List of Yale Law School alumni

This is a list of the graduates of Yale Law School. For a list of graduates of Yale University as a whole, see List of Yale University people.

U.S. Government

Executive branch

U. S. Presidents

* Bill Clinton (J.D. 1973), 42nd U.S. President (1993-2001)
* Gerald Ford (LL.B. 1941), 38th U.S. President (1974-1976)

Cabinet members

* Stephen Hadley (J.D. 1972), current National Security Advisor (United States)
* Robert Reich (J.D., 1973), Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton
* Robert Rubin (LL.B. 1964) Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton
* Cyrus Vance (1942), United States Secretary of State (1977-1980)
* Randal Quarles (1984), Under Secretary of the Treasury for Domestic Finance (2005-2006)

Attorneys General

* Nicholas deB. Katzenbach (LL.B 1947), U.S. Attorney General under President Lyndon B. Johnson
*Peter Keisler (J.D. 1985), acting Attorney General as of September 2007
*Michael B. Mukasey (LL.B 1967), nominated by President George W. Bush (2007)

Judicial branch

upreme Court justices

* Samuel Alito (J.D. 1975), 110th U.S. Supreme Court Justice (2006-present)
* Abe Fortas (LL.B. 1933), Supreme Court Justice (1963-1969)
* Potter Stewart (LL.B. 1941), Supreme Court Justice (1958-1981)
* Clarence Thomas (J.D. 1974), 107th U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1991-present)
* Byron White (LL.B. 1946), Supreme Court Justice (1962-1993) and NFL football player

Other judges

* Jane Bolin, (LL.B. 1931) First African-American woman to graduate from Yale and the first African-American woman to become a judge (1939)
* Guido Calabresi, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and former dean of Yale Law School
* Robert Katzmann, judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
* Brett Kavanaugh (J.D. 1990), judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
*Michael Ponsor, judge on the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts
* Stephen Reinhardt (LL.B. 1954), judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
*Richard Sullivan (J.D. 1990), judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York

Legislative branch

* Hillary Rodham Clinton (J.D. 1973), U.S. Senator (D-New York) and 2008 Democratic presidential candidate
* Joseph Lieberman (J.D. 1967), U.S. Senator (D/I-Connecticut) and 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee
* Eleanor Holmes Norton (LL.B. 1964), nonvoting Congressional representative of Washington, DC
* Arlen Specter (LL.B. 1956), U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member (R-Pennsylvania)
* Mel Watt (J.D.), Congressmen from North Carolina Chairmen of the Congressional Black Caucus

U. S. Diplomats

* John R. Bolton (J.D. 1974), former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
* Sargent Shriver (LL.B. 1941), United States Ambassador to France (1968-1970), driving force behind the Peace Corps

tate government

* Jerry Brown (J.D. 1964), Governor of California (1975-1983), currently California Attorney General
* Foster Furcolo (LL.B. 1936), Governor of Massachusetts (1957-1961)

City government

* Cory Booker (J.D. 1997), mayor of Newark, New Jersey
* Robert M. Morgenthau (LL.B. 1948), district attorney for New York County

Other U.S. political figures

*Rubén Berríos, leader in the Puerto Rico independence movement
*R. James Woolsey, Jr., director of the CIA (1993-1995)
*Beth Brinkmann, former Assistant to the Solicitor General of the U.S. (1993-2001) and current partner at Morrison & Foerster

Non-U.S. Government

* Karl Carstens (LL.M. 1949), 5th president of the Federal Republic of Germany (1979-1984)
* Shunmugam Jayakumar (LL.M.), deputy prime minister and former foreign minister of Singapore

Academia

University presidents

*Nancy Y. Bekavac (J.D. 1973), president of Scripps College
* Robert Hutchins (LL.B. 1925), president of the University of Chicago
* Marvin Krislov (J.D. 1988), president of Oberlin College
* Russell K. Osgood (J.D. 1974), president of Grinnell College
* Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, former president of George Washington University

Legal academics

* Bruce Ackerman (LL.B. 1967), constitutional law expert and Sterling Professor at Yale Law
* T. Alexander Aleinikoff (J.D. 1977), immigration law specialist and Dean of Georgetown Law
* Ian Ayres (J.D. 1986), professor of law and management at Yale
* Peter Berkowitz, law and political science professor at George Mason University
* George Bermann (J.D. 1971), European law scholar at Columbia Law
* Philip Bobbitt (J.D. 1975), scholar of constitutional law and military strategy
* Rosa Brooks, foreign policy and national security scholar at Georgetown Law; columnist for the "Los Angeles Times"
* Stephen L. Carter, Yale Law professor and novelist
* Arthur Linton Corbin (J.D. 1899), Yale law professor and contracts scholar
* Alan Dershowitz (J.D. 1962), Harvard Law criminal law professor and author
* Jan Deutsch, professor of law and philosophy at Yale
* Elizabeth F. Emens (J.D. 2002), professor at Columbia Law
* Richard Epstein (LL.B. 1968), libertarian law professor at the University of Chicago
* Noah Feldman (J.D. 1997), scholar of Islamic law, international constitutional law, and the intersection of law and religion
* Nicole S. Garnett (J.D.), professor of law at the University of Notre Dame
* Richard W. Garnett (J.D.), professor of law at the University of Notre Dame
*Jack Goldsmith (J.D. 1989), professor at Harvard Law and former Assistant Attorney General
* Lani Guinier, first tenured black female professor at Harvard Law
* Paul W. Kahn (J.D. 1980), professor of law and humanities at Yale
* Duncan Kennedy (LL.B. 1970), Critical Legal Studies scholar at Harvard Law
* Randall Kennedy, professor of race and law at Harvard Law
* Kris Kobach (J.D. 1995), professor of law at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and chairman of the Kansas Republican Party
* Andrew Koppelman, professor of law and political science at Northwestern University
* Anthony T. Kronman (J.D. 1975), Sterling Professor of law at Yale and former dean of Yale Law
* Ethan Leib, professor of law at UC Hastings
* Lawrence Lessig, professor of law at Stanford University
* Saul Levmore (J.D. 1980), professor at the University of Chicago Law School
* Karl N. Llewellyn, scholar of legal realism
* Catharine MacKinnon (J.D. 1977), feminist activist and professor at Michigan Law
* Martha Minow (J.D. 1979), Harvard Law professor
* Eben Moglen, professor of legal history at Columbia Law and software freedom activist
* Thomas Morawetz (J.D. 1968), professor of law and ethics at UConn Law
* Wesley Oliver (LL.M.), Widener University School of Law professor
* [http://law.baylor.edu/faculty/profiles/Osler.htm Mark W. Osler] (J.D. 1990), professor of law at Baylor Law School
* H. Jefferson Powell, joint law and divinity professor at Duke University
*Jedediah Purdy, professor of law at Duke University
* Charles A. Reich (LL.B. 1952), author of the pro-counterculture tract "The Greening of America"
* Richard Revesz, dean of NYU Law
* Deborah Rhode, professor, Stanford University Law School
* Fred Rodell, critic of the legal profession and legal academia
* Joel Rogers, professor of law, political science, and sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
*Kermit Roosevelt III (J.D. 1997), constitutional law expert at Penn Law, descendant of Theodore Roosevelt
*Reva Siegel (J.D. 1986), constitutional law and anti-discrimination law expert, Yale Law School
*Mark S. Weiner, professor of law at Rutgers
* Charles Alan Wright (LL.B. 1949), professor at University of Texas; expert on Federal Courts and Federal Procedure; represented Richard Nixon
*John Yoo (J.D. 1992), legal scholar at Boalt Hall
*Kenji Yoshino (J.D. 1996), Yale Law professor and dean of intellectual life

Other academics

*Scott Boorman, mathematical sociologist
*Austin Sarat (J.D. 1988), political scientist at Amherst College
*Ian Shapiro (J.D. 1987), political scientist

Activists and Human Rights figures

*Lisa Bloom, feminist and children's rights lawyer; "Court TV" host
* Marian Wright Edelman (J.D.), founder of Children's Defense Fund
* Henry A. Freedman (J.D.), social justice advocate
*Robert Gnaizda, public interest advocate
* Michael Harrington, socialist writer and activist
* Neal Katyal (J.D. 1995), lead counsel in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
* Henry T. King, Jr., (LL.B 1943), Nuremberg prosecutor 1946-1947
* James Speth (1969), environmental lawyer and activist
* Gregory Stanton, founded Genocide Watch
* Hernando Valencia Villa (LL.M. 1981, J.S.D. 1986), Colombian human rights activist, scholar and co-founder of the Colombian Commission of Jurists
* Alfred Webre (J.D. 1967), advocate against weapons in space

Journalism

*Michael Barone (J.D. 1969), political analyst
*Emily Bazelon (J.D. 2000), senior editor of "Slate Magazine"
*Jeff Greenfield (LL.B. 1967), television political analyst
*Linda Greenhouse, Supreme Court correspondent for the "New York Times"
*David Lat, founder of prominent legal gossip blogs "Underneath Their Robes" and "Above the Law"
*Adam Liptak, national legal correspondent for the "New York Times"
*Victor Navasky (LL.B. 1959), editor of "The Nation" and "The New York Times Magazine", professor at Columbia Journalism School
*Charlie Savage (2003), "Boston Globe" reporter

Literature

* Renata Adler, writer and journalist
* Stephen L. Carter, novelist and Yale Law professor
* Adam Haslett (J.D. 2003), short story writer
* Julie Hilden (J.D. 1992), author
* Matthew Pearl, author of "The Dante Club"
* Gretchen Rubin (J.D. 1995), author
* Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of "Prozac Nation" and former music critic for "The New Yorker"

Other

*T. Bill Andrews, abstract impressionist painter
* Jeff Ballabon, OrthodoxJewish lobbyist and founder of Coordinating Council on Jerusalem
*Kathleen Neal Cleaver, figure in the Black Panther Party
*Frederick Iseman, founder of Caxton-Iseman Capital, LLC
*Ben Kerschberg (J.D. 1998), memoirist
*Charlie Korsmo (J.D. 2006), former child actor
*Yul Kwon, winner of ""
*Arthur Frommer, publisher of the Frommer's budget travel guide series
* Walter Lord, freelance historian
*Jesselyn Radack (J.D. 1995), American Taliban whistleblower
*Ed Redlich, television writer and producer
*Pat Robertson (LL.B. 1955), televangelist and founder of Regent University
* Brad Snyder (J.D. 1999), author of books on baseball
*Ben Stein (J.D. 1970), actor and speechwriter for President Richard Nixon, graduated as class valedictorian
*Ken Stern, CEO of National Public Radio
*Alfred Terry, Union army general in the American Civil War and military commander of the Dakota Territory
*Fay Vincent (LL.B. 1963), commissioner of Major League Baseball
*Tim and Nina Zagat, founders of the Zagat Surveys

Attended but did not graduate

* Henry Louis Gates (dropped out), Afro-American studies scholar
* Michael Medved, author, film critic, and radio talk show host
* David Milch (expelled), television writer and producer
* Robert B. Silvers (dropped out), co-founder and editor of "The New York Review of Books"

Fictitious alumni

*Josh Lyman, character on the TV series "The West Wing"
*Jordan McDeere, character on the TV series "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip"