From the Dean

I write this in August 2023, as our new students are arriving for orientation and as classes are about to begin. There always is excitement at the beginning of a new school year, but this is a particularly exciting time for Berkeley Law as reflected in this issue of Transcript.

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.

We are also welcoming terrific students in all of our programs literally from across the world. For example, our entering J.D. class has the highest median LSAT score and undergraduate grade point average in Berkeley Law’s history for as long as we have compiled such data. It is wonderfully diverse in every way. I know you will hear great things about their accomplishments in law school and for years to come.

A crucial part of our intellectual environment is our many research centers. They engage in vital research, hold important conferences, and engage our students in meaningful ways. This year, we are revitalizing our Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice, and creating several new centers: the Criminal Law & Justice Center, the Center for Indigenous Law and Justice, and the Berkeley Center for Private Law Theory. These centers join our existing excellent centers and are also described in these pages.

I have the strong sense that this is a very good time for Berkeley Law: We are hiring and retaining great faculty, admitting stellar students, engaging in cutting-edge scholarship, and using law to make our society and our world better. All of this is made possible by the support of our alumni, for which we are enormously grateful.

Warmly,

Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean, Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law