School Notes: Yale Law School
July/August 2009

Yale law professor receives Colombian honor

Sterling Professor of Law Owen Fiss has been awarded La distincion Socrates (The Socrates Distinction) by the Universidad de los Andes law faculty in Bogota, Colombia. This is the highest honor granted by the law school's faculty to a national or international law professor in recognition of lifetime achievement in teaching and scholarship. Professor Fiss was recognized for his contributions in the fields of constitutional law and jurisprudence. Universidad de los Andes dean Eduardo Cifuentes Munoz presented the award to Professor Fiss in Bogota on April 28. He called Fiss "one of the most influential constitutionalists in the contemporary world" whose works "have great resonance in the United States and in other legal systems." Professor Fiss teaches procedure, legal theory, and constitutional law at Yale Law School and also directs extensive law school programs in Latin America and the Middle East. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Liberalism Divided, The Irony of Free Speech, A Community of Equals, and The Law as it Could Be, all of which have been translated into Spanish and other foreign languages.

Legal scholar elected to American Academy

Leighton Homer Surbeck Professor of Law John J. Donohue III ’86PhD has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Donohue is an economist/lawyer who has used large-scale statistical studies to estimate the impact of law and public policy in a wide range of areas. His "signal accomplishments include path-breaking empirical analyses in a broad range of policy areas, from crime control to employment discrimination to civil rights," said Yale Law School acting dean Kate Stith. "His election to the American Academy is high recognition of his scholarly preeminence."

William & Mary Law honors Yale law professor

William & Mary Law School awarded Professor John H. Langbein its 2008-09 Marshall-Wythe Medallion on April 2. The medallion is the highest honor given by the law school faculty and recognizes outstanding leaders from the bench, bar, and academia. Langbein is Sterling Professor of Law and Legal History at Yale Law School. A legal historian and leading American authority on trust, probate, pension, and investment law, he teaches and writes in the fields of Anglo-American and European legal history, modern comparative law, trust and estate law, and pension and employee benefit law. In presenting the award, William & Mary law dean Lynda Butler said Langbein is known as "a superb teacher, making difficult and complex subjects come to life for the student," and noted that his contributions as a law reformer have had "a profound impact on American law."