In Brief

TALENTED TRIO: (From left) Hudheifa Aden from Somalia, Agbor Tabe from Cameroon, and Getachew Gayzibayso from Ethiopia. Photo by Tylor Norwood

The first Mastercard Foundation Scholars in UC Berkeley Law’s LL.M. Program, Hudheifa Aden, Getachew Gayzibayso, and Agbor Tabe share a common goal: bringing back key skills to make a greater difference in their home continent.

UC Berkeley’s Center for African Studies partners with the highly competitive program, which awards full scholarships, living expenses, a laptop, and round-trip flights to graduate students from across Africa.

Aden was a presidential advisor in one of Somalia’s regional states, advised on multinational transactions, and hosted the premier Africa-focused business show “BBC Money Daily,” interviewing presidents, ministers, corporate titans, and other policymakers.

“The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program represents a commitment to building the future of Africa,” he says. “I was particularly drawn to the way Berkeley fosters collaboration across disciplines, providing students with a diverse and intellectually stimulating environment.”

Gayzibayso was named his university’s most outstanding student and received the second best result on the National Ethiopian Law Schools’ Exit Exam. He has been a researcher for the Ethiopian Lawyers Association and Ethiopian Human Rights Council, taught law courses, and advised multinational companies at one of Ethiopia’s leading firms.

“I’ve enjoyed the intellectually challenging, stimulating, and engaging nature of Berkeley’s LL.M. Program,” he says. “Every encounter has provoked me to reflect on the role the law could play in shaping the makeup of society and stimulating forces of change.”

For Tabe, participating in an advocacy campaign to protect biodiversity and Indigenous land rights in Cameroon’s Ebo Forest — and learning about Vision 2035, a national strategic initiative to make Cameroon a developed country — sparked his interest in law.

“Protecting the environment was only mentioned in passing, with no clear plan of how to achieve development without mitigating the environmental harm it will cause,” he says. “This played a major role in my pursuing an LL.M. degree at Berkeley with a concentration in environmental law.” — Andrew Cohen

IN THEIR CORNER: Former U.S. Army Reserve captain Caity Lynch ’25 relishes advocating for fellow veterans. Photo by Brittany Hosea-Small

In many respects, Caity Lynch ’25 made it look easy.

As a U.S. Army Reserve engineer officer, she was promoted to captain early, selected for company command, and led 153 soldiers to construct vital infrastructure across four locations in Afghanistan — enabling an increase of over 1,200 NATO forces there and earning her a Bronze Star. Of the 18 captains in her brigade, Lynch was rated the top captain and best commander.

At UC Berkeley Law, she led the pro bono project Legal Obstacles Veterans Encounter (LOVE), co-authored a report on veteran deportation, won a California Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Women Veterans Trailblazer Award, and received a gender justice award while clerking for Equal Rights Advocates.

But Lynch credits facing her vulnerability — as a crime victim in high school who later suffered Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the military — for successes leading to a prestigious Skadden Fellowship, which funds exceptional young attorneys for two years of public interest work.

“As a survivor in law school, I finally found answers,” she says. “From Criminal Procedure and Evidence classes to survivor advocacy in Family Law and understanding power through Constitutional Law, combined with care from compassionate therapists, I forgave myself. I finally, truly understood that what happened wasn’t my fault.”

This fall, Lynch will work as a Skadden Fellow at Swords to Plowshares to expand VA housing, health care, and disability compensation for veterans with less than honorable discharges — often at risk of or experiencing homelessness — through new regulations that recognize trauma and discrimination as causes of unjust dismissal and subsequent VA ineligibility.

Calling her work in Afghanistan “nothing short of harrowing,” she says facing her PTSD head-on and helping others proved critical. At LOVE, she aided veterans at risk of or experiencing homelessness gain access to VA benefits including health care and disability compensation.

“Having received military and VA care myself, the work was personal,” she says. “Interviewing veterans, it even seemed arbitrary which one of us worked alongside an attorney and which veteran needed help from one.” — Andrew Cohen

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VICTORY ROW: (From left) Rachel Talkington ’26, William Clark ’25, coach James Perry ’11, Melissa Molloy ‘25, and Angela Ma ’25.

Extending its recent run of advocacy competition success, UC Berkeley Law won the annual National Civil Trial Competition in November. Competing in Los Angeles, 3Ls William Clark, Melissa Molloy, and Angela Ma and 2L Rachel Talkington bested 15 top teams from law schools around the country.

Veterans of the school’s Trial Team, the students worked with coaches Patrick Johnson ’19 and James Perry ’11 to prepare for the competition — which involved a fictitious case centered on a nurse’s request for a service animal as a workplace accommodation to manage general anxiety disorder under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Contestants performed opening statements, direct and cross-examinations of expert and lay witnesses, closing arguments, and objections, and the Berkeley students’ prior competitive experience and painstaking preparation delivered huge dividends.

“I don’t think there was a single thing that really surprised us,” Molloy says. “Almost every team that we competed against got visibly frustrated and surprised about things, and we just never had that happen to us.”

Ma credits the team’s coaches for being “so clearly invested in us as trial advocates.”

Clark won the Best Advocate award for both the preliminary and the final rounds. Judges called him “incredibly likeable” and said he gave one of the best closing arguments they’d ever seen.

Part of the school’s Advocacy Competitions Program, the Trial Team has soared in recent years under head coach Spencer Pahlke ’07 and Natalie Winters ’18, who directs the overall program.

“I think this win demonstrates that not only is this specific team a tremendous force to be reckoned with, but also Berkeley Law’s trial advocacy program,” Perry says. — Gwyneth K. Shaw

IN THE KNOW: Former International Court of Justice president Joan Donoghue ’81.

Distinguished alum Joan Donoghue ’81, a judge on the International Court of Justice in The Hague from 2010 to 2024 and its president during her last three years, is teaching Global Dispute Resolution this semester.

The course covers key differences between the field’s civil law and common law traditions and the contrasting perspectives that stem from each — which Donoghue says reveal themselves in almost every international case — in order to enhance students’ ability to engage with the field of international adjudication and arbitration.

FULL HOUSE: A packed crowd of students listens to Andreessen Horowitz Chief Legal Officer Jai Ramaswamy. Photo by Tylor Norwood

BUSINESS SAVVY: Waymo Chief Legal Officer Amar Mehta answers a question during his Leadership Lunch Series talk. Photo by Laurie Frasier

The lineup reads like an all-star roster of legal department leaders at major organizations, from Instacart to Asana to the San Francisco Giants. A jewel in UC Berkeley Law’s trove of business offerings, the Leadership Lunch Series gives students valuable insights on in-house lawyering.

Presented by the Berkeley Center for Law and Business and Berkeley Business Law Journal, the series features expert professors interviewing chief legal officers, general counsels, and other giants at prominent companies — and ample time for student questions.

Having these guests share their unconventional paths “broadens our students’ vision of what a legal career can be,” says Angeli Patel ’20, the center’s executive director.

The series also showcases standout business law alumni, including Microsoft General Counsel Jonathan Palmer ’93 and Zendesk Chief Legal Officer Shana Simmons ’09.

Palmer oversees litigation, trade, employment matters, corporate governance, and internal investigations at Microsoft. He discussed the challenge of navigating a patchwork regulatory landscape, technology advancements, and rapid expansion.

“Being the head of litigation at a company is a great job if you’re interested in learning new things literally every day,” Palmer said when interviewed by Professor Stavros Gadinis. “You’re working with different parts of the company all the time, which I really like.”

Simmons, interviewed by Professor Frank Partnoy, manages a team of about 100 at Zendesk — a customer ticketing platform that leverages generative AI and has over 1.8 billion tickets in its system. A former senior counsel at Google, she urged students to connect rather than compete.

“Spend time making relationships with each other,” Simmons said. “You’re each other’s future clients and colleagues. You’re going to school with some of the best future lawyers nationwide, so later in your work when you have a tax question or an IP question, you’ll want to call these people.” — Andrew Cohen

CATALYST: David Beglin ’24 penned the first piece in the Center for Law and Work’s Student Scholarship Series.

Two of UC Berkeley Law’s research centers are providing students with new valuable writing opportunities and sharing their insights with the larger community.

Our Center for Law and Work, which confronts employment and labor issues affecting vulnerable worker populations, recently launched a new Student Scholarship Series that enables students to write original pieces on topics shaping workers’ rights. The debut entry, written by David Beglin ’24, assesses a pending California Supreme Court case and argues for a functional rather than formalistic approach to determine contract enforceability under the unconscionability doctrine.

“Through this series, students from our vibrant law school community provide their insights and analysis of labor and employment law topics they have taken a deep interest in exploring with the center,” says Executive Director Christina Chung. “We are privileged to share their stellar work.”

In collaboration with the Berkeley Business Law Journal, the Berkeley Center for Law and Business publishes The Network, a student-run blog with topical postings relevant to professionals, academics, policymakers, and general readers discussing new developments in finance, business, regulation, and entrepreneurship. The blog also provides a forum for online dialogue about the impact of law and regulation on business and the economy.

Some recent posts feature Zachary Griggy ’27 addressing changes to California’s ballot design in response to corporated-backed measures, Shneur Gansburg ’27 examining cybersecurity risks posed by law firms increasingly using artificial intelligence, Dora Najm LL.M. ’25 probing the relationship between tech giants and corporate immigration practices, and Aimilia Kechagia LL.M. ’25 discussing the resurgence of antitrust enforcement amid Big Tech’s growing power. — Andrew Cohen

SPREADING THE WORD: Center Executive Director Ted Mermin ’96 speaks to students and faculty at Florida State University.

Led by our surging Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice, UC Berkeley Law continues to set the national pace for consumer-focused work among U.S. law schools. Here are a few highlights from the past year:

JOINT EFFORT: Students from UC Berkeley Law’s Arts & Innovation Representation project played a key role in developing a report on artistic suppression in Iran.

Continuing a strong partnership, students from our Arts & Innovation Representation project helped the Artistic Freedom Initiative (AFI) produce another eye-opening report on challenges to freedom of expression.

I Create; I Resist: Iranian Artists on the Frontline of Social Change, about artists’ role in Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom movement, the attacks they endured, and the subsequent crackdown on artistic freedom, sparked media attention from the Atlantic Council, the Art Newspaper, and other major outlets. Students Ayesha Asad ’26, Yasameen Joualee ’26, Joanna Ong ’25, and Alexandra Pell ’26 provided valuable research for the report.

The report highlights the profound role artists played in amplifying the message of the movement and describes the Iran government’s attacks on Iranian artists, including work bans, arbitrary arrests, prosecution, torture, restrictions on mobility, and transnational repression. Led by immigration and human rights attorneys, AFI facilitates pro bono immigration representation and resettlement assistance for international artists at risk.

“In particular, the students helped us to identify several cases of artists that have been arbitrarily arrested under laws related to national security,” says Johanna Bankston, AFI senior officer for research and policy. “We are so thankful for the excellent work that the student researchers did on this report. We couldn’t have done it without them.”

Previous Arts & Innovation Representation project students helped AFI produce major reports on artistic repression in Hungary and Afghanistan. — Andrew Cohen

Q&A: Judges Timothy Dyk (left) and Kara Stoll answer some student questions after hearing cases at UC Berkeley Law. Photo by Laurie Frasier

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, America’s most important court for intellectual property issues, recently heard case arguments at the law school as part of its national jurisdiction and statutory requirement to enable citizens to see the court function outside of Washington, D.C. Students were able to observe a federal court in action, ask questions after the arguments, and meet with the judges following the session.

Professors of Legal Writing Robin Allan (left) and Urmila R. Taylor teamed up on the CBS game show “Lingo,” based on the popular game Wordle, hosted by RuPaul. Contestants get the first letter of a five-letter word and must guess the rest to complete their card.

After a CBS producer messaged Taylor on LinkedIn saying, “You seem like you would like word games and being on TV,” she enlisted Allan and they auditioned on Zoom four times — then got the call to fly to Manchester, England, where the show is produced. Despite some detailed clothing color and pattern restrictions, they had a great experience and remain friends with their “opponents,” two Midwest educators who later came west to visit them.