Sampler Platter Offers Tasty Synergies
Business law? Check. Tenant and housing rights? Check. Negotiation competitions? Check. And the list goes on.
As a University of Arizona undergrad, his wide-ranging activities included leading a spring break public service trip, competing for the school’s ballroom dance team, and interning at the International Rescue Committee. Whitthorne brought that same unquenchable approach to Berkeley Law.
“I’ve consistently found that different experiences build on each other in unexpected ways,” he says, “so I seek out a wide variety of opportunities to try to learn things I couldn’t otherwise.”
Sampler Platter Offers Tasty Synergies
Business law? Check. Tenant and housing rights? Check. Negotiation competitions? Check. And the list goes on.
As a University of Arizona undergrad, his wide-ranging activities included leading a spring break public service trip, competing for the school’s ballroom dance team, and interning at the International Rescue Committee. Whitthorne brought that same unquenchable approach to Berkeley Law.
“I’ve consistently found that different experiences build on each other in unexpected ways,” he says, “so I seek out a wide variety of opportunities to try to learn things I couldn’t otherwise.”
“Student-published journals give us an opportunity to have a finger on the pulse of a particular area, and even, to some extent, have some influence on the direction of legal scholarship,” he says.
Editing an article about how local municipalities can finance climate resistant infrastructure through derivative products, he realized that journal work can indeed affect the real world.
“Here’s a way to turn existing financial instruments into buildings and flood barriers in a way I thought was really interesting,” says Whitthorne, who worked at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in Palo Alto last summer and will soon clerk for Delaware Court of Chancery Vice Chancellor Paul Fioravanti Jr.
Staying “rooted amid a world of abstract legal concepts,” Whitthorne also co-chairs the student group Catholics at Berkeley Law.
Whitthorne also dove into Berkeley Law’s vast pro bono opportunities. He has worked with the Tenants’ Rights Workshop and the East Bay Community Law Center’s Housing Clinic, creating forms to help tenants bring counter-claims for unpaid rent in small claims court.
Participating remotely in a 2021 Berkeley Law Alternative Service Trip for people in rural Kentucky, Whitthorne developed a pre-lease signing checklist to help renters secure key rights — like habitability, which local laws did not guarantee — and also wrote part of an appellate brief.
From journals to affinity groups to pro bono outlets, Whitthorne calls Berkeley Law’s robust engagement opportunities “outstanding.”
“I had some really cool moments where I’d get out of Contracts class, then go into the Tenants’ Rights Workshop and advise someone on the very contractual theory that I’d just learned about,” he says. “These kinds of synergies are part of why I like trying so many things, and having these opportunities is what sets Berkeley Law apart.” — Sarah Weld