School Notes: Yale Law School
September/October 2015

Croatian conference honors professor

Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law Mirjan Damaška was honored in May with a conference organized by the University of Zagreb Faculty of Law. The conference, titled “The Administration of Justice—Past Experiences and Challenges for the Future,” featured panels on the administration of justice, evidence, comparative criminal procedure, international criminal justice, and Damaška’s influence in other areas of the law. Participants included lawyers from the US, Canada, UK, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia. Papers presented at the conference will be published in Germany by Duncker & Humblot, in a liber amicorum for Mirjan Damaška.

Baldwin Award goes to legal historian

Yale Law School’s Center for the Study of Corporate Law awarded its 2015 Simeon E. Baldwin Award to John H. Langbein, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law and Legal History. Langbein is a preeminent legal historian and a leading American authority on trust, probate, pension, and investment law.  The Simeon E. Baldwin Award was established in 2007 and is presented by the center to a Law School graduate or faculty member in recognition of distinguished achievement in law and business.

Director of refugee program wins humanitarian award

Visiting clinical lecturer Rebecca M. Heller ’10JD received the 2015 Charles Bronfman Prize for her work providing legal assistance to refugees. The prize, and an accompanying $100,000 award, is presented annually to a humanitarian under the age of 50 whose work is informed by Jewish values and has a global impact. Heller founded and directs the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) at Yale Law School, an organization that assists refugees in applying for resettlement and adjusting to life in the United States, and she launched subsequent chapters at UC–Berkeley, Columbia, Stanford, and NYU Law Schools. IRAP pairs students with volunteer attorneys to provide legal representation to refugees, and has successfully enabled the resettlement of more than 2,500 at-risk refugees to nine countries.