Yale Law School (often referred to as Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. The school's small size and prestige makes its admissions process the most selective of any law school in the United States. Yale has consistently been ranked the number one law school in the country by U.S. News and World Report every year since the magazine began publishing law school rankings.

Among other luminaries, former United States President William Howard Taft was a professor of constitutional law at Yale Law School from 1913 until he resigned to become Chief Justice of the United States in 1921. Presidents Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton earned their law degrees at Yale Law School later in the century, and the law school's Lillian Goldman Law Library has been memorialized as the meeting place of Bill and fellow student Hillary Clinton, the 67th Secretary of State. Alumni also include current United States Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor, as well as a number of former Justices, including Abe Fortas, Potter Stewart and Byron R. White; several heads of state around the world, including Karl Carstens, the fifth President of Germany, and Jose P. Laurel, the sole president of the Republic of the Philippines; former Democratic Vice Presidential nominees Sargent Shriver and Joe Lieberman; and the current deans of eight of the ten top-ranked law schools in the United States: Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, NYU, Michigan, Virginia, and Penn.

A law school (also known as a school of law or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education.

The oldest civil law faculty in Canada offering law degrees was established in 1848 at McGill University in Montreal, and the oldest common law faculty in Canada offering law degrees was established in 1883 at Dalhousie University in Halifax. The typical law degree required to practice law in Canada is now the Juris Doctor, which requires previous university coursework and is similar to the first law degree in the United States, except there is some scholarly content in the coursework (such as an academic research paper required in most schools). The programs consist of three years, and have similar content in their mandatory first year courses. Beyond first year and the minimum requirements for graduation, course selection is elective with various concentrations such as business law, international law, natural resources law, criminal law, Aboriginal law, etc. Some schools, however, have not made the switch from LL.B. to the J.D. - one notable university that has not made the switch is McGill University.

Barney Frank (born March 31, 1940) is the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 4th congressional district since January 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee (2007–2011) and is considered the most prominent gay politician in the United States.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Frank graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He worked as a political aide before winning election to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1972. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980 with 52 percent of the vote. He has been re-elected ever since by wide margins. In 1987 he came out as gay, becoming the first member of Congress to do so voluntarily. From 2007 to 2011, Frank served as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, where he remains the ranking Democrat.

On November 28, 2011, Frank announced that he would retire from the Congress at the conclusion of his term in 2013. On January 26, 2012 it was announced in The Hill that Frank would marry his partner James Ready.