Articles

Across the legal landscape, the school’s commitment to excellence, community, public mission, and leadership — as well as its entrepreneurial spirit and determined pursuit of justice — was on full display.

Carrillo, who runs the nonpartisan academic research center devoted to studying the state’s constitution and Supreme Court, has just become editor-in-chief of the book-length annual scholarly volume published by the California Supreme Court Historical Society and joined the society’s board of directors.

American presidents have broad discretion to deploy U.S. forces abroad, but Trump’s asserted blockade marks a new test of presidential authority, said international law scholar Elena Chachko of UC Berkeley Law School.

Blockades have traditionally been treated as permissible “instruments of war,” but only under strict conditions, Chachko said. “There are serious questions on both the domestic law front and international law front,” she added.

Samuel A.A. Levine, senior fellow, Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice, UC Berkeley Law School joins Forum to discuss how loyalty programs exploit consumers, how California is fighting back and to stay alert to the pitfalls.

“What, if any, is the lasting legacy of Bush v. Gore, which was decided 25 years ago, on Dec. 12, 2000?,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “It is a case that never has been cited in a majority opinion and thus seems to matter little in the law. Rather, the decision’s largest significance may be from the widespread perception that the justices were simply motivated by their own partisan preferences as to who should be the next president.”

Up to 10 incoming J.D. students chosen each year receive scholarship support, leadership programming, coaching, and mentorship to help them learn how best to guide teams, solutions, and growth.

“The U.S. Supreme Court seems likely to shake up American copyright law by articulating a different—and likely a stricter—legal standard for what constitutes contributory copyright infringement in the Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment case,” writes Professor Pamela Samuelson.

The way to oppose Mr. Trump’s era of corrupt deal making is to present the American people with a clear and principled alternative. Voters must enforce objective anti-corruption principles at the ballot box, by prioritizing candidates’ opposition to corruption and rejecting representatives of any party who participate in or tolerate any sort of the corrupt dealing and assault on the justice system, write J.P. Cooney and Molly Gaston, senior fellows at Berkeley Law’s Edley Center for Law and Democracy.

As the head of legal at Orange, Inc., Ueda relishes helping expand the increasingly popular Japanese art form of comics and graphic storytelling — and connecting people across cultures.

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Catherine Lhamon, executive director Edley Center on Law and Democracy comment on the legality of the Trump administration’s freezing of hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Retired Judge and Executive Director, Berkeley Judicial Institute Jeremy Fogel said the city attorney’s phone call would not be something the State Bar would follow up on for an ethics review if — as her campaign manager said — she did not know Fox was an expert witness in the case, and thus, it sounds like there was no intentional wrongdoing.

The Navajo Nation Supreme Court took its courtroom beyond the Navajo Nation in October and into one of the most influential law schools in the country, where the justices heard oral arguments before a packed auditorium at UC Berkeley Law.

“It’s unprecedented to use the military for domestic law enforcement in this way, and there’s a long tradition against federalizing state guards for domestic law enforcement,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.

The issue of federal recognition for the Lumbee Tribe has been batted around Congress for more than thirty years. But the political opportunity it represented in the last election could be what pushed it over the finish line, said Kevin Washburn, former assistant secretary of Indian Affairs at the Interior Department and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. “It comes up every four years because North Carolina is a battleground state and the Lumbee represent tens of thousands of people,” Washburn said.

According to Anya Grossmann, senior director of admissions and recruiting, student backgrounds play an important role. “Some students come to us with years of professional experience and have secured enough financial support throughout this time. Others may rely more on scholarships or other means of personal funding.”

“None of us benefit from making professional and graduate schools just for the rich,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy. “We all suffer when talented individuals who would be great doctors, nurses, lawyers, social workers and professors are kept from attending school because they cannot afford the tuition and the money is not there to borrow.”

The group brings diverse expertise in data science, immigration, and criminal, family, and transactional law, expanding the program’s reach and bolstering its mission to advance racial, economic, and social justice.

“Despite the rebranding, there is striking continuity in personnel, commanders, tactics and even insignia between Wagner and Africa Corps,” said Lindsay Freeman, senior director of international accountability at the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Human Rights Center, which has monitored the conflict in Mali.

Because Africa Corps is directly embedded in Russia’s Ministry of Defense, it can be treated as an organ of the Russian state under international law, Freeman said. “That means any war crimes committed by Africa Corps in Mali are, in principle, attributable to the Russian government under the rules on state responsibility.”

“It is hard to imagine a worse decision than the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday allowing Texas to use its new congressional maps designed to elect five more Republicans to the House of Representatives,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy.

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Professor John Yoo weigh in on the legality of Donald Trump’s firing of a Federal Trade Commission member in a major test of presidential power over agencies set up by Congress to be insulated from White House control in a case that could imperil a 90-year-old legal precedent.

As each hot new idea or gadget has grabbed funders and headlines — from broadband to AI — Narechania has kept his eye on striking a balance between innovation and accessibility.

“Everyone talks about leadership as influence,” writes Angeli Patel, executive director, Berkeley Center for Law and Business. “I think it’s more like stewardship: of attention, energy, and discernment. And in this AI-driven, globally-unstable moment, the real leaders are the ones who can say no to speed and create solutions with calm.”

“It was not that long ago that the unitary executive theory was emphatically rejected in Morrison v. Olson in an opinion by Rehnquist, himself a conservative,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy. “The court’s current majority seems ready to undo Rehnquist’s work on that front, and to embrace Scalia’s dissent in Morrison calling for a more powerful presidency.”

“Most district judges really try hard to get these cases right, and they spend a lot of time doing that,” Jeremy Fogel, executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, told Law360 Pulse. “So to go through that whole process, and to have an evidentiary hearing and to issue a preliminary injunction and to do the legal analysis with the precedent that you have, and then have an emergency docket order that says nothing other than the district court order is set aside or stayed,” Judge Fogel said, “that is just not a good look.”

The school’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment provided research, data, drafting language, and technical assistance to propel key policy advancements across the climate landscape.

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky weighs in on two SCOTUS cases that are likely to substantially change the law as to when the president can fire those in the executive branch of government. 

“Today’s lawyers need to integrate technology into their practice, not just understand it in theory,” said Chris Jay Hoofnagle, professor and faculty co-director at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology. “Learning to think like a lawyer in the age of AI means using machine learning, computer vision and other digital tools ethically and effectively to investigate, analyze and advocate.”

“The judge has to believe that some line may have been crossed that you can’t ignore,” said Judge Jeremy Fogel, executive director, Berkeley Judicial Institute. Fogel said the issues raised by Boasberg’s contempt probe — whether the migrants were deprived of their due process rights and whether the court’s authority was flouted — meet that standard.

The EPA and navy are legally required to ensure that dust kicked up during the clean-up does not present a health risk to workers and nearby residents, said Steve Castleman, supervising attorney of Berkeley Law’s Environmental Law Clinic.

“The fate of Texas’ and perhaps California’s recent redistricting — and thus the political composition of the House of Representatives after the 2026 midterm elections — turns on a principle of law that’s never made much sense before and makes absolutely no sense now,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“There are people in the judiciary who are afraid that judicial security for the lower courts and politics are getting played off each other, and no one wants to be in that position,” said Jeremy Fogel, a retired judge who served in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. “In the short term, I think that many in the judiciary will believe that their need for increased security because of threats against judges is being neglected,” Fogel said. “In the longer term, I think that problems with understaffing and aging infrastructure will increase the chances of a tragic incident.”

While Kelly could still be subject to military law as a retired U.S. Navy captain, the basis for any prosecution related to that video “is questionable at best,” says Saira Mohamed, professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. “I think it’s groundless,” Mohamed says of the department’s investigation. “Senator Kelly’s statement, again, is just restating the law and the obligations of members of the military and intelligence forces; it is not advising or urging insubordination or disloyalty or mutiny or refusal of duty.”

The fate of successful gerrymandering efforts in California and Texas now comes down to a slate of high-profile court cases. Dean Erwin Chemerinsky weighs in.

Catherine Crump, a clinical professor at Berkeley Law School in California who specializes in artificial intelligence and technology law, says that of course it’s not smart to Google or use ChatGPT to figure out how to further a crime or how to harm someone. Crump says it is important for people, especially children, to recognize that ChatGPT is a product and “not your friend.”

“Truthful speech is protected by the First Amendment and should not be the basis for accusing people of sedition, let alone threatening the death penalty,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

The civil rights icon, former federal judge, and Berkeley Law visiting professor witnessed violent efforts to block Black people from voting in the 1960s South as a Department of Justice lawyer.

Thelton Henderson, as an attorney in the Department of Justice, was a witness to that segregated era in the Old South. Now, as a retired federal judge and a visiting professor at UC Berkeley Law, Henderson warns that powerful American forces are working again to restrict voting by people of color and by economically disadvantaged people.

“I do think the U.S. is starting to withdraw from the position that it played for much of the 20th century, as did the U.K. for much of the 19th, in enforcing international rules,” said John Yoo, who worked in the Office of Legal Counsel during the George W. Bush administration and is now at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Such enforcement “is costly, but it brings great benefits to everyone in the world,” Yoo added. “I think the American people are exhausted from it.”

“There is a long-term strategy that many big entities, government and private, subscribe to, which is, if we settle every case, then people will keep suing us with increasingly frivolous cases,” Boudin said. “Sometimes it is worth paying lawyers more than it would cost us to settle a case to fight and deter future copycat litigation.”

Berkeley Law’s weekly Coffee Chat Series creates timely opportunities for students to meet with over 40 employers and learn about their practice areas in an informal environment.

“The speech Trump is criticizing simply states the law: soldiers are not to follow unconstitutional or illegal orders,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of UC Berkeley Law. “The accusation is unfounded and unnecessarily chills criticism of the President’s actions.”

“I worry that people are getting too invested in this decision from Texas,” said UC Berkeley School of Law Professor Emily Rong Zhang. “It’s just an outcome along the way. And it doesn’t seem obvious to me that just because there’s a decision from a three-judge panel here, there’s any expectation that the Texas map is going to get struck down.”

“California has one of the most robust climate frameworks and has been quite successful in delivering on its goals,” said Louise Bedsworth, executive director of the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at the University of California at Berkeley. But she said the Trump administration poses “a major challenge that’s going to make continuing to reduce emissions harder.”

“Although many criticisms have been made of the Supreme Court’s rulings on its emergency docket, one that has not received enough attention is the court’s failure to follow well-established principles for staying a preliminary injunction, which – while it may sound technical – has enormous importance,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy. “This has been evident in many shadow docket decisions, but was particularly evident in the court’s Nov. 6 ruling in Trump v. Orr.”

“The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled against transgender individuals this year, allowing bans on military service, healthcare and identity recognition,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “With key cases on transgender athletes approaching, the Court shows little inclination to protect them from discrimination.” 

At a recent panel event, Samuelson said a growing number of plaintiffs claim that developers are illegally making copies of copyrighted works when developing the foundation models underpinning GenAI systems.

“Like the Trojan princess whose accurate prophesies were doomed to be disbelieved, dire warnings of the justices about American democracy are going unheeded,” write Dean Erwin Chemerinksy and Lisa Tucker, professor of law at Drexel University.

As multilateral cooperation is increasingly under attack, Professor Katerina Linos challenges certain misperceptions about the role of international institutions, particularly the European Union, and emphasizes their capacity for action in times of multiple crises.

Berkeley Law’s 1Ls arrived with a 3.92 median grade point average, 170 median LSAT score, and remarkable diversity — but the numbers tell just a small part of their story.

Professor Khiara M. Bridges discusses the Supreme Court’s questioning whether to keep Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act — which prohibits discrimination in voting practices and procedures.