School Notes: Yale Law School
January/February 2026

Number of full-tuition scholarships increases for 2025–26

The Law School awarded 96 students—more than 15 percent of the current JD class—its Hurst Horizon Scholarship for 2025–26. The number of students who receive the full-tuition, need-based scholarship has nearly doubled since the program’s launch in 2022. Yale Law School is one of just two law schools in the US that offers financial aid based solely on need. The school spends more than $20 million annually from its endowment to ensure that more than 70 percent of law students receive generous need-based financial aid packages.

Yale Law School Association honors two with Award of Merit

Pamela S. Karlan ’80, ’84MA, ’84JD, and Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law Heather K. Gerken received the Award of Merit in October at the school’s Alumni Weekend. Karlan serves as the Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law and codirector of the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic at Stanford Law School. Gerken served as dean of the Law School from 2017 until 2025, during which time she strengthened the school’s tradition of academic excellence, fortified support for the student body, and launched innovative new programming. She was named the 11th president of the Ford Foundation in 2025. Since 1957, the Yale Law School Association has annually bestowed its highest honor, the Award of Merit, to graduates or faculty.

Women Faculty Forum recognition

Arthur Liman Professor of Law Judith Resnik received the 2025 Elga R. Wasserman Courage, Clarity, and Leadership Award from the Women Faculty Forum at Yale on September 16. The award was established in 2021 “to honor a Yale woman every year who has demonstrated tremendous courage, clarity, and leadership in their community service.” Resnik is the founding director of the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law. She teaches courses on federalism, procedure, courts, prisons, equality, and citizenship.