School Notes: Yale Law School
January/February 2020

Neighborhoods are important to NYC citizens

A study completed by the law school’s Justice Collaboratory about New York City citizens’ engagement with city government found that neighborhoods are an important part of New Yorkers’ identities and lives. Respondents reported relying heavily on local services and valuing positive relationships with neighbors. Conducted from 2017 to 2018, the study focused on: residents’ perceptions of and involvement in their neighborhoods; knowledge of municipal services and participation in city government; and perceptions of fairness, or lack thereof, in resident’s dealings with the New York Police Department. The findings were released in November 2019.

Report proposes accessible banking

In November 2019, the Ludwig Center for Community and Economic Development (CED) at Yale Law School, the Program for Recovery and Community Health at the Yale Department of Psychiatry, and the Connecticut Mental Health Center Foundation Inc. jointly presented a report, “Banking for All: Why Financial Institutions Need to Offer Supportive Banking Features.” Brittany Farr ’19JD and Brian Cash ’19MArch, both CED alumni, coauthored the report with Annie Harper ’10PhD of the Yale School of Medicine. The report proposes three banking features that can make banking more accessible: customized alerts; self-imposed spending limits; and third-party view-only account access. These supportive features permit banking to all people, including customers with mental illness, and the tools are consistent with existing federal and Connecticut banking and consumer protection statutes.

Students named Kerry Fellows

Seven Yale Law School students are among the 20 newly named Kerry Fellows who will work with former Secretary of State John Kerry on pressing global challenges, as part of Yale University’s Kerry Initiative in partnership with the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. The new student fellows from the Law School are J. Elizabeth Allan ’21, Andrea de Sá ’20, Katherine Fang ’22, Max Goldberg ’22, Annie Himes ’21, Brian Kim ’21, and Isa Qasim ’20.