Law Schools

Yale Law's Graduates Don't Have The Best Reputation. Here's Who To Blame

Prestige and guilt by association.

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There’s no question that despite Yale Law being prestigious as all hell, its graduates have earned a bit of a bad rap:

No seriously, this isn’t just some isolated sentiment:

So, who are the Law Yalies giving the school a bad rap? That would take several installments — this here is the first of them. Here are 5 Yale Law grads, in no particular order, that make Yale Law alums think twice before they brag about their alma mater.

  1. Clarence Thomas

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    Pictured: Someone told Clarence he can’t have billionaires fund his luxurious lifestyle because it looks bad.

For some reason, maybe the realization that Coca Cola wouldn’t be the one adding to his checks any time soon, Clarence Thomas has been collecting millions of dollars off the record from very influential people and no one has really seemed to care about it until recently. Since then, the interest in pocket watching Clarence has been a major motivation for implementing a Supreme Court code of ethics that actually means something. He’s also built some ire for sitting on several Trump adjacent cases despite his best friend being a coup enthusiast. And while he’s not the sole reason that the Supreme Court is experiencing one of the lowest approval ratings of all time, he’s definitely one sixth of it. You can read more about him here.

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2. Samuel Alito

President Trump Swears In Mark Esper As Secretary Of Defense

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Many of us have gotten in trouble for wearing our emotions on our sleeves. Alito has done one better and wore his support for coup enthusiasts on his home’s flagpole. He’s also been doing this for years, apparently. Much like Thomas, he’s also refused to recuse from cases everyone knows he should have. And while he’s not the sole reason that the Supreme Court is experiencing one of the lowest approval ratings of all time, he’s definitely one sixth of it. He was quick to make him a fan favorite of women everywhere by bending a statute to read “Hey, letting women who need healthcare bleed out to death is cool, actually“. If that isn’t enough, you can read more about him here.

3. Brett Kavanaugh

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford And Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Testify To Senate Judiciary Committee

(Photo by Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)

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The third member of the blunt rotation from hell probably doesn’t rank too high on the list of people you’d want to grab a beer with. He’s also a textualist that isn’t actually all that beholden to what words mean if they get in the way of his preferred outcome. And while he’s not the sole reason that the Supreme Court is experiencing one of the lowest approval ratings of all time, he’s definitely one sixth of it. You can read more about him here.

4. JD Vance

Sen. J.D. Vance

Sen. J.D. Vance (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

That’s right, alleged couch fucker supreme is a Yalie! Vance has done an outstanding job of making it perpetually obvious that this is in fact his first rodeo — he’s even found a way to turn buying donuts into a cringe can’t-turn-your-head-away PR nightmare:

He’s also one of the reasons that calling far-right advocates weird is doing so phenomenally well. The Republican party has taken a special interest in regulating women’s bodies recently, but Vance has found a way to go even further:

Weird guy overall.

Honorable Mention:

5. Batman Batman RF

Listen, if Yale Law graduates on the Supreme Court are going to keep pretending that Textualism is an actual thing, I’m going to hold them accountable to what’s in the books. Canonically, Bruce Wayne is a Yale Law graduate. Don’t believe me? You can read it on Yale’s site. Batman has some amazing victories under his belt: Lex Luthor, Superman and Bane are all great examples, but he also has made some unforgivable mistakes. His penchant for endangering the lives of teenagers for his side kicks? Not cool. Also, Bat Nipples??

That should have been the real target of the “How should lawyers dress” twitter discourse from a couple of days ago.

Get your act together, Yale. The future of our country (and Gotham) depend on it.

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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