Yale Law School Association Recognizes Three Alumni with Award of Merit

During this year’s Alumni Weekend celebration, Dean Heather K. Gerken presented the 2024 Award of Merit honorees in the Levinson Auditorium following her annual State of the School address.

Since 1957, the Yale Law School Association has annually bestowed the Award of Merit to graduates or faculty of Yale Law School for having made a substantial contribution to public service or to the legal profession. The Award of Merit is the highest honor given by the Yale Law School Association.

READ MORE ABOUT ALUMNI WEEKEND 2024

This year’s recipients were José A. Cabranes ’65, Randall Kennedy ’82, and Barrington “Danny” Parker ’69.

José A. Cabranes ’65

“Jose is more than a judge. He has made a point of supporting kids like his younger self dream big dreams, just as he did,” Gerken said of Cabranes, a senior judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.

Born in Puerto Rico, Judge Cabranes did not speak any English when he moved to the South Bronx as a young child. He went on to graduate from Columbia College and Yale Law School, and then became the first general counsel of Yale University.

“In the early 1960s, Yale Law School was already the best place to go to law school, and I’m happy to say it still is,” Judge Cabranes said while accepting his award.

In 1979, he became the first Puerto Rican to serve as a federal judge in the continental United States when President Jimmy Carter nominated him to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. In this role, he became a mentor to one of his first research assistants — Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’79, the first Latina to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. President Bill Clinton ’73 nominated him to the 2nd Circuit in 1994.

“Jose was admired from both sides of the aisle, both then and now,” said Gerken. “When asked if the nominee was a liberal or conservative, Senator [Christopher] Dodd responded simply, ‘José Cabranes is a judge.’”

In addition to his judgeship, Judge Cabranes has given back to his community through his work with the New York nonprofit Aspira, where he helped inner-city Hispanic youth prepare for college, and by co-founding the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. He also makes a point of talking to Spanish-speaking defendants in their native language while serving on the bench.

“Yale Law School did not just prepare us as lawyers, in classes, and by example, and by osmosis, it instilled in us a sense of duty to meet the challenges of our rapidly changing country and the world beyond,” said Judge Cabranes.

Randall L. Kennedy ’82

“Association with Yale Law School has been one of the great privileges and enrichments of my life,” said Kennedy, the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School.

Kennedy, a Rhodes Scholar and Princeton University graduate, clerked for Judge J. Skelly Wright on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and Justice Thurgood Marshall on the U.S. Supreme Court. He joined the faculty of Harvard Law School in 1984, where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He is a member of the bars of the District of Columbia and the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Randy is an iconoclast. He is a scholar’s scholar who has written an enormous range of impactful scholarship that shatters bromides and upends fields,” Gerken said. “Randy displays a rare mix of intellectual courage and deep humility — he isn’t afraid to make bold claims, but he isn’t afraid to change his mind, either.”

In his speech, Kennedy credited the Law School for the profound impact it has had on his life, noting two people who have had the most influence on him.

“For 40 years, I have been debating with Owen Fiss,” said Kennedy. “Sometimes it was in person, sometimes it was in print, often it was in my imagination.” He went on to describe his discourse with Fiss as “quite formative.”

Kennedy also acknowledged Professor Justin Driver, who he met when Driver was a student at Harvard Law School.

“I view myself as a student of Justin Driver,” said Kennedy. “There is no serious written work that I don’t run by [Driver] first. I have been the beneficiary of his encouragement, and the beneficiary of his criticism. He, too, is part of why Yale Law School has made such a positive difference in my life.”

Barrington “Danny” Parker ’69

“Danny’s approach to jurisprudence reflects the best values of our profession: a commitment to rigorous inquiry and an openness to differing viewpoints,” said Gerken.

Judge Parker was nominated by President George Bush in 2001 to succeed Judge Ralph K. Winter Jr. ’60 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, where he is now a senior judge. Prior to his elevation to the appeals court, Judge Parker served on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from 1994 to 2001, where he presided over nearly 50 jury trials involving complex and high-profile cases. Prior to his role on the bench, Judge Parker worked in commercial litigation for 24 years.

“From matters of life and death in capital punishment cases, to intricate questions of employment discrimination and affirmative action, Judge Parker has shown a remarkable ability to navigate these sensitive and often controversial topics with clarity and fairness,” Gerken said. “What sets Judge Parker apart is not just his legal acumen, but his courage in bridging ideological divides.”

A native of Washington, D.C., Judge Parker is a 1965 graduate of Yale College, spent 12 years as a fellow of the Yale Corporation, and was a trustee of Yale-New Haven Hospital.

In his remarks, Parker reflected on his law school experience.

“For the life of me, I simply cannot understand how anyone could have feelings other than a profound gratitude for the opportunity to study [at Yale Law School].”

That opportunity, he said, left a lifelong impression.

“I was surrounded, here at this school, by people who knew what I had learned early on: that one person can make a difference, and that from those to whom much is given, much is expected,” said Judge Parker.