Global Consitutionalism Seminar
Yale Law School hosted its eleventh Global Constitutionalism Seminar last week. The Seminar is a unique event that brings together Supreme Court and Constitutional Court judges from around the world. This year eighteen justices spent four days at the Law
School meeting with faculty, students, and each other. Each year there are a number of topics selected for discussion. This year’s topics included secrecy and judicial hearings, the design of judicial review, and the relationship between national and transnational constitutional law. The Seminar provides the justices with an opportunity to engage these topics with their peers and leading legal scholars.
While the justices were at the School they also met with students. Justice Anthony Kennedy gave a lecture (more on that later), Justices Stephen Breyer and Kennedy spent time talking with two student groups: the American Constitutional Society and the Federalist Society, and Justice Kate O’Regan of the South African Constitutional Court led a breakfast talk with interested students.
Opportunities like this, while amazing, are not unusual at Yale Law School. A veritable parade of legal luminaries passes through the halls of the School throughout the year. While they’re here to attend or speak at the many lectures, conferences, workshops, and seminars that the School sponsors, they often make time to meet informally with our students. I tell prospective applicants that in order to get an accurate sense of the intellectual offerings of the School, one needs to look beyond the course catalog. Events like the Seminar provide an impressive supplement to a traditional legal education and the opportunity to speak with the individuals helping to shape the law offers an unparalleled educational enrichment. Where else can you have breakfast with a constitutional court justice or have a Supreme Court justice preside over your moot court final?