The Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School seeks a director to oversee the Center’s programs (including fellowships research, projects, and events) and to join in teaching its seminars.
The Liman Center
Founded in 1997, the Liman Center has grown substantially in the last two decades. At the outset, what was the “Liman Program” funded a single law school graduate to hold a one-year fellowship. As of 2020, the Liman Center supports eight to twelve Yale Law graduates each year to do a year or more of useful socially engaged work. As of 2020, the Liman Center has funded 153 post-graduate fellows.
In addition, the Center is the umbrella for summer public interest fellowships at Barnard, Brown, Bryn Mawr, Harvard, Princeton, Spelman, Stanford, and Yale. More than 450 students have held such fellowships. Further, the Center currently has three Senior Fellows in Residence as well as affiliated Research Fellows.
The Liman Center teaches seminars, runs colloquia, and does targeted research on a variety of areas to inform contemporary debates about inequality, law enforcement systems, and access to remedies through law. The law school classes (called the Liman Workshop) reflect those concerns; for example, in 2019 the seminar was on Poverty and the Courts: Fines, Fees, Bail, and Collective Redress (2019); in 2020, on Criminal Systems at a Crossroads (2020); and in the spring of 2021, Imprisoned: From Conception and Construction to Abolition.
Ongoing research projects include the use of solitary confinement around the United States and the potential for legislative regulation; the intersection of public finance and court-based fines and fee systems; the economic and personal costs of incarceration; access to voting for people in detention in Connecticut; the impact of gender and race for people in detention; and the harms of COVID-19 for people held by the state. Much of this work is collaborative, as the Center joins other faculty at Yale Law School as well as with many people at other institutions. An overview of some of the Center’s research, publications, and testimony can be found here.
Since its inception, the yearly Liman Colloquium has focused on important problems and brought together its Fellows (past and current), students, researchers, lawyers, judges, and others expert in the issues. Materials are generally circulated in advance so that the discussions are focused and interactive. In 2019, the topic was Economic Injustice: Courts, Law Schools, and Institutionalizing Reforms; this past year, the Colloquium’s title was After Ferguson: Money and Punishment, Circa 2020. A list of colloquium topics can be found here.
The Liman Director
The Center began in 1997 with the Arthur Liman Professor of Law at its helm. Soon thereafter, the position of the Liman Director was established. Working with the Liman Professor, the Director is responsible for overseeing, administering, and teaching in all aspects of the Center. This position as a research scholar includes a wide range of responsibilities:
Managing the Yale Law School Fellowship program including recruiting and advising potential applicants, working with fellows and their host organizations by being in contact regularly throughout the fellowship year, and interacting with administrators at Yale Law School and Yale University. (Extensions are sometimes available and the Director is key in assessing such requests.)
Developing curricula and course materials for the Liman Workshop and the Liman Projects, and co-teaching these courses with the Liman Professor and Senior Liman Fellows, as well as when desired, working with clinical faculty and co-teaching in some of their clinics;
Working with faculty and program administrators at Yale University and at seven other colleges and universities to administer the Liman Summer Fellows program;
Planning the annual Liman Colloquium, and other Liman Center events;
Managing the drafting, production, and distribution of the annual Liman Reports, along with all other publicity and fundraising activities;
Helping to write and distribute other books, reports, and collection of materials;
Supervising the Liman Center Coordinator, the Liman Communications Director, and the Liman Student Directors;
Managing the program budget, in consultation with the Liman Professor;
Applicants must be law school graduates with a distinguished academic record; experience in public interest law; administrative skills; demonstrated research and writing ability; and an ability to work with students, alumni/ae; faculty, staff, and with lawyers and organizations around the United States. Prior experience teaching law or administering a nonprofit or other organization is useful but not required.
The salary is competitive and based upon experience. For more information, please contact Anna VanCleave, Liman Director, anna.vancleave@yale.edu. To apply, please provide a resume, lists of references (including at least two academic references and at least one reference with whom the applicant has worked closely within the last two years); examples of written work (including copies of relevant publications, reports, research papers, essays or briefs); and a law school transcript.
Please send your materials no later than March 10, 2021. Applications should be submitted to Anna VanCleave and Elizabeth Keane, Center Coordinator, elizabeth.keane@yale.edu.
Yale University considers applicants for employment without regard to, and does not discriminate on the basis of, an individual’s sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, status as a veteran, or national or ethnic origin; nor does Yale discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity or expression. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 protects people from sex discrimination in educational programs and activities at institutions that receive federal financial assistance. Questions regarding Title IX may be referred to the University’s Title IX Coordinator, at TitleIX@yale.edu, or to the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 8th Floor, Five Post Office Square, Boston MA 02109-3921. Telephone: 617.289.0111, Fax: 617.289.0150, TDD: 800.877.8339, or Email: ocr.boston@ed.gov.