August 2009 - Posts
Yale Law School’s Center for the Study of Corporate Law Marks Its 10th Anniversary With a Full Agenda
As the financial markets tumbled and businesses across the country filed for bankruptcy, Yale Law School’s Center for the Study of Corporate Law was busier than ever this past year, hosting events to assemble some of the nation’s top corporate leaders, academicians, and financial experts to help make sense of the global financial crisis.
Yale Law School has had a long history of scholarship in corporate law, beginning in the 1800s with Simeon E. Baldwin who taught Constitutional and Mercantile Law and Corporations and Wills at Yale Law School from 1869–1919. But it wasn’t until 1999 that corporate law’s place at the Law School was formalized with the establishment of the Center for the Study of Corporate Law. As best can be determined, the Yale Center was the first corporate law center established in the United States, although such centers are now ubiquitous in American law schools.
The Center was inspired by conversations between then Dean Anthony T. Kronman ’75 and Robert Todd Lang ’47. “Every year, Yale Law School has many programs that address questions of public law, as befits a school with as strong a tradition as ours in this field,” said Kronman. “But many of our graduates work in the area of private law, and in that of corporate law in particular, and the contribution they make to this field is a large one. The same is true, of course, of the corporate law scholars on our faculty.”
“I wanted to create a program that would give the practically important and intellectually fascinating challenges of corporate law a larger place in the day-to-day life of the Law School,” Kronman explained. “My friend Todd Lang agreed, and in a series of exciting conversations, we began together to sketch the outlines of such a program. The result was the creation of the Center for the Study of Corporate Law, now in its tenth year.
“The Center has gone from strength to strength, and is today a vital part of the intellectual life of the School. Todd’s generosity, deep wisdom about corporate law, and uncanny good sense about what would work and what wouldn’t, were essential to the establishment of the Center and its subsequent flourishing.”
Today, under the leadership of Oscar M. Ruebhausen Professor of Law Roberta Romano ’80, the Center continues its original mission of increasing students’ exposure to and engagement with business law with a greatly expanded set of programs. The Center’s focus of study includes corporate law and the law of other nongovernmental organizations; the regulation of financial markets and intermediaries; the legal framework of finance, including the law of bankruptcy, corporate reorganization, and secured transactions; and antitrust law and the law of regulated industries. Center programs consist of lectures, roundtables, a workshop in law and finance, a colloquium series, an alumni breakfast program, panels and symposia, in which academics, government officials, and members of the bar and business community participate.
“The increasing specialization and technical sophistication in business law practice and academic scholarship has increased the importance of Corporate Law Centers, which are terrific mechanisms for keeping students and faculty connected with new developments in scholarship, business law, and business,” Romano said. “They intermediate between the profession and the school. This has made for a much livelier intellectual community in the Law School.”
The past two years have been the Center’s busiest. During the 2008–2009 academic year the Center continued with initiatives begun the year before —including career panels for students (cosponsored by the Career Development Center and the Yale Law and Business Society, a student organization), an expanded alumni breakfast program, and the Bert W. Wasserman Workshop in Law and Finance.
This year’s newest lecture series, “Industry Perspectives on the Global Financial Crisis,” brought leaders from the financial services industry to YLS to discuss the changing landscape of financial market regulation. In informal, off-the-record talks, leaders hailing from financial giants Bank of America, BlackRock and Morgan Stanley, among others, shared their thoughts on the mortgage crisis, the financial markets, and the future of corporate law.
“The ‘Industry Perspectives’ lectures have been fantastic because they’ve given everyone in the corporate law community at Yale—including students—some insight into the economic crisis,” said Caitlin Hall ’09. “It’s fascinating (and phenomenally reassuring) to have direct access to the people who have been running these financial institutions for the past decade, and also to get a lot of different takes—corporate lawyers’, investment bankers’, hedge fund managers’— on what’s happened in the last year and a half.”
In February, more than 130 YLS alumni, students, and faculty from throughout the country attended the Center’s Weil, Gotshal & Manges Roundtable on the Future of Financial Regulation, which was co-sponsored with the Yale Journal on Regulation. Panelists and audience participants explored the origins and causes of the crisis, historical comparisons, and possible plans for reforming the regulation of financial institutions and subprime mortgage contracts. 
Many of the presentations will be published in the Journal’s summer issue.
In a move to encourage students interested in corporate law to earn both MBA and JD degrees, the Law School and School of Management have collaborated to create an accelerated joint degree program. During the 2009–2010 academic year, the schools will officially begin a JD-MBA program that will allow students to earn both degrees in three years without taking summer courses. Y
YLS and SOM to Offer Accelerated JD –MBA Program
In March, Yale Law School and the Yale School of Management (SOM) announced the creation of an Accelerated Integrated JD-MBA program that will enable students to earn both degrees in three years.
Geared to students interested in business law-related practice, entrepreneurs, or managers in business and nonprofit organizations, the new combined program in law and business is unique in that it offers the two degrees in three academic years (six semesters), without the need for summer classes. It is designed primarily for students interested in business law but will be useful in a variety of settings involving business and management.
“The program will prepare students for the increasingly complex intersection of business and law,” said Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh in March. “Students will master analytical and quantitative skills that will be of value for a business law-related practice but also more broadly for careers as entrepreneurs and managers in business and nonprofit organizations.”
Students in the Accelerated Integrated JD-MBA program will be fully immersed in the required curriculum and community life at each school and will graduate with their entering class at both the Law School and SOM. During the two summers, students are free to gain valuable experience in law or business-related positions.
Students can apply to enter the Accelerated Integrated JD-MBA program during their first year of Law School or when applying for admission to both schools. After spending the first year at the Law School, the second year will be spent at SOM, and the third year at the Law School.
Yale School of Management Dean Sharon M. Oster commented, “We are excited to be partnering with Yale Law School to provide this accelerated JD-MBA program. Both schools have a strong reputation for developing leaders for business and society, and this program allows us to draw more efficiently on the unique strengths of each institution to continue to train such leaders.”
Yale Law School and the School of Management will continue to offer the existing four-year joint degree program as an option. The accelerated program will initially be offered for a provisional term of two years, after which both schools will jointly assess the program’s success factors and future course.
For more on the program, visit www.law.yale.edu/JDMBAoverview
The Weil, Gotshal & Manges Roundtable on Corporate Law and Governance was held on February 13, 2009. The daylong event focused on the future of financial regulation. Panelists evaluated the causes of the evolving subprime mortgage crisis, following credit crunch, and financial panic of 2007 –08; the government reaction to the crisis; and proposed solutions, including reform of the regulatory architecture for financial institutions.
Session 1
Crisis Origins and Historical Comparisons
Charles Calomiris, Henry Kaufman Professor of Financial Institutions, Columbia Business School
"The banks themselves had, I think, an internal buy-side agency problem. The people making those decisions were not acting in the interests of their own stockholders. Second, the insurance companies, pension funds, mutual funds, the regulated buy-side institutional investors, had a somewhat different, but related buy-side agency problem. And the point is, all of these people had a strong incentive to pretend that the risk was much lower than they knew it was. I’m arguing that ... part of the story that’s quite interesting and new is that this was done on purpose, in a sense.”
Session 2
Causes of the Crisis: Conflicts, Compensation and Reputation
Edward J. Kane, James F. Cleary Professor of Finance, Boston College
"If we’re going to fix things properly, we have to understand the fundamental cause of crisis mismanagement traces to the way the safety-net subsidies are produced and delivered. The pursuit of these subsidies is what made securitization become incentive-compatible. Bad deals went forward because regulators and investors had blind trust in the reputational bonding of key firms despite compensation schemes at these firms that communicated gypsy ethics to their employees. The gypsy ethic entails never giving a sucker an even break. Outsiders closed their eyes to the predictable consequences of volume-based compensation schemes. People were paid the same for originating bad deals as they were for originating good ones. This reinforced the shortcutting of due diligence and the outsourcing of due diligence in markets for synthetic credit transfers. Bad incentives passed up and down the line. As long as some sucker stood ready to pay good money for garbage, why should anyone throw garbage away?”
Session 3
Reforming Financial Institution Regulation
Richard J. Herring, Jacob Safra Professor of International Banking, Professor of Finance & Co-Director, Wharton Financial Institutions Center, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
"Secretary Geithner seems determined to avoid nationalizing banks, but the determination to socialize losses while privatizing profits is not sustainable. It’s only going to lead to greater moral hazard and more banks that are too big, too complex and too interconnected to fail. Without a coherent resolution policy, inevitably more and more reliance will be placed on regulatory discipline, which has proven to be wholly inadequate to the challenge. We need to supplement regulatory discipline with market discipline and improve our techniques of resolving financial institutions so that no financial institution is too big to resolve without tolerable spillovers.”
Session 4
Reforming Subprime Mortgages
Susan P. Koniak ’78, Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law
"But why are so many homes being foreclosed upon when lenders can expect so little in recovery on a foreclosed home? When someone gets thrown out of their house, the value that’s recovered in foreclosure is 25 percent of the original loan, if the lender or lenders are lucky. Why is that? Well, that’s pretty easy to explain. It takes about 18 months to get someone out of their house. That’s lost revenue. Then there are back taxes. Then there are payments to realtors. Empty houses get stripped and trashed while they’re waiting to be resold in our now glutted housing market, which further diminishes their worth. So, for all those reasons lenders are lucky to get 25 percent at foreclosure. So, what would a reasonable lender do to avoid that paltry return and maximize his return? A reasonable lender would modify the mortgage whenever modification would bring in more than what could reasonably be expected upon foreclosure. This is not rocket science. But this rational response is not happening. The question is, why?”
Reading materials discussed during the Roundtable, videos of the panels, and a transcript of the proceedings are available at www.law.yale.edu/cbl/roundtables.htm.
In March, Yale Law School, with support
from the Oscar M. Ruebhausen Fund, hosted the twelfth annual Arthur Liman
Public Interest Colloquium. The Colloquium analyzed the development of clinical
education in the United States and globally, and considered its impact and
contemporary challenges. The event, “Forty Years of Clinical Education at Yale:
Generating Rights, Remedies, and Legal Services,” marked the 40th anniversary
of the founding of Yale Law School’s clinical program and honored the contributions
of clinical professors Dennis Curtis ’66, Frank Dineen ’61, Carroll Lucht, and
Stephen Wizner. Clinical Professor Emeritus Daniel Freed ’51, who was Yale’s
first clinical professor, was also recognized.
For videos and photos of the Colloquium,
visit www.law.yale.edu/liman.
Today eighty percent of YLS students
take advantage of clinical offerings at some point during their time at
Yale, working beside faculty members and supervising attorneys on real
cases. YLS now has a robust clinical program, with students working in
more than twenty distinct clinics that marry theory with practice.
Many
of the clinical courses at Yale Law School fall under the umbrella of
The Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization (LSO). With more than
fifteen separate clinics, LSO offers students a range of clinical
experience while providing legal representation to individuals and
organizations unable to afford private attorneys. Unlike many other law
schools, Yale Law School students can engage in clinic activities after
the first term.
The following update about LSO clinic activities is excerpted from a letter by Director of Clinical Studies Bob Solomon. The update refers to work undertaken in 2008.
Jean Koh Peters continues to teach The Sol and Lillian Goldman Family Advocacy for Children and Youth Clinic, whose students this semester appeared in the Superior Court for Juvenile Matters in New Haven, Torrington and the Child Protective Session in Middletown. Domestic violence issues have factored prominently in our caseload over the past semesters, and we continue to struggle with the eternal dilemmas of expanding protection for victims while safeguarding family privacy against harmful intrusion. Our recent cases have led us into school discipline proceedings, emancipation, and the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children. We also continue to experience the tensions between the Adoption and Safe Families Act timelines for filing termination of parental rights petitions within fifteen months of placement and the needs of parents recovering from drug use. We are also actively grappling with Connecticut’s case developments, including some expansion in the notion of “predictive neglect,” which appears to us to be providing a lower threshold for neglect filings. We have been representing more teenage clients and many infant clients, in the dual capacity of lawyer and guardian ad litem.
The Immigration Legal Services clinic continues strong, with Jean, Steve Wizner and Carroll Lucht supervising over two dozen indefatigable students continuing to represent clients from Africa, the Middle East, Central America, South America and Europe in asylum and post-asylum work. We are most active in the New Jersey Asylum Office and the Hartford Immigration Court, but have cases also currently pending in the Boston and New York Immigration Court, the Board of Immigration Appeals and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals as well. Our clients continue to astound us with their experiences, their resilience, their trust in us, and their strength amid adversity, both in their home country and in the immigration bureaucracy here. We are still actively collaborating with Howard Zonana, Madelon Baranoski, and their forensic fellows on many of our cases. Recently, our caseload has included a number of gender-related cases, including those involving domestic violence and female genital cutting, as well as children’s asylum claims.
Steve and Carroll are continuing their outreach to Fair Haven, but within the framework of a new clinic. The Legal Services for Immigrant Communities clinic began in Spring 2008, in an effort to expand direct legal services to the immigrant communities of New Haven. For many years, LSO has partnered with Junta, a Latino social services agency in Fair Haven, to conduct outreach and provide legal advice and assistance to their clients. In the spring, we also began to reach out to clients of IRIS (Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services), which serves the refugee community of New Haven. In the past year, we have helped many clients bring small claims court cases to recover security deposits and unpaid wages; we have advocated for clients seeking legalization through USCIS and for those who have had removal proceedings initiated against them; we have helped clients find subsidized housing and apply for public benefits. One of our most exciting cases began when we walked into Junta and were immediately greeted by 15 women who had not been paid for their work as homecare workers and companions. We have filed suit against their employer in federal and state court and are currently awaiting judgment. We hope to have more exciting news in our second year as a clinic!
Brett Dignam and her students continue to represent clients in two clinics: Students who represent prisoners in Prison Legal Services focus on state cases and students in Complex Federal Litigation focus on federal work. After a decade of representation by at least eleven students, two rounds of state habeas, one Connecticut Supreme Court decision establishing the legal principle but refusing to grant retroactive relief to our client, a resident of Connecticut Valley Hospital was ordered released on a federal writ of habeas corpus finding that his plea of Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity was not entered knowingly and voluntarily. Another team achieved a $400,000 settlement for a Danbury inmate, whose acute glaucoma was not properly monitored or treated, that enabled her to purchase a home and begin a new life. Other students are leading an ABA project to study and develop solutions for the myriad challenges faced by women in the criminal justice system who suffer from mental illness.
After many years of advocacy and hard work by students dedicated to addressing legal issues faced by survivors of domestic violence, the Domestic Violence Clinic was finally introduced by LSO in spring 2008. Bob Solomon and Cover Fellow Camille Carey have developed a curriculum focused on holistic representation of clients, informed by feminist and critical race legal theories. Currently there are 16 students in the clinic, and they represent clients in family matters, immigration applications for DV-based relief such as the U visa and VAWA self-petitions, public benefits advocacy, housing matters, and a variety of other civil cases. In addition, students have continued to engage with the New Haven community through outreach at the Coordinating Council for Children in Crisis and JUNTA, community education presentations on topics such as pro se divorce and dating violence, and community investigation into areas of law enforcement, criminal courts, and public benefits.
Bob and Robin Golden and the students in the Education Adequacy Project are representing a broad-based coalition and individual clients who are challenging Connecticut’s school financing system on state constitutional grounds. Last April, two clinic students argued the claim before the state Supreme Court. They did a spectacular job, before a packed courtroom. You can watch the argument on the Connecticut Public Television web site. Meanwhile, we are anxiously awaiting a decision.
Bob and Robin also stayed busy in Community and Economic Development, formerly known as Housing and Community Development, nee the Workshop on Shelter for the Homeless. Newly combined with the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) clinic with Sameera Fazili and Chuck Muckenfuss, the clinic currently engages 38 students from the law school and the School of Management, Divinity School and Forestry School. CED and CDFI joined forces this year to tackle mortgage foreclosure in New Haven, where Robin and Sameera supervised students working with a coalition of nonprofits and the City. This collaborative effort—called The ROOF Project—has the students lobbying for new state legislation to help homeowners get loan modifications and creating a real estate development nonprofit to combat the blight that will ensue post foreclosure in New Haven’s most vulnerable neighborhoods. Meanwhile, Bob is working with a team of students in mortgage foreclosure litigation. Other students represented an African-American church which built elderly housing, a community development corporation refinancing a shopping center, a community coalition reviving a home bequeathed in 1866 by an African-American woman to house elderly women, and a farmer’s market. The Small Business Legal Services group within CED-CDFI is busier than ever with such varied clients as a local fishery, daycare provider, web-based start up businesses and a workers’ cooperative. Research and advocacy projects have taken students into new areas such as the development of innovative products to provide access to New Haven’s unbanked, model smart growth zoning, and progressive federal legislation to expand fresh fruits and vegetables in public schools. We continue to represent First City Fund Corporation in its efforts to develop a community development bank. This effort started five years ago, when we represented the City of New Haven is its opposition to the demutualization of New Haven Savings Bank, which ultimately paid $25 million to establish FCFC. This semester, we finally filed our application for a state bank charter. (Yes, we are aware of our exquisite timing!)
In his 45th year as a legal services attorney, Frank Dineen continues to inspire students through the provision of legal services to the New Haven community. The Legal Assistance clinic brings students into contact with the diverse array of direct legal services that the New Haven Legal Assistance Association provides to the area’s indigent residents. The work of both the office and the clinic is always changing and expanding to meet the needs of the community, from fighting evictions in housing court hearings to appealing the denial of Medicaid or food stamps to appeals to the Connecticut Appellate Court in criminal cases.
Frank and Jay Pottenger continued their supervision of the Landlord/Tenant Clinic, representing tenants who are facing eviction from their homes in the New Haven area. Over the past two semesters our students have argued motions, handled mediation sessions, negotiated settlements and drafted numerous filings in the New Haven Housing Court. Given the current state of the housing market, the clinic has recently seen an increase in evictions resulting from foreclosures, and the clinic is currently working on three of these cases. Clinic students have also been involved in legislative advocacy work. This work has centered around a recently passed Connecticut law that increases protections for Connecticut tenants who are caught up in foreclosure proceedings.
Jay is continuing his work with the Legislative Advocacy Clinic, with the assistance of Shelly Geballe and state Representative Cam Staples. As you read this letter, you will notice that LSO has been in the center of New Haven’s response to mortgage foreclosures. The Legislative Advocacy Clinic played an important role, as students helped achieve passage of enhanced rights for tenants caught up in foreclosure proceedings at the November 2008 Special Session of the Connecticut Legislature, and signed into law just before Thanksgiving. The new legislation, among other provisions, requires banks (or other foreclosing owners) to pay departing tenants a minimum of $2,000.00 or double their security deposit, whichever is greater, as part of any “cash-for-keys” agreements. The Clinic is working with the Judiciary Committee to improve protections for victims of domestic violence by correcting abuses in the service of restraining orders as part of the upcoming Spring 2009 Legislative Session. We are also coordinating with a statewide coalition of advocacy groups to develop and present progressive proposals -- particularly involving “revenue enhancement” – as a preferred approach to solving the State’s budget crisis.
Last year saw the introduction of the Health Law Partnership for Families (“HeLP”), an effort to team lawyers and clinic students with doctors to provide comprehensive and related medical and legal services to the pediatric patients and their families at the Hospital St. Raphael. HeLP provides direct assistance to children and their families to ensure they obtain safe housing, access to healthcare, and appropriate education services. HeLP advocates, who are stationed at the Pediatric Primary Care Clinic on a twice a week basis, are in direct contact with patients and their families as well as their medical providers. Students are stationed at the hospital weekly to meet with doctors and patients, and undertake representation of clients under NHLAA attorney supervision. Additionally, HeLP seeks to address root causes by educating medical staff on their patients’ legal rights and by advocating for policy change at the local, state, and national level. This year, HeLP is also focusing on the food insecurity of many pediatric patients, focusing on everything from food stamp applications to ensuring the availability of a healthy breakfast and lunch for children in New Haven’s public school system.
Under Mike Wishnie’s supervision, along with Ramzi Kassem, Chris Lasch, and Hope Metcalf, the Worker & Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic (WIRAC) has been busy this semester. The Fair Haven raids defense team argued and won the right to a hearing for their motion to suppress evidence unlawfully obtained during the ICE residential raids of 2008. As a result of this unprecedented ruling, all seventeen plaintiffs testified about how they were uniquely impacted by ICE’s illegal tactics. Thus far, student teams representing other individuals arrested in the New Haven area raids have been successful in challenging pre-existing orders of deportation. One team argued and won a motion to reopen an old removal order before the Second Circuit. Another team, also before the Second Circuit, won vacatur of a past deportation order, which enabled their client to pursue an asylum claim. WIRAC FOIA teams have been active this semester, and their vigor and tenacity have generated substantial documentary evidence to support cases on the docket, including claims for civil rights damages. In a particularly complicated criminal case, students devised a strategy for relief for a long-detained client by reviving a little-used writ, which could serve as a model for future litigation. Students are also handling three federal wage-and-hour cases on behalf of thirteen different clients, and a major civil rights suit arising from the illegal round-up of the “Danbury 11,” a group of day-laborers wrongfully arrested, as well as immigration appeals for the Danbury clients. On the non-litigation front, WIRAC students have pursued clients’ interests through legislative campaigns, public education, and media outreach. Advocacy with the Hartford Common Council has resulted in a resolution to raise the living wage for Hartford workers and a municipal ordinance that ensures confidentiality of immigration status for Hartford residents, which is the strongest legislation its kind in the nation. Through Know Your Rights presentations at two local immigration detention facilities, students have identified new clients and particular problems affecting immigration detainees.
It is extraordinary to think how far clinical education has come in forty years. It is very much a shared journey, from the earliest prison and mental health work to the many projects in which we are currently engaged.
As the mortgage crisis deepens, legal assistance attorneys and Law School clinics fight to change big bank policy and Connecticut law 
In a brick building on New Haven’s State Street, a small group of lawyers with a continually shrinking budget and staff have been working overtime, going head-to-head with banking giants in an attempt to keep New Haven county residents in homes that have been foreclosed on. It reads like a modern day David vs. Goliath story. An underfunded but feisty group of attorneys, students, and tenants have taken on some of the biggest names in banking. And they’re beginning to win.
The story began last year when the staff at New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA) — among them staff attorneys Amy Marx ’00 and Amy Eppler-Epstein ’86 — started seeing an increased number of renters facing eviction from foreclosed properties. In Connecticut, more than 2,000 families were evicted from foreclosed properties in the last two years. Hundreds of those houses were in New Haven, and many of the foreclosures have resulted in the eviction of tenants. Marx and Eppler-Epstein started meeting family after family faced with eviction: A single mother who just wanted to keep her kids in the same school for a few more months; an elderly couple who had lived in the same apartment for thirty years, treating it as their own home; a man with muscular dystrophy whose family had spent thousands of dollars retrofitting his apartment with ramps and handles and special devices that allow him to live independently.
“These people had paid their rent on time, they were good tenants, and now they were getting eviction notices — many without ever having known that the property had been foreclosed upon,” Eppler-Epstein explains. Many times the tenants were told they needed to move out of their apartments within fifteen days. Sometimes they were offered small sums — $500 or $1,000 — in cash-for-keys offers they were told would expire within twenty-four hours.
In her office, Eppler-Epstein points to a poster showing “before” and “after” photos of a four-family New Haven home foreclosed on in August 2007. Prior to foreclosure, the property was appraised at $160,000 for a 90–120 day sale. Within days of the property being foreclosed and the tenants evicted, it was vandalized and everything of value — from the copper piping to the aluminum siding — was stripped. The house eventually sold, seventeen months later, for $16,000.
With eviction come vacant properties, Eppler-Epstein explains, which often results in vandalism, which leads to plummeting property values in surrounding neighborhoods, which leads to more foreclosure — a spiraling effect of neighborhood depreciation and home foreclosures.
The question for NHLAA became what to do to enable renters to remain in their residences. “The great thing about legal assistance is that we can see this problem and its effects on individuals and try to help them,” Marx says, “but we can also stand back and do the bigger picture advocacy work.” Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other privately held banks had policies of automatic and immediate eviction for any foreclosed property. Eppler-Epstein and Marx tried to intervene on behalf of their clients, pleading their stories without success.
The turning point came with the federal bailout legislation passed in October 2008. At the time, dozens of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac evictions were pending in court, and legal aid attorneys were having a hard time finding a foothold to keep their clients in their apartments. Then an attorney at Greater Hartford Legal Aid found a sentence buried in the Economic Stabilization Act’s 400 pages, requiring that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “permit bona fide tenants who are current on their rent to remain in their homes under the terms of their lease.”
Marx wrote a letter to Fannie Mae, pointing out that the government- sponsored enterprise was in violation of the conditions of the bailout — and threatened to take legal action. Fannie Mae’s legal department quickly responded, halting all eviction proceedings in Connecticut and across the country.
“We found that they might not have been interested in the human stories,” Marx says, “but they were interested in the legal ramifications and the financial implications of what they were doing.”
Next NHLAA went after Freddie Mac — again, successfully.
While getting two of the mortgage giants to stop automatic eviction proceedings was a huge success, NHLAA wanted to do more. Of the 2.5 million homes in foreclosure nationwide this past spring, ten percent of those homes were backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac mortgages, with the remaining ninety percent being held by private banks. That’s exactly where NHLAA set their sights next.
About the same time as NHLAA was beginning to recognize the extent of the impact of the mortgage foreclosure crisis on renters, students in the Law School’s Community and Economic Development Clinic (CED), under faculty supervision, helped launch the ROOF (Real Options, Overcoming Foreclosure) Project in New Haven. This response to the mortgage foreclosure crisis was planned and implemented by a collaborative group including the City of New Haven, the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund, Neighborhood Housing Services, and the CED Clinic. ROOF’s focus for the first year was on helping homeowners avoid foreclosure through counseling and court-ordered mediation and, when foreclosure could not be prevented, planning for how to stabilize neighborhoods with high foreclosure rates.
After hearing about the enormous success that NHLAA had in getting Fannie and Freddie to change their eviction policies, a sub-group of CED students, together with other students in the Landlord-Tenant Clinic, saw an opportunity to collaborate with NHLAA to address the plight of renters.
Without the legal leverage of the bailout agreement, negotiations with the private banks — including Bank of America, Bank of New York, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, US Bank, and Wells Fargo — have taken a bit more persuasion. The clinic students and faculty helped with research and cowrote and co-signed (in collaboration with NHLAA) a demand letter to private banks.
They are getting results: Deutsche Bank helped set up an April meeting for all of their loan servicers with NHLAA, the Yale Law School clinics, and the Mayor of New Haven to address the treatment of tenants after foreclosure as well as a host of other related issues. The meeting made progress in getting other servicers to adopt similar policies to those being used by Fannie Mae, and the advocates hope to work with the servicers to negotiate solutions that can be a model for other areas of the country.
The clinic students and faculty also worked collaboratively with NHLAA to craft proposed legislation. In February, several Law School students, along with YLS Clinical Lecturers Robin Golden ’98 and Sameera Fazili ’06, joined Eppler-Epstein and Marx at the state Capitol to testify on behalf of a bill that would prohibit banks from evicting tenants after foreclosure without “good cause,” or without a sales contract requiring the building to be vacant as a condition of sale.
Clinic student director Suneela Jain ’10 was among the students who testified on behalf of the bill, stressing to lawmakers that the bill does nothing to empower bad tenants. “Part of what we’re trying to do in the clinic is develop a coherent framework for working through what’s best for New Haven,” Jain explains. “We operate as a clearinghouse to hear different points of view and try to help determine what’s best for the community as a whole.”
Clinic students have been approaching the crisis from different angles. Ben Rogers ’09 brought his experience working directly with tenants facing eviction, Sai Mohan ’11 contacted property managers and researched legislation in other jurisdictions, and Rogers and Matt Barabella ’10 have been looking at pooling and servicing agreements and the legal and economic constraints involved in the proposed bill.
Jain has been inspired by the commitment and determination of the community and is grateful to have had hands-on experience working in New Haven and with the legislative process. “My interests have always tended toward a focus on other places; what is needed to support a better quality of life at an international level. This project has been great because I’ve been able to work with people who are dedicated to improving their own spaces. It has made me think more about how I can pursue my goals by supporting the development of a community that I am proud of,” she explains.
“I didn’t want to come to New Haven and not spend any time having worked in the community in some way,” adds Mohan. “Working in the clinic has shown me parts of New Haven that I might not have experienced otherwise.”
In April, Golden and her students accompanied Marx and Eppler-Epstein to Hartford to advocate once again for the bill. The group met in the House Caucus room with the co-chair of the Housing Committee and the co-chair of the Banking Committee to work toward a shared understanding of the importance of the bill and how, if necessary, they could compromise with the banking industry.
“It was an experiential lesson for the students in how government works,” Golden said.
Meanwhile, as NHLAA has been fighting to keep clients in their homes, it is also fighting its own battle to stay afloat. In the past year, the organization (which draws much of its funding from the interest earned on IOLTA accounts) has lost more than a quarter of its budget and thirteen employees. The remaining staff members have taken a twenty-percent pay cut.
“Our project is full steam ahead, and our staffing is less than half of what it should be,” Marx says. “At this point, we’re just trying to keep our doors open.” Y
As the Law Report was going to press, an amendment was added to federal law, providing some important new protections for renters whose landlords have been foreclosed upon. “It is heartening to see that our advocacy, combined with the work of many other housing advocates around the country, has helped to get this issue of what happens to tenants after foreclosure onto the national political agenda,” Eppler-Epstein said.
This foreclosure work is just one example of how NHLAA and the law school have successfully joined forces to provide essential legal services to the New Haven community. Whether by YLS students interning in the office as part of Frank Dineen’s Legal Assistance Clinic or TRO Project students volunteering daily at the local courthouse, NHLAA’s program has been energized by the students’ presence while its ability to address the legal needs of local clients has been expanded. These collaborative efforts are also part of a much larger picture. Other YLS graduates are having an impact on legal services throughout Connecticut. For example, Mildred Doody ’85 is heading up NHLAA’s new Children and Youth Advocacy Project and Steve Eppler-Epstein ’83 is the Executive Director of Connecticut Legal Services; Rafie Podolsky ’72 of the Legal Assistance Resource Center of Connecticut, Inc. (LARCC) lobbies for the interests of low income state residents — including the tenants impacted by the very legislation described above.
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View a gallery of Commencement 2009 photos.
“So we graduate together, you and I.”
Those were the first words Yale Law School Dean Harold Hongju Koh spoke during his commencement address to the class of 2009 on Memorial Day, May 25. It was a role reversal for Dean Koh, who, in his five years leading the school, was accustomed to bidding the graduating class good luck and Godspeed as they embarked on their journeys into an unknown future. Today, it would be farewell for Dean Koh, too, as he anticipated heading to Washington as Legal Adviser to the U.S. State Department.
Yale Law School Acting Dean Kate Stith opened the festivities shortly after noon, recognizing the “great effort and long hours” the families and friends of the 229 degree candidates and members of the Yale Law School family had sacrificed to make the day possible. In keeping with the holiday, she paid tribute to the veterans of the nation’s armed services and asked for a moment of silence in their honor.
Soon into the ceremony, Acting Dean Stith announced a surprise guest—Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ’73 —who entered to a standing ovation.
Secretary Clinton, who had earlier in the day received an honorary degree from Yale University, spoke for about five minutes, noting that when she arrived at the Law School in the fall of 1969, she never could have dreamed where the experience would lead her.
Next to speak was Justus S. Hotchkiss Professor of Law Michael Graetz, who is retiring after more than twenty-five years on the faculty. He reminded the graduates that the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right and encouraged them to navigate their paths “with energy and laughter.”
The announcement of degree candidates followed, after which Acting Dean Stith introduced Dean Koh as “an outstanding scholar; a challenging and beloved teacher; a champion of the rule of law and of human rights; and a compassionate and insightful adviser to countless colleagues and former students around the country and around the world.”
Dean Koh spoke of his life’s passion, international law, saying that following international law is in America’s interest. “If we don’t obey international law, we squander our moral authority and shrink our capacity to lead.”
He shared three important lessons he learned at Yale Law School: stick to your values, don’t shy away from taking risky stands, and remember that when you make the tough choices, you are likely to be criticized.
The final speaker was social entrepreneur William Drayton ’70, founder of Ashoka: Innovators for the Public. Drayton had also received an honorary degree from the University earlier in the day.
Acting Dean Stith ended the ceremony by encouraging the graduates to pursue the highest ideals and reminding them that ensuring the public interest is not limited to serving in government or in nonprofit organizations.
“Those who enter the honorable practice of law in any organization, public or private,” she said, “contribute to the public interest by advising clients on how to conduct their affairs within the law, and by counseling them how to do so in a way that causes the least harm.”
Selected Quotes from Commencement 2009
See www.law.yale.edu/news for videos and speeches from Commencement 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton ’73
“In this time of great challenge and opportunity, we need the very best we can possibly recruit into public service.”
Justus S. Hotchkiss Professor of Law Michael Graetz
“Throughout your career ahead, ask yourself ‘Do I like my work?’ and ‘Is what I’m doing helping at all to preserve liberty and promote justice?’”
Dean Harold Hongju Koh
“Some of you aren’t sure exactly what comes next. Neither am I. But on this beautiful day, full of hope, we put aside uncertainty for optimism.”
Acting Dean Kate Stith
“We know that you have the ability, the education, and the ambition not just to successfully navigate the world of law and legal practice as they evolve in the future — but actually to influence their evolution. We look forward to the better profession, and to the better world, that you will help create.”
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View a gallery of Commencement 2009 photos.