Yale Law School

Yale Law School
Coat of arms of the law school
Parent school	Yale University
Established	1824; 200 years ago (1824)
School type	Private law school
Endowment	$1.2 billion
Parent endowment	$42.3 billion[1]
Dean	Heather K. Gerken
Location	New Haven, Connecticut, United States 41°18′43″N 72°55′41″W / 41.312°N 72.928°W / 41.312; -72.928
USNWR ranking	1st (tie) (2024)[2]
Bar pass rate	99%[2]
Website	law.yale.edu
ABA profile	Standard 509 Report

Yale Law School (YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1824, it has been ranked the number one law school in the country by U.S. News & World Report every year since the magazine started publishing law school rankings. The 2020–21 acceptance rate was 4%, the lowest of any law school in the United States.^[3] Its yield rate of 87% is also consistently the highest of any law school in the United States.^[4] The school’s small size and prestige have made its admissions process the most selective of any law school in the United States.

Each class in Yale Law's three-year J.D. program enrolls approximately 200 students. Yale's flagship law review is the Yale Law Journal, one of the most highly cited legal publications in the United States. According to Yale Law School's ABA-required disclosures, 83% of the Class of 2019 obtained full-time, long-term, JD-required or JD-advantage employment nine months after graduation, excluding solo practitioners.^[5]

Yale Law alumni include many prominent figures in law and politics, including Presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton and former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Alumni also include current U.S. Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor and Brett Kavanaugh, as well as multiple former justices, including Abe Fortas, Potter Stewart and Byron White; several heads of state, including German President Karl Carstens, President of the Philippines Jose P. Laurel, and Peter Mutharika, former president of Malawi; U.S. senators, governors, and officials; and the current deans of four of the top fourteen-ranked law schools in the United States: Penn, Virginia, Northwestern, and Georgetown.