Table of Contents

Life Through the Lens
Memorable images of dynamic events, Admitted Students Weekend, a new alum’s painting series, and student life.

Soaring Higher
Four research centers, three new and one rebooted, confront vital issues across the legal firmament.

Forefront
Leadership in Research, Service, & Education
A slam dunk for leadership skills • Training clinical educators overseas • 3L helps write her tribe’s constitution • Students BLAST off on pro bono trips • Powering equitable energy solutions • Practicum helps Afghan evacuees

Fast Forward
Powerful Student Action Figures

Study Hall
Faculty Honors & Scholarship

Advancement
Updates from Development & Alumni Relations

Class Notes
All in the Alumni Family

I am thrilled that we have added eight terrific new faculty members who began on July 1. Five were professors at other law schools and are truly stars in their fields: Hanoch Dagan (from Tel Aviv University’s Buchmann Faculty of Law), Dhammilka Dharmapala (from the University of Chicago Law School), Ofer Eldar (from Duke University Law School), Veronica Aoki Santarosa (from the University of Michigan Law School), and Ayelet Shachar (from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law). We also have three superb “entry-level” faculty members joining us: José Argueta Funes, Elena Chachko, and Diana Reddy.

The quality of any educational institution in large part is a reflection of its faculty, and we are thrilled to have our new colleagues join us. They are profiled in these pages and I hope you enjoy reading about them and getting to know them in the months and years ahead.

Billboard named seven alumni to its 2023 Best Music Lawyers list: Latham & Watkins partner Andrew Gass ’08, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher partner Scott Edelman ’84, Pryor Cashman partner Frank P. Scibilia ’95, Miller Barondess partner Sasha Frid ’01, Fischbach Perlstein Lieberman & Almond partner Michael Perlstein ’63, Donahue Fitzgerald partner Daniel Schacht ’08, and Yankovsky Law founder Andrea Yankovsky ’13.

“If you’re at a point in your career where you are leading people and organizations, this is something you will benefit from,” Assistant Dean for Executive Education and Revenue Generation Adam Sterling ’13 says. “As professionals become more senior in their careers, work becomes less about legal expertise and more about leadership. And that’s what we’re here to address.”

Sterling is on the first team of coaches, joined by Irene Liu ’06, Shana Simmons ’09, Mark Kahn ’00, and Ross Weiner. All but Sterling, the lead instructor for Berkeley Law’s VC University, have served as chief legal officer or general counsel.

Over lunch, former EBCLC colleague Gail Silverstein ’99 suggested that Tam meet Jessica Vapnek ’91, faculty director at UC College of the Law, San Francisco’s International Development Law Center. Silverstein had traveled to Kosovo through the center and knew of Tam’s 2015 Myanmar trip to help develop experiential law programs.

The center had also received a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Embassy in Ghana for a 15-month project to build a similar exchange there with the University of Professional Studies, Accra.

A Berkeley Law 3L, Cirelli has also moved her tribe forward since 2020 through a uniquely rewarding endeavor: helping to rewrite its constitution. She is the youngest of the tribe’s five Constitutional Review Committee members, and the only law student.

“Throughout my childhood, my family would often visit our ancestral homeland of Upper Lake to attend tribal meetings, community events, and family gatherings,” she says. “I was always inspired hearing about how our tribe achieved federal recognition, growth, and prosperity, and how my family’s continued involvement helped the tribe reach new heights.”

“BLAST is a great way to apply what you’ve learned in law school to the real world,” says Ami Shirriff ’24, who co-led the Alaska trip after joining last year’s Hawai‘i BLAST group.

Noting the many legal and leadership skills that BLAST develops, Pro Bono Program Director Deborah Schlosberg says the students “invest their time and their hearts into this service learning experience” and that “the lessons they learn stay with them long after their week of work.”

As a 1L, speaking with CELL’s inaugural leaders Nadia Senter ’22 and Max Learner ’23 made Killian realize she could work directly on projects related to the energy grid’s resilience to climate impacts.

“I was hooked,” says Killian, now a co-leader of CELL herself. “Since then, I have enjoyed getting insight into other aspects of the growing but still fairly niche field of clean energy law.”

Many Afghan evacuees are seeking asylum and permission to stay here long term, but the process is famously difficult, creating a huge need for legal expertise. Enter Berkeley Law’s Asylum Law Practicum, whose students helped Bay Area Afghan evacuees submit asylum applications under the supervision of lawyers from Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay, which has resettled more than 1,000 Afghans since the U.S. withdrawal.

Lecturer Kyra Lilien ’06, who directs that organization’s Immigration Legal Services Program, teaches the practicum and accompanying seminar course.

Working to dislodge criminal system injustice from its roots. Shining an overdue light on our core societal foundations. Developing a vibrant research and community hub for Native American issues and students. Ramping up responses to America’s fast-changing reproductive landscape.

Berkeley Law hosts more than two dozen research centers and initiatives where faculty, researchers, and students seek solutions to a dizzying maze of challenges. This academic year, three new centers and a rebooted one will tackle vexing problems, offer pragmatic student training, and elevate the school’s public mission.