Law school

School Notes: Yale Law School
November/December 2006

Heather K. Gerken | http://law.yale.edu

Law School library receives rare book collection

The Association of the Bar of the City of New York recently transferred approximately 1,400 books on Roman law from its rare book collection to the Law School's Lillian Goldman Library. With books bearing pigskin covers, stamped arabesques, and original clasps, the collection includes books from medieval authors and early works from Germany and Italy. The oldest of the books dates to AD 1500. Highlights of the donated collection include a 30-volume set of the decisions of the Roman Rota, the canon law court of Rome. According to librarian Blair Kaufman, though the newly donated books are now being restored, preserved, and catalogued by library staff, they soon will be made available to interested researchers, students, and faculty members.

Judges gather for global constitutionalism seminar

Supreme Court and constitutional court judges from around the world gathered at the Law School to take part in the tenth annual Global Constitutionalism Seminar this fall. The judges met for four days in September in a seminar-style setting to discuss topics such as national law and customary international law, the role of judicial review, democratic constitutionalism, and political parties and democratic pluralism. The Global Constitutionalism Seminar is one of the Law School's signature international programs and has been heralded as an important forum in which leading jurists can confidentially and freely discuss the most important current legal issues with leading academic lawyers. This year's participants included judges from Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Supreme Court advocacy clinic

This past semester marked the advent of the Yale Law School Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic. The clinic's goal is two-fold: it offers students instruction in Supreme Court advocacy and supplies clients with legal representation. The clinic combines classroom instruction about the court -- its history, role, practices, and rules -- with hands-on involvement in litigation projects. Working under the supervision of experienced Supreme Court litigators, students have been drafting petitions for writs of certiorari, writing merits briefs in granted cases, and representing amici curiae. At least once during the year students will visit the court to watch an argument in a case they have worked on or studied. In addition to representing clients, the clinic is planning to host regular speakers at the Law School.

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