Clinic. Yale Law School has one of the most robust clinical programs in the country and permits first-year students to begin taking clinics and appearing in court during the spring semester. While each clinic is unique, they all enable students to represent real clients with real legal problems and are supervised by faculty members and visiting lecturers. As clinical offerings continue to grow at the Law School, students have a rich and diverse variety of offering to choose from. About 80 percent of Yale Law students take advantage of the opportunity to combine theory with practice.