Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1843, the school offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D., and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars and several legal research centers. Yale has been designated the #1 law school in the nation by U.S. News and World Report in every year that the magazine has published law school rankings. The school's prestige and small size make its admissions process the most selective of any United States law school.
Among other luminaries, former U.S. President William Howard Taft was a professor of constitutional law at YLS from 1913 until he resigned to become Chief Justice of the United States in 1921. Presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton studied there later in the century, and the law school's library has been memorialized as the meeting place of Bill and fellow alumna Hillary Clinton. Former Democratic Vice Presidential nominees Sargent Shriver and Joseph Lieberman are also graduates. Current U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are alumni of the school, as is current Attorney General Michael Mukasey.
The YLS law library, Lillian Goldman Law Library, contains over 800,000 volumes. The school's classrooms were redesigned in 1998 as part of a larger renovation begun in 1995.
