News

Jane Matilda Bolin made history as the first Black female judge in the United States and the first Black woman to graduate from Yale Law School.

Born in New Haven in 1840, Baldwin graduated from Yale College in 1861 and went on to study at the Law School from 1861 to 1862.

Hailed for ushering in “the arrival of the modern Yale Law School,” according to former Law School Professor Robert Stevens ’58 LLM, Eugene V. Rostow ’37 is regarded as “one of the Law School's great deans,” according to former Dean Anthony Kronman ’75.

Ellen Ash Peters ’54, the Law School’s first female faculty member and the Connecticut Supreme Court’s first female appointee and Chief Justice, paved the way for countless women in the legal field both with her accomplishments and mentorship.

The Law School’s first female graduate talked her way in — 35 years before other women were admitted.

Miriam Lashley ’44 was the first female editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal.

A recent conference brought together scholars from around the world to rethink Montesquieu’s legacy in light of his engagement with non-Western regimes.

Recently acquired courtroom pencil sketches from a notorious 1930s New York corruption trial are on display through Jan. 14 in Yale Law School’s Lillian Goldman Law Library. Curator Kathryn James describes the collection and the sordid case it depicts.