Latin American Linkage Program’s New Endowment Honors Professor Owen Fiss
Yale Law School has endowed the Latin American Linkage Program in recognition of Professor Owen Fiss, one of the founders of the Law School programs in Latin America. The endowment for the program — now called the Owen Fiss Latin American Linkage Program at Yale Law School — is made possible thanks to a generous gift from Alexander Leff ’83.
Since the early 1990s, Yale Law School has sponsored an extensive, multifaceted, and unique academic program in Latin America. This program consists of an annual faculty seminar drawing scholars from throughout the region, an in-house lecture series, a translation series that publishes work by YLS faculty in Spanish and Portuguese, and a student exchange program colloquially known as Linkages. The Latin American Linkage Program has served as an informal exchange initiative between YLS students and those studying at some of the most prominent law schools in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Its goal is to provide an immersive learning experience in which students can gain a better understanding of legal customs in other cultures as well as connect with colleagues all over the world.
Fiss, a Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law at Yale Law School, helped found the program along with the late Professor Emeritus Robert Burt ’64. Fiss has taught at the Law School for the past 50 years. He holds honorary doctorates from the Universidad de Chile, Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Universidad de Palermo in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and earned La distinción Sócrates from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Columbia. He has also been awarded the 2020 Henry M. Phillips Prize in Jurisprudence by the American Philosophical Society and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition to the Latin American Linkage Program, Fiss co-directs the Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization with Sterling Professor of Law Anthony T. Kronman ’75 and Professor of Law Aslı Ü. Bâli ’99.
