By Andrew Cohen
Encapsulating a year at UC Berkeley Law is no simple task. The school’s research carries great influence across many fields. Its Clinical Program’s work benefits vulnerable people across the country. Faculty and staff lead training programs that help regulators protect consumers, judges navigate complex tech law issues, investigators hold human rights violators accountable, and plenty more. A steady stream of compelling events gives students constant opportunities to learn from many of the world’s top legal figures.
Excellence, community, public mission, and leadership are recurring themes in the 100 articles (along with 52 Spotlight items) that appeared on our homepage this year. Here’s a snapshot of a dozen that demonstrate how the school’s faculty, students, and programs make a meaningful difference in so many ways.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor Offers Candid Insights During Visit to UC Berkeley Law
Now on the minority side of a 6-3 conservative majority in the United States Supreme Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor admitted to feeling frustrated after recent major rulings on affirmative action, reproductive choice, and student loan relief. Nevertheless, during the annual Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture at a packed Zellerbach Hall, she conveyed optimism fueled by citizen engagement and historical perspective. “Change never happens on its own,” she said. “Change happens because people care about moving the arc of the universe toward justice … It’s your turn to carry that burden, to show what you’re willing to do.”
A New Multilayered Initiative Aims to Help Students Become Strong Leaders in Their Future Work
Stereotypical images that the phrase “leaders in the law” evokes is not what UC Berkeley Law had in mind when crafting its ambitious new leadership program. A longtime priority for Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, the initiative aims to paint a different picture that recognizes how leadership skills permeate all sectors and all levels of legal work. “I long have believed that law schools need to do a better job of training the next generation of leaders,” he says. “This new initiative will help Berkeley Law students develop the skills to become effective leaders in every area of law, and it will provide a model for other law schools as well.”
Deep Learning: How UC Berkeley Law Scholars and Programs Are at the Forefront on AI
Artificial intelligence is changing our landscape and raising major concerns. At UC Berkeley Law, a Silicon Valley neighbor long renowned for its top technology law programs, faculty, students, research centers, and other platforms are illuminating the latest AI offerings, explaining where guardrails are needed, and showing where a hands-off approach would be smarter in various sectors of the legal and policy world, The school’s new Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree with an AI focus — the first of its kind at a United States law school — marks one of many examples of how UC Berkeley Law helps practitioners add to their AI toolkit.
‘An Enormous Privilege’: Service Trips Turn Spring Break Into Powerful Pro Bono Work
Each year, UC Berkeley Law student teams skip spring break vacation and devote themselves to week-long, hands-on projects across the country. These Berkeley Law Alternative Service Trips (BLAST) are part of and funded by the law school’s Pro Bono Program to ensure accessibility to all students. BLAST groups are co-led by usually two and sometimes three students, and work with one or more local legal organizations that give legal supervision. This year’s student teams provided legal services in Alaska, Atlanta, California’s Central Valley, Hawai‘i, Kentucky, Mississippi, and the U.S.-Mexico border near Tucson, Arizona.
In Defense of Democracy: UC Berkeley Law Launches New Center Named After Beloved Former Dean
From gerrymandering to voting restrictions to money’s growing influence in elections, America’s very foundation — democracy and the rule of law — seems increasingly fragile. Recognizing this concern, UC Berkeley Law’s newest research center aims to expand knowledge of underlying causes and train students to become effective guardians of our political system. Launched in August, the Edley Center on Law & Democracy, named after former dean Christopher Edley Jr., will seek “leverage points, issues that haven’t gotten the deep analysis and focused advocacy we can offer,” says Professor and Center Co-Director Daniel Farber.
‘A Meaningful Difference’: Additional ‘Supermod’ Gives 1L Experience an Upgrade
This semester, first-year students began enjoying smaller sections of their required courses thanks to a challenging logistical move years in the making. Previously, 1Ls were split into three “supermods” for their required fall courses: Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Contracts, and Torts. With 1L cohorts topping 300 recently, Dean Erwin Chemerinsky added a fourth supermod — reducing the average class size by 23%. “I think these smaller classes will really matter in the education of our students and their 1L experience,” he says. Small mod, Legal Research and Writing, and Written and Oral Advocacy classes also shrank.
Inspiring Intellects: Latest Study of Scholarly Impact Ranks UC Berkeley Law Faculty Sixth
UC Berkeley Law’s powerhouse faculty ranks sixth among United States law schools in scholarly impact, according to the latest version of a study that tracks citations as a measure of professors’ influence. Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, the nation’s top-cited constitutional law scholar and the second most overall, joined six other Berkeley Law professors — Sean Farhang, Catherine Fisk, Steven Davidoff Solomon, Paul Schwartz, Jonathan Simon, and Christopher Tomlins — among the most-cited scholars in their fields between 2019 and 2023. Chemerinsky calls the faculty’s ranking a testament to the depth and breadth of their excellence.
Blast Off: New Fellowship Launches Criminal Justice Careers for Recent Grads
UC Berkeley Law’s surging criminal justice program got another boost with the launch of the Chris Larsen Justice Fellowship. Administered by the school’s Criminal Law & Justice Center, the fellowship will fund new graduates in their first year of public interest work. The inaugural fellows — Class of 2024 graduates Emily Hunt, Alyssa Meurer, Sandhya Nadadur, and Chloe Pan — began work this fall with sponsoring organizations. Inside and outside of law school, they have demonstrated a strong commitment to criminal justice issues and the communities they affect. Learn more about them and the new fellowship in this video.
UC Berkeley Law Wins Hispanic National Bar Association’s Moot Court Competition
A self-coached Berkeley Law trio won the 2024 Hispanic National Bar Association’s Uvaldo Herrera National Moot Court Competition, topping a field of 32 teams to snag scholarship money and bragging rights. Adriana Hardwicke ’24, Maripau Paz ’24, and Harvard Law exchange student José Rodriguez prevailed despite being the only team among all eight quarterfinalists without a coach. “We made up for not having a coach with a really intense mooting (practice) schedule,” Paz explains. “By the time we got to the competition we had done almost 30 moots … I think that made us way more comfortable and ultimately more successful.”
Inaugural Conference Explores Corporate Governance’s Role in Combating Climate Change
UC Berkeley Law’s inaugural Corporate + Climate Summit saw business, government, academic, and nonprofit sector experts share strategies for corporations to propel a more sustainable economy and mitigate climate change. The unique two-day event explored how lawyers can help drive this change and how in-house counsel are moving the needle. “This is the first conference about climate on the corporate side at any law school in the country,” said Morrison Foerster partner Susan Mac Cormac. “The fact that Berkeley is taking a leading role is really special and speaks about the institution and the people who work and teach here.”
UC Berkeley Law Hoops Team Beats Stanford Law, Raises Public Interest Funds at Lively Event
Well before tipoff, seeds of a uniquely spirited event were already sprouting. The seats? Filled. The noise? Deafening. The atmosphere? Electric. Even so, the inaugural “Order on the Court” basketball game between UC Berkeley Law and Stanford Law students soared past expectations. Equal parts competitive and collaborative, the 53-43 Berkeley victory raised over $20,000 to help current and graduating students from both schools pursue public interest careers and pro bono projects. UC Berkeley Law’s student organizing committee coordinated logistics, concessions, donation outreach, sponsorships, and even halftime performances.
Student-Led Digital Rights Project Helps Score a Big Privacy Victory in the Bay Area
Students in our Digital Rights Project, one of Berkeley Law’s 40-plus Student-Initiated Legal Services Projects, helped gain a major victory for privacy with research that prodded Google to change its policy allowing reverse location searches — which will severely limit the use of geofence warrants by law enforcement in San Francisco. Reviewing thousands of these warrants, the students found that they effectively create a large invisible boundary around anyone police are trying to track and capture data from people in churches, hotels, stores, even private homes — all without their knowledge, let alone consent.
All articles from the past year are available on UC Berkeley Law’s 2024 news archive page.