In Brief

The faculty overwhelmingly approved the Curriculum Committee’s proposal and committed to consistently offering sufficient classes that enable all students to meet this requirement. They also endorsed a commitment, starting in spring 2024, to consistently offer one or more electives introducing students to a range of theoretical perspectives on law and legal institutions.

“No law student can be prepared to practice law in any field without an understanding of the role of race in American law, both historically and today,” Dean Erwin Chemerinsky says. “A distinguishing characteristic of Berkeley Law is our public mission, and this requirement sends an important message about our commitment to equality and justice.”

The Curriculum Committee began considering such a requirement in fall 2020, prompted in part by a 19-page student-drafted proposal that was endorsed by 14 student organizations.

“In my view, law too often reflects the preferences of powerful people who want to stay powerful, to the detriment of everyone else. Legal education divorced from this context is, at best, incomplete,” says 2L and committee member Alison Luna. “This new development will help a new generation of students think about how the law formed and gather the resources needed to change it for the better.”

The committee conducted student and faculty surveys, interviewed expert faculty and staff, and collected data about practices at other law schools. At a May 2021 faculty meeting, it was encouraged to continue exploring avenues for curricular improvement.

“By design, institutions are supposed to be resistant to change,” says 2L Geoff Bacon, the committee’s other student. “What was most rewarding is that our committee worked with a collective belief that a change to the curriculum was due.”

— Andrew Cohen

The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) kicked off 2022 by affirming Berkeley Law’s profound influence across the legal education landscape.

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky began his one-year term as AALS president, Professor Emerita Eleanor Swift received the Evidence Section’s John Henry Wigmore Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the Section on Pro Bono and Public Service Opportunities chaired by Field Placement Director Sue Schechter was named co-section of the year.

Chemerinsky becomes the sixth AALS president from Berkeley Law, following Orrin McMurray, William Prosser, Sanford Kadish, Herma Hill Kay, and Rachel Moran. The theme for his presidency — how law schools can make a difference — reflects his belief in law schools’ “ability and obligation” to propel change, and that the need for it has never been greater.

Chemerinsky outlined several areas for consideration. They include adding and requiring classes on race and the law and topics such as climate change, urging focused scholarship on pressing societal issues and how to address them, and recruiting more students from underrepresented groups.

Swift, who had a remarkable 35-year career at Berkeley Law, became a top Evidence scholar, an exceptional teacher, and a powerful advocate for clinical education. Just the fifth woman on the school’s faculty, she continually mentored women in the classroom and within Evidence law.

“When I started in 1979, women Evidence professors were scarce and undervalued. Now there are many highly regarded women doing innovative teaching and scholarship that is deep and diverse,” Swift says. “Everyone is better off as a result.”

Schechter has been co-faculty director of Berkeley Law’s Pro Bono Program since 2009 (see The Power of Pro Bono). Her AALS section launched educational enrichment and law school collaboration projects to more strongly instill the importance of pro bono and public service in promoting the rule of law and securing America’s democracy.

— Andrew Cohen & Gwyneth K. Shaw

The Clinic, which helps over 300 such businesses a year owned by low-income entrepreneurs (mostly people of color and women), will offer more consultations, trainings, and webinars in English and Spanish on issues such as COVID-related risks, California’s restrictive contractor laws, and e-commerce.

The grant comes from Wells Fargo’s Open for Business Fund, created to help small business entrepreneurs stay open, maintain jobs, and grow by gaining greater access to capital, technical expertise, and recovery resources. Fueled by the pandemic, nearly 40% of California small businesses were lost between January 2020 and June 2021.

Working in partnership with Immigrants Rising, the clinic will be offering basic training in entity formation, capitalization, hiring workers, and protecting intellectual property to immigrant entrepreneurs, many of whom are undocumented.

During three-hour “legal mercados,” clinic faculty and volunteer attorneys chair four Zoom breakout rooms and offer 45-minute repeating overviews and Q&As for each area. Participants can “shop” for the legal information they need and sign up for individual consultation.

Linda Tam ’00 spent two decades advocating for immigrant rights. Urmila Taylor worked 12 years at the U.S. Social Security Administration after starting as a law-firm associate. Margaret Wu ’96 also started in private practice before spending 14 years with the UC Office of General Counsel.

A common thread that extended their far-reaching career tapestries: legal writing.

“Writing is the most fundamental of lawyering skills,” Tam says. “When I was a law student, skills-based classes were my favorite. They were also the most helpful classes for my career.”

Tam, Taylor, and Wu are now helping to hone those skills as the newest professors in Berkeley Law’s Legal Research, Analysis, and Writing Program — a 1L curriculum staple and longtime point of emphasis for the school.

“I find it really rewarding to help students learn the skills and tools they’ll use to become terrific new lawyers while simultaneously learning from them how I can be a better teacher,” Wu says.

The school’s legal writing professors are full-time faculty who bring significant practice experience and teaching chops to the classroom — averaging more than 10 years of teaching per instructor. Working closely with 1Ls in both semesters, they provide highly individualized feedback and routinely develop mentoring relationships.

Taylor ran the Social Security Administration’s federal litigation practice for the Ninth Circuit and the district courts within it. She says her favorite part “was that I also became responsible for training our staff attorneys on legal research and writing” pertaining to the complex regulatory scheme the agency administers.

— Andrew Cohen

Class of 2021 grads Matthew Chung, Harrison Geron, David Fang, and Walter Mostowy won the annual Telecommunications Policy Research Conference Student Paper Award. The paper built on a regulatory comment on net neutrality they crafted while students in Professor Tejas Narechania’s Regulated Digital Industries course and filed with the Federal Communications Commission.

“It was cited by other major players in their own comments to the agency, and the FCC even saw fit to respond to the argument that the students made,” Narechania says. “After that, the students kept going, and decided to build on those ideas and turn it into a paper. I met with them a couple times to discuss their ideas, but the work and research is all theirs.”

Most California Courts of Appeal opinions are “unpublished,” and therefore lack precedential effect. But the parties or interested observers can request that the court order publication of any unpublished opinion.

Reviewing thousands of opinions, the center has succeeded on 11 of its 18 publication requests, creating over 200 pages of new law. Ranging from tenant rights to solar panel contracts to mandatory arbitration, these decisions — which could not be cited when issued — are now fully citable precedent that will help shape state consumer law.

“I think we all gained some resiliency and realized we’re capable of dealing with more than we may have thought we could have a couple years ago,” says Army JAG Corps attorney Dave Blum ’21.

“Having spent almost half of our law school careers online, it was almost unreal to gather with classmates,” Cooley trademark associate Jessica Williams ’21 says of the ceremony and ensuing reception. “I think if we had been able to see each other’s entire face, there wouldn’t have been a dry eye in the house.”

The audience heard remarks from Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, Berkeley Law Alumni Association President Carly Alameda ’06, California Court of Appeal (1st District) Associate Justice Jon Streeter ’81, and U.S. District Court (Northern District of California) Senior Judge Claudia Wilken ’75. Streeter and Wilken gave the licensing oaths for admission to the state bar and federal district court, respectively.

“I can honestly say without exaggeration that your generation faces challenges as great literally since the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln,” Streeter said. “Because I know the level of talent and character assembled here today, typical of Berkeley Law, I’m confident you will meet that challenge.”

— Andrew Cohen

Berkeley Law’s innovative work exploring how environmental, social, and governance (ESG) questions are — and should be — incorporated into business strategy got a big boost through a recent gift to support research, programming, and student fellowships.

The school was named the first academic partner of the ESG and Law Institute, launched by Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP as an independent forum studying corporate sustainability’s most pressing issues. The idea of a more sustainable form of capitalism was a hot topic in the business world — even before the COVID-19 pandemic made the depth of income inequality starkly visible.

Berkeley Law Business in Society Institute Director Amelia Miazad ’02 developed the school’s growing suite of courses bridging corporate law and social and environmental justice, bringing together companies and experts to share best practices. The institute incorporates the school’s public mission into a curriculum that gives students the opportunity to become leaders in building better corporations.

The new gift will award two $25,000 fellowships to select Berkeley Law students to conduct research and analysis and participate in topical programs and events.

“Our students are increasingly concerned about the role of business in society,” says Adam Sterling ’13, the school’s assistant dean for executive education and revenue generation. “This gift will help scale our platform and provide our students and faculty with additional support as we continue to build the most impactful business law program in the world.”

— Gwyneth K. Shaw

“I chose Berkeley Law for my LL.M. degree because it’s the only top-ranked law school that offered a program convenient for foreign practicing lawyers,” she says. “I scoured the top 10 schools for a similar program, but couldn’t find one that worked for my situation being a mother to very young kids. I also found the curricular offerings to be more diverse and relevant in these times.”

When the Philippines’ Legal Education Board required attorneys to have an LL.M. before becoming a law professor or a law school dean, Moraleda pounced on her dream of earning a law master’s degree in the United States.

“There’s an exception for those who were law professors for at least 10 years before the requirement took effect, and I fall into the exception,” she says. “However, I believe in having an advanced degree if one wants a career in the academy, and I felt that I owe it to my students to be an effective professor and law dean.”

Moraleda received her LL.M. in December, spending last summer on the Berkeley campus sandwiched between studying remotely during the spring and fall semesters.

“Aside from the discussions with professors who truly are experts in their fields, I found the opportunities for cultural and social exchange between students from all parts of the globe a great bonus,” Moraleda says. “Berkeley is the best place. There’s so much to see just in and around campus, and the people are courteous and respectful. It was the most enriching and enjoyable summer I’ve experienced in a long time.”

— Andrew Cohen

Ana de Alba ’07, nominated by President Joe Biden to a federal judgeship in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California and expected to be approved by the Senate, is on track to become the court’s first Latina judge.

A Fresno County Superior Court judge since 2018, de Alba also spent five years as a partner at Lang Richert & Patch in Fresno, where she focused on employment, business, tort, and construction litigation.

If confirmed, she would join the bench in a district of nearly 8 million people.