John Renehan '00 announces that his wife, Susan, had their first child, Colin Francis, on March 1 of this year. John and his family moved to Washington D.C. this summer, where he works in the General Counsel's office at the Defense Department, working on Guantanamo Bay detainee issues. The transition in work came naturally for John after working on some detainee issues with the Iraqis while deployed.
(11/13/09)

Kate Ladd Pearson '05 has been appointed Vice President, Business Development for Legal Ease Solutions, LLC -- a legal process outsourcing firm using a combination of onshore attorneys based in the U.S. and offshore attorneys in India. With rates starting as low as $30 per hour, the savings for law firms and corporate law departments are significant. The LegalEase Solutions specializes in legal research and writing, litigation support, contract and document drafting and review. Kate is currently based in Newport Beach, California.

Olga Mack '06 and her husband, Kevin J. Mack ('07), are discovering the joys and challenges of parenthood after the birth of their child Katie Marie Mack arrived on August 31, 2009 at 3:51 A.M.
(10/9/09)

Ilham Hosseini '07 was married on May 24, 2009 to Sajjad Matin (Boalt '08) in the nation's capital. The two had spent the previous year planning the wedding on opposite ends of the country, with Sajjad working in the San Francisco office of Kirkland & Ellis' intellectual property group and Ilham clerking in Miami, FL for the Honorable Adalberto Jordan. The civil ceremony was officiated by Judge Jordan and the religious sermon was offered by Professor Hatem Bazian. Sajjad and Ilham first met in Professor Bazian’s Islamic Law class at Boalt.
Sajjad, of Pakistani descent, and Ilham, of Afghan descent, incorporated elements from both cultures in what they referred to as a "Durand Line" wedding, after the official name of the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Following the ceremony, where the two donned Pakistani wedding attire, Sajjad and Ilham made a quick wardrobe change into typical Afghan wedding attire for the reception that followed. Both ceremony and reception were held at the Ritz Carlton in Washington, DC. Following her clerkship, Ilham plans to join Sajjad in San Francisco and begin work in Jones Day's litigation group.
(09/30/2009)

Zheng Liu '03 had a baby boy early this year. His name is Rimu and is now 7 months old. Zheng is back at work at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe's Menlo Park office, still focusing on IP litigation.
(09/15/09)

Marvin Dunson III '01 is happy to announce the formation of Valdez Dunson & Doyle, a San Francisco Bay Area employment law firm dedicated to providing exceptional employment litigation and counseling services. Founded by three former big firm attorneys, Valdez Dunson & Doyle (http://www.vddlaw.com) provides sophisticated employment counsel from experienced attorneys committed to delivering prompt personal service at competitive rates.
Prior to founding his own firm, Marvin practiced with the Employment Law Group at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto. Marvin presently lives in Mountain View with his partner, José Manuel Muñoz, a Hastings grad who specializes in labor and employee relations for the San Francisco Superior Court.
(08/31/09)

Yuichiro Tsuji '06 is an associate professor of law in Japan. He is in charge of Western Japan Boalt Hall (such as Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima?, as well as public law. Currently, with the aid of Judge Sungmei Hsiung (JSD at Boalt), Yuichiro is working to hold an Asian Judge Symposium in November 2009 in Kansai university. He recently attended an international symposium for climate law and policy in Bangkok, Thailand with Professor Dan Farber, the Sho Sato Professor of Law and chair of the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. Both of their papers were in the Comparative Law Journal of the International Affairs Division, judiciary of Thailand as well. Tsuji is on a tenured track in Japan.
(08/31/09)

Amanda Dranginis '07 reports that she got married in January 2009 to Jim Athanasiou. Boalties Jocelyn Belloni ('07), Holly Dranginis ('13), and Sharla Draemel ('07) (second, sixth, and seventh from left, respectively) served as bridesmaids and Lenin Lopez ('07) emceed the reception. Amanda has been enjoying her work as a tax attorney at the Mountain View office of Fenwick and West since graduation. Amanda has taken her husband's name and is now Amanda Athanasiou.
(08/31/09)

John Derrick '02 has been certified as a Specialist in Appellate Law by The State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization -- he is now one of about 240 lawyers in the state with that certification. For the past four years, he has had a statewide solo practice specializing in appeals. He mostly handles civil cases, but does some criminal ones, too. His website is www.californiaappeals.com. His wife, Lisa, now flies Citation jets for an aircraft management company. His daughter Emily, 14, is starting in high school and his five-year old son, Michael, is starting in kindergarten.
(07/13/09)

Erica Smith '06 began practicing law in the Business Trial Practice Group of a prominent Los Angeles firm upon graduating in 2006. In 2008, Erica left practice and relocated to the MD/DC/VA area to pursue an LL.M. in Trial Advocacy from Beasely School of Law at Temple University. Finally, in May 2009, Erica received her LL.M. in Trial Advocacy. Currently, Erica is looking for a position in the District of Columbia that will allow her to utilize her LL.M. in Trial Advocacy.
(07/09/09)

Jeffrey Schrepfer '01 has been at the law firm of Morrison & Foerster since law school and moved to the Tokyo office in 2004. Jeffrey and his wife have three daughters, including twin girls, who were all born since coming to Japan.
(07/07/09)

Kelly McCown is excited to announce that she was recently nominated to the board of the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) in San Francisco, a national advocacy, litigation, and direct services organization working for LGBT civil rights. NCLR was lead counsel in the "In Re: Marriage Cases" before the California Supreme Court, which resulted in the Court's decision last May that laws directed at gays and lesbians are subject to strict judicial scrutiny and that marriage is a fundamental right under Article 1, Section 7 of the California Constitution. As an immigration attorney, McCown has long admired the work of NCLR in the immigration area, particularly its long history of helping LGBT immigrants who are fleeing persecution in their home countries secure asylum in the U.S. She has also been a long time volunteer at NCLR's monthly free legal clinics in San Francisco that give foreign nationals the opportunity to meet with attorneys familiar with the specific circumstances of immigrants in the LGBT community. Kelly still practices corporate immigration law at McCown & Evans LLP in San Francisco, and lives in the Oakland Hills with her partner Barbara Fitterer, a Physician Assistant with Kaiser Permanente.
(11/02/09)

Stephen Venable '90 has recently become the President of the Midwest Minority Supplier Development Council - an independent nonprofit affiliate of the National Minority Supplier Development Council, which facilitates the development of symbiotic business relationships between the corporate community and minority suppliers. Also, Venable was recently elected to the Board of Directors of The People's Center Medical Clinic at Cedar Riverside - a Minneapolis-based nonprofit community health center that offers high-quality, affordable health care to all (including countless members of local underserved, lower socio-economic communities).
(10/23/09)

Rachel Nosowsky '94 has been senior counsel in the law firm of Miller Canfield and was recently elected vice president of the board of directors of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Ann Arbor. At Miller Canfield, where Nosowsky has practiced since 2008, she works primarily in the areas of health care and life sciences. During her career she has represented academic medical centers and other health care providers and payers in a broad range of health law and regulatory compliance matters, in particular in the areas of corporate governance, ethics and compliance; medical staff bylaws, credentialing and peer review; physician-hospital relations; health privacy; and human research protection, biospecimen banking, and clinical trials and FDA regulation. She also has written and spoken extensively on health privacy and human research issues.
(07/31/09)

Kimberly Sayers-Fay '99 left California with her family in 2007 to join the U.S. Attorney's Office in Anchorage, Alaska. Though Kimberly and her husband lived in California for a long time, the transition has turned out to be both personally and professionally rewarding. In October 2008, Kimberly won the John Marshall Award for Trial of Litigation, which is the Department of Justice's highest honor for trial attorneys. The award was recognition for the successful prosecution of a violent sex trafficker who had victimized over a dozen women and girls in Anchorage over a several year period. Since then, Kimberly and a colleague of hers obtained the largest restitution award ever entered against a sex trafficker: over $3 million. Needless to say, she is having a ball trying criminal cases in the last frontier.
(07/07/09)

Kristina Haymes '99 was recently named as an associate of the firm- Brown Law Group, a leading San Diego business litigation boutique law firm. Ms. Haymes will focus on employment law and commercial litigation. She will provide employment counseling and litigation representation to employers in all types of employment-related litigation involving claims of discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, and wage and hour class actions. In addition to employment litigation expertise, Ms. Haymes has extensive commercial litigation experience that includes preparing and contributing to a defense victory in a state court trade secret theft trial, grand jury investigations, and managing class action complex securities and product liabilities litigation. Ms. Haymes remains actively involved in her community as an advisory board member for the Boys & Girls Club Montessori School, a member of the San Diego County Bar Association, and as a barrister with the Wallace Inn of Court.
(07/07/09)

Dan Engel '87 recently formed the Non-Profit Purchasing Group (www.nonprofitpurchasinggroup.org) to help lower the recurring costs of non-profit organizations by providing its members with discounted rates on their most commonly purchased goods and services. Dan is also President of the Miracle League of San Diego and Chairman of the Board of the California Oncology Research Institute.
(09/23/09)

Kathryn Ma '82 has officially turned to writing after practicing law for a number of years at the San Francisco firm of Keker & Brockett. She has a new book of fiction out, called "All That Work and Still No Boys." The book won the Iowa Short Fiction Award from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the University of Iowa Press. Ma is the first Asian-American to be so honored in the forty-year history of this distinguished award. Kathryn would love to see Berkeley Law friends at any of her upcoming readings, which are listed on her Web site at www.kathrynma.com.
(09/02/09)

Molly Tami '83 serves as the Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Admissions at Northern Kentucky University's Chase College of Law. In addition, she continues to direct the law school's pro-bono service program. Molly resides in Cincinnati, but travels a few short miles across the river to work at NKU.
(07/20/09)

Since leaving Boalt Hall, Salomon Quintero '72 has returned to his hometown, Redwood City, CA. Since then he has been in private practice that is now exclusively focused on Family Law. After being certified as a specialist in 1980, Quintero has been recognized by Northern California Superlawyers Magazine for the past two years. His three-lawyer firm is completely multi-lingual. Quintero is fluent in Spanish and Associate Attorney Amy Yimei Gu is from Shanghai, China and speaks Shanghainese, Mandarin and Cantonese. Associate Julie Zhalkovsky is a native Russian speaker. Their partnership has proven perfect for the diverse Bay Area community.
(07/07/09)

Jerome Cohen '66 is featured in a new book, "The Union of Their Dreams -- Power, Hope and Struggle in Cesar Chavez's Farm Worker Movement." Cohen was the first chief counsel to the United Farm Workers and who worked for Chavez from 1967-1981. He is one of eight major characters through whom the rise and fall of the farm workers' union is told. The highly personal and gripping narrative illustrates the ways the law became a key organizing tool during the heyday of the UFW. More photos and documents about Cohen are on display on the book's website at www.unionoftheirdreams.com
(10/21/09)