School Notes: Yale Law School
May/June 2009

Yale to offer accelerated JD/MBA program

A new program of the Law School and the School of Management will enable students to earn both a juris doctor and a master of business administration degree in three years. The Accelerated Integrated JD/MBA program is unique in that students can complete the two degrees in three academic years without having to take summer classes. Law School dean Harold Hongju Koh said, "Students will master analytical and quantitative skills that will be of value for a business law-related practice but also more broadly for careers as entrepreneurs and managers in business and nonprofit organizations." The accelerated program will be offered initially for a provisional term of two years, after which the schools will jointly assess the program's success factors and future course. The two schools will continue to offer the existing four-year joint degree program as an option.

Supreme Court Clinic wins third case

Yale Law School's Supreme Court Clinic scored its third victory on April 1 in the case Harbison v. Bell. By a 7-2 vote, the Supreme Court justices agreed with the clinic that Tennessee death row inmate Edward Harbison is entitled to federally funded counsel in state clemency proceedings. The Supreme Court Clinic assisted in the merits briefing in the case. Begun in 2006, the clinic allows Yale Law School students to work on real-life public interest cases pending before the high court. Its first victory came in January in the case Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee, which concerned a lawsuit against a school district brought by parents who claimed their kindergarten daughter was being sexually harassed by another student. Its second win came in March in the case Negusie v. Holder, when the high court overturned a lower court decision that said a former Eritrean prison guard who was forced to persecute inmates was not eligible for asylum in the United States. The Harbison team included clinic supervisors Dan Kahan, Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law at Yale Law School, and Mayer Brown attorney Andrew Pincus; as well as clinic members Catherine Barnard ’09JD, Paul Hughes ’08JD, and Michael Kimberly ’08JD.

Distinguished scholars join faculty

Three new faculty members will bring their expertise to the Law School faculty in July. John Fabian Witt ’94, ’99JD, ’00PhD, is the George Welwood Murray Professor of Legal History at Columbia University; his research and teaching focus on the history of American law. Oona A. Hathaway ’97JD rejoins the Yale Law faculty after serving as professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley. She is one of the nation's leading voices on international law and international relations, transnational law, and the law of U.S. foreign policy. Claire Priest ’94, ’00JD, ’03PhD, professor of law and history at Northwestern University, teaches and researches in the areas of property and American legal and economic history.