The friends of Arthur Liman '57 LL.B. have endowed a chair at the Law School in his honor, according to an announcement by Dean Anthony Kronman. In addition, an Arthur Liman Public Interest Fund and Fellowship has been endowed at over $1 million "to carry forward the purposes and values reflected in Arthur Liman's profound and longstanding commitment to law in the public interest."
Mr. Liman, who earned his undergraduate degree at Harvard University, is a partner with the New York City firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. A leader of both the public and private bar for decades, he gained nationwide attention as chief counsel to the New York State Special Commission on Attica after the 1971 prison riot and, in 1987, as Senate counsel to the Iran-Contra Committee -- the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition. He currently chairs the Legal Action Center of the City of New York and the New York State Capital Defender's Office.
He has served as president of the Legal Aid Society of New York City and the Neighborhood Defense Service of Harlem; chair of the New York City Board of Investigation of the Medical Examiner's Office and New York Mayor David Dinkins' appointments committee; and a member of city, state and national boards and commissions too numerous to list.
"To me," Mr. Liman has written, "having a successful career in private practice was more than a matter of earning a good living. It gave me the independence when I took public assignments to do what I believed was right."
The Liman Professorship is to be held "by a teacher who exemplifies in his or her teaching, scholarship and professional life the qualities of independence and integrity that Arthur Liman has demonstrated throughout his career as a trial lawyer, a counselor and a devoted servant of the public good."
The Liman Public Interest Fund and Fellowship will provide full support for a position in the field of public interest law to at least one recent Law School graduate every year. Liman Fellows will work in public interest organizations or programs throughout the world. This support will be augmented by grants for public interest programs and projects both within and outside the law school.
Mr. Liman writes, "As a young, eager, frightened and idealistic student at Yale Law School in 1954, in awe of figures like Harry Schulman, Fritz Kessler and other giants, it never would have occurred to me that someday a professorship would carry my name, or that a fellowship in my honor might facilitate public service by a young graduate."
Dean Kronman says, "I know Arthur feels that his Yale Law School education provided him with role models of lawyers who combined careers in private practice and public service, and with a training based on humanistic legal values. It is wonderful that we can now honor Mr. Liman in this way and thus hold him up as an outstanding model for current and future Yale Law students."
For further information, contact Toni Hahn Davis, assistant dean for public affairs at the Law School, at 432-1655.