By Gwyneth K. Shaw
Three former high-ranking members of the Biden Administration’s antitrust, consumer protection, and public economic law teams are joining UC Berkeley Law’s Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice as senior fellows.
“Seth Frotman, Sam Levine, and Doha Mekki are among this nation’s leading thinkers on issues of economic justice,” said center Executive Director Ted Mermin ’96. “I cannot think of a trio of public servants more committed to bettering the lives of the people of this nation. We at the center, and the law school, are thrilled to have them join us.”
Founded in 2018 with a gift from celebrated litigator Elizabeth Cabraser ’78, the center was the first of its kind at a top law school. Now, it’s a guiding light for economic justice and consumer rights advocates nationwide, working to ensure open and fair access to a marketplace free of corporate abuses, fraud, and predatory practices while fostering innovative scholarship, resonant courses, and a growing national community.
“I am delighted to welcome these distinguished fellows to UC Berkeley Law,” Dean Erwin Chemerinsky says. “Their enormous experience will enrich the work of the center and assist our vital work in the area of antitrust, consumer law, and economic justice.”
Powerful advocates
The three new fellows bring a broad range of expertise and decades of experience in the economic justice arena.
Levine was director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection from 2021 until earlier this year, overseeing the bureau’s litigation, rulemaking, and market monitoring initiatives across a broad range of industries. During his tenure, the bureau filed more than 150 lawsuits, cracked down on junk fees and subscription traps, secured groundbreaking safeguards for consumer data, advanced new protections for workers and small businesses, sharpened the agency’s tools against fraud and dark patterns, challenged privacy abuses by the world’s largest technology firms, and leveraged dormant authorities to deter lawbreaking and return money to consumers.
Levine also launched agency-wide initiatives around gig work, artificial intelligence, and renters’ rights, bringing pioneering enforcement actions in each area.
Frotman was until recently general counsel and senior adviser to the director at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), overseeing the agency’s wide range of work, including litigation, administrative law, ethics, labor and employment, and congressional oversight. With his guidance, the CFPB successfully defended its constitutionality before the U.S. Supreme Court and launched groundbreaking initiatives on junk fees, medical debt, worker surveillance, and the stampede of Big Tech into consumer finance.
In between his first seven-year stint at CFPB, during which he served as the agency’s student loan ombudsman and senior adviser to Assistant Director Holly Petraeus, and his return in 2021, Frotman co-founded and was executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center, a leading nationwide consumer advocacy organization working to end America’s student debt crisis.
“The law has been stacked against working people for decades,” Frotman says. “If we are finally going to address the challenges they face — from financial insecurity to an economy increasingly serving only the interests of large corporations — we must drive deep, systemic reforms that create tangible progress for everyday people. I look forward to helping make that vision a reality at the center.”
Expanding reach
Mekki held the top roles in the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Antitrust Division, serving until earlier this year as the acting assistant attorney general — the agency’s top antitrust official. She served previously as principal deputy assistant attorney general, the division’s second-in-command, where she supervised all aspects of the section’s work, including civil and criminal enforcement, litigation and trial, appeals, domestic and international policy, competition advocacy, and expert analysis programs.
During her tenure, the division filed more monopolization cases than it had in nearly four decades. Mekki oversaw the investigation and litigation of landmark cases to stop criminal cartels, illegal mergers, and anticompetitive corporate practices in sectors across the U.S. economy, including Big Tech, healthcare, financial services, live music, food and agriculture, housing, airlines, and college sports.
Under her supervision, division lawyers secured key victories, including in the Google search monopolization case. She spearheaded the first comprehensive effort to consider the labor market impacts of mergers, corporate conspiracies, and other business activities on working Americans across the division’s civil, criminal, and policy work. She also made substantial contributions to the division’s efforts to crack down on algorithmic collusion.
“Antitrust is resonant because it goes to fundamental notions of vibrant competition and fair dealing,” she says. “There is no better time to make pioneering intellectual and policy contributions in the field, teach the next generation of antitrust advocates, and make real the benefits of vigorous antitrust enforcement for the economic security and freedom of every person. I’m excited to help build out the center’s antitrust expertise.”
Elevating academics
It’s hard to overstate the degree of expertise Levine, Frotman, and Mekki bring with them and what students stand to learn from them, says UC Berkeley Law Professor Jonathan D. Glater, the center’s faculty co-director.
“They have been at the apex of consumer protection, antimonopoly, fair dealing, and consumer protection in multiple contexts, including tech, agriculture, healthcare, housing, finance, education, and more,” he says. “Seth Frotman has an incredibly deep background in particular in student debt, too, and that is of an area of great interest to me and an awful lot of students who have to — or had to — borrow to pay for higher education.”
The student experience is a key focus of the center, which founded and hosts regular statewide and national gatherings of consumer law experts, advocates, and students, including the Consumer Law Scholars Conference, the Economic Justice Policy Advocates Conference, and the Law School Consumer Clinics Conference. The center also co-founded the Consumer Law Advocates, Students, and Scholars (CLASS) Network, which now has chapters at more than 30 law schools nationwide.
Since its founding, the center has become a hub for faculty whose research spans a wide range of consumer law and economic justice issues, including Glater and Professor Abbye Atkinson, the center’s other co-faculty director, and Professors Prasad Krishnamurthy, Abhay Aneja, Colleen V. Chien ’02, Chris Jay Hoofnagle, and Manisha Padi, all center faculty advisors.
UC Berkeley Law also offers more than 20 related courses — believed to be the most at any law school — and the center advises or works with three additional student-led organizations: the Antitrust Law and Economics Association of Berkeley, the Consumer Advocacy and Protection Society and Consumer Protection Public Policy Order, one of the school’s Student-Initiated Legal Services Projects. Students can pursue a Certificate in Consumer Law & Economic Justice.
Starting this fall, students can also join the new Social Enterprise Clinic, where they’ll work with Clinical Professor Alina Ball as outside counsel for local businesses with a social or environmental mission, assisting with corporate governance, regulatory compliance, formation issues, and contract drafting.
The breadth and scope of the center’s work is a big draw for the new fellows.
“Consumer protection is at a crossroads, and it is urgent that we advance bold reforms, defend hard-won gains, and invest in the next generation of advocates,” Levine says. “With a proven track record of both policy innovation and movement-building, the Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice is uniquely positioned to drive this work forward, and I’m excited to join the team.”