We have embarked on an exciting new course in legal education and research by building a cluster of multidisciplinary research centers to address crucial issues in such areas as technology and intellectual property, business and the economy, and civil rights and social justice. These research enterprises encompass activities that range from the theoretical to the practical. They bring together an array of disciplines from across the UC Berkeley campus, and reach far beyond Boalt’s walls by offering mid-career training and by informing public policy debate on the future of California, the nation and the world. To fully fund this vision—including creating new centers, faculty salaries, fellowships, research support and conference activities—the Campaign for Boalt Hall seeks $15 million.
Some highlights of this initiative:
Berkeley Center for Law, Business & the Economy
The center will focus on the impact of law on business and the U.S. and global economies and sponsor scholarship and policy initiatives in areas as diverse as tax law, corporate governance and ethics, and antitrust and regulation. BCLBE will delve into specific industry sectors and geographic regions. It will tackle novel topics such as the legal, economic, technological and ethical issues raised by California’s ambitious new stem-cell research program—the topic of a symposium to be held in March 2006 in conjunction with our Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.
www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/bclbe/
Berkeley Center for Law & Technology
Rated the Number One intellectual property law program by U.S. News & World Report, the 10-year-old BCLT has built a stunning combination of world-class faculty, a clinical education program, and ties to both technologists and the best legal thinkers in Silicon Valley and beyond. The center has forged a long-term relationship with the Microsoft Corporation to fund an ongoing technology research fellowship and pursue new research.
www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/bclt/
Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity & Diversity
This new research venture draws on Boalt’s vibrant intellectual community and departments across UC Berkeley to explore fundamental issues of civil rights and racial and ethnic justice. The Warren Institute’s initial areas of research include projects on reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; challenges in engaging minority voters; the civil rights implications of the federal No Child Left Behind Act; an exploration of the national movement to establish an adequate education as a fundamental right; and an exhaustive project addressing the impacts on higher education of Proposition 209, California’s affirmative-action ban.
Criminal Justice Research & Policy (new)
A new program of law and social science with a significant emphasis on empirical research and a particular emphasis on California data, policy and legal developments.
California Center for Environmental Law & Policy (new)
Boalt is a longtime leader in environmental law. We offer a certificate program for students who want to focus on the field, and our Ecology Law Quarterly has been recognized as one of the premier U.S. law publications. Berkeley, the Bay Area and California are at the forefront of research, policy and thinking on all aspects of environmental issues. We’re seeking to expand our program to meet the demands of the next generation.
www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/envirolaw/
Global Challenges & the Law
A restructuring and expansion of our current programs that will integrate areas of comparative, private transnational and public international law and create bridges to other disciplines and professions. There will be an important added emphases on East Asia and Latin America, plus subject-matter clusters addressing the major challenges of: prosperity and poverty; peace and security; health and environment; democracy and rights.
Clinical Education
Our clinical education program gives students an opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the law through immersion in real cases involving real people, cases that offer an unsurpassed opportunity to learn about every dimension of practice.
www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/clinicaled/
Our four clinical programs are:
The Death Penalty Clinic
The clinic assists in selected capital appeals. The DPC’s faculty and students drafted amici curiae briefs in Miller-El, a case that in June 2005 resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court ordering a new murder trial for a Texas inmate. The clinic is currently working on two death-row appeals, one in Alabama, one in California.
www.law.berkeley.edu/clinics/dpclinic/
East Bay Community Law Center
The community-based component of Boalt Hall’s Clinical Program. EBCLC was founded by Boalt students in 1988 to provide legal services to low-income and underrepresented members of the community near the law school. Under the supervision of the center’s attorneys, students provide direct legal services to local low-income residents in the areas of benefits advocacy, estate planning, family law issues, debt relief, and immigration. Students also address legal problems encountered by people with HIV/AIDS.
www.law.berkeley.edu/clinics/ebclc/
International Human Rights Law Clinic
In 2005, the clinic’s work has been at the center of a debate over the growth of trafficking of humans and forced labor and what steps to take to stop it. Clinic students are also active in individual human rights cases worldwide.
www.law.berkeley.edu/clinics/ihrlc/
Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic
The Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic gives students hands-on training while providing a new voice for the public interest. The clinic aims to serve as the public’s voice in legal and regulatory disputes presently dominated by lobbyists and the government. The clinic is currently engaged in a broad industry-government effort to develop an effective regulatory regime for the pervasive problem of spyware.
www.law.berkeley.edu/clinics/samuelson/
Institute for Legal Research
The Institute for Legal Research is an interdisciplinary research, teaching, and public service center that maintains programs in criminal justice; constitutional law and history; environmental law and policy; and the Sho Sato Program in Japanese and U.S. Law, which has been prominent in the recent scholarly and public dialogues on legal culture, law reform, and legal education in Japan. In addition to administering public lectures, conferences, and research projects, the institute is headquarters of the Law of the Sea Institute (www.lawofthesea.org), one of the world’s most active centers for research and publication in the critical environmental area of law and global ocean resources management and conservation. Harry N. Scheiber, the Riesenfeld Professor of Law and History, is the institute’s director.
www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/ilr/
Center for Social Justice
The center brings faculty and students together with the bar and bench in a variety of forums to explore more effective ways for the law to fulfill our nation’s promise of equality for all. We plant to enhance the center’s work through greater integration of traditional courses with research programs and with clinical education in poverty law.
www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/csj/
Center for the Study of Law & Society
The center’s mission is to facilitate interdisciplinary discussion and research by faculty from the Berkeley campus and throughout the world. We seek to reinforce the existing program to maintain its global preeminence; this includes augmenting faculty strength in quantitative analysis and more programmatic attention to “public sociology.”
www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/lawandsociety/
Kadish Center for Morality, Law & Public Affairs
The center promotes research and reflection on moral philosophical issues in law and public life, with special emphasis on the criminal law's substantive aspects. We seek to strengthen the Kadish program with resources to support collaboration with other faculties and research opportunities for J.D. and Ph. D. students.
www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/kadish/
Robert D. Burch Center for Tax Policy & Public Finance
The center, a collaboration between Boalt Hall and the Department of Economics, promotes the study of tax and fiscal policies. The center has sponsored several conferences, including most recently the Conference on Aging, Financial Markets and Monetary Policy, cosponsored with the Deutsch Bundesbank in Frankfurt, Germany.
www.law.berkeley.edu/centers/burch/
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