Table of Contents

Bending the Arc of Justice
With rising public and political interest in reforming our criminal legal system, the law school’s wide-ranging efforts to help achieve fairness within it take on even more importance.

Forefront
Leadership in Research, Service, & Education;
Talented Trio; Natural Home for Artificial Intelligence; Picked to Pioneer; Combating Antisemitism; Name Removed, History Remembered; Democracy Defenders

Fast Forward
Powerful Student Action Figures

Study Hall
Selected Faculty Scholarship

Advancement
Updates from Development & Alumni Relations

Class Notes
All in the Alumni Family

The faculty did a masterful job of adapting to a new form of teaching. The median score for student evaluations in the spring semester was notably higher than it had been in recent years. This, of course, does not mean that online teaching is the same as or better than in-person teaching. Rather, it reflects the enormous patience and understanding of our students in adapting to online education.

Berkeley Law continued to advance its public mission in countless ways. Our students did prodigious amounts of pro bono work. Our clinics provided effective representation, including to those adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite all of the difficulties, our faculty continued to produce important scholarship in their books, articles, and essays [see Study Hall].

All of this was facilitated, as always, by a terrific staff. They are one of the Law School’s greatest strengths.

While many Berkeley Law classes have dealt with daunting challenges, it’s hard to imagine any facing more simultaneous stressors than the Class of 2021.

Even so, this year’s graduates displayed remarkable tenacity, resilience, and compassion while pursuing their degree, advocating for clients and causes, supporting their classmates, and overcoming obstacles.

When the pandemic forced them to shelter in place and take classes online, they forged a sense of strong community in creative ways, from virtual cooking and craft circles to trivia nights and talent shows. And while it’s not the law school experience they envisioned, they still created foundational friendships, gained lifelong lessons, and inspired faculty and staff.

Amid the turbulence, graduates such as former Student Association of Berkeley Law Co-President Linda Blair found strength in their classmates.

“The community building at Berkeley Law is unmatched; there really is a place for everyone because Berkeley attracts people who care about one another and are willing to go above and beyond to be supportive,” she says. “This community has made me more open and inviting of people from all walks of life, and it has been the most meaningful part of my experience here.” —Andrew Cohen

Berkeley Law has enjoyed great success in recent competitions, and continues to grow its number of student participants and volunteer coaches — many of whom are alumni.

“I’m excited about the chance to work with students inside and outside the classroom as they develop their voices as advocates,” Winters says. —Andrew Cohen

For decades, Eric Stover has investigated war crimes and atrocities in foreign countries. But co-producing a documentary about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre hit home for the longtime faculty director of Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center.

“Tulsa: The Fire and the Forgotten” premiered May 31 on PBS. It commemorates the centennial of a white mob’s three-day rampage in a thriving area known as Black Wall Street that burned down nearly 40 blocks of businesses and homes, left over 8,000 people homeless, and killed at least 100.

Local police helped arm the mob and deputized some members. Many Black residents were held in internment camps and could leave only if their white employer came to release them. The dead were buried in unmarked graves. No white person was ever implicated.

“For the privileged whites, it was simply ‘We need to keep this quiet because we’re a prosperous oil capital,’” Stover says. “In the Black community, many feared talking about it and passing on the pain to their children. So a hushed history descended.”

In 2018, director Jonathan Silvers — who had worked with Stover before — called about a documentary. They approached Washington Post reporter DeNeen Brown, whose front-page story described the massacre and efforts to submerge it, prompting Tulsa’s mayor to reopen the investigation and create the 1921 Race Massacre Burial Sites Oversight Committee.

Stover interviewed activists, anthropologists, and others in Oklahoma who are striving to find mass graves and publicize what happened. Supervised by Human Rights Center Associate Director Andrea Lampros, students in the center’s Investigations Lab fact-checked the film at PBS’s request.

“The main theme we’re trying to bring out in the documentary is that you have to live with history, face it, and understand that violence is passed down from generation to generation,” Stover says. —Andrew Cohen

If Wayne Stacy feels any pressure leading the center that drives the nation’s top-ranked intellectual property law program, you’d never know.

“Maintaining rankings and stature aren’t the motivation,” says Stacy, the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology’s new executive director. “The motivation comes from our ability to help the legal community adapt to changing technologies and changing laws. I recognize the impact BCLT has had over the past 25 years. By doing our job well, we will remain No. 1.”

Stacy, who started in May, had been a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office regional director and a partner at Baker Botts (chairing its intellectual property department) and Cooley LLP while teaching at four law schools, including Berkeley.

“As a law firm attorney, I had the opportunity to be part of several BCLT events and was always impressed,” says Stacy, now building the center’s new Project on Law and Innovation in the Life Sciences and inviting more mid-level attorneys to work with BCLT. “This position provides the opportunity to be on the front lines of identifying and solving the emerging legal issues facing tech companies.”

Stacy replaces James Dempsey, who expanded Berkeley Law’s Asia IP & Technology Law Project and tech-law curriculum during his 6½ years. Dempsey will continue teaching cybersecurity law in the LL.M. Program and his new book, Cybersecurity Law Fundamentals, was published during the summer.

“Berkeley really does have the nation’s best law and technology program,” Dempsey says. “BCLT’s 17 faculty directors represent an unmatched depth. My last and possibly greatest achievement is handing BCLT over to Wayne Stacy. He has so many ideas and so much energy for preserving our successful model while expanding it on multiple vectors.” —Andrew Cohen

An education program aiming to stamp out antisemitism at UC Berkeley is finding a national audience, with help from a grant and a video that puts a complex history into simpler terms.

“UC Berkeley is rightly celebrated for its history of free expression and for being an inclusive community,” says Berkeley Law Professor Steven Davidoff Solomon, who started the Antisemitism Education Initiative in 2019 with History Professor Ethan Katz and Berkeley Hillel Executive Director Adam Naftalin-Kelman. “I really wanted to make sure that when we consider questions of racial justice, antisemitism is a part of that discussion.”

Now, as co-founder and CEO of the States United Democracy Center in Washington, D.C., Lydgate guides its work to advance free, fair, and secure elections. The nonpartisan center helps connect state officials, law enforcement leaders, and pro-democracy partners across America with tools and expertise to protect the vote, hold democracy violators accountable, and prevent political violence.