In Berkeley Law’s newest advocacy course, seven students wrote substantive memos, argued against classmates, and stood up in front of real judges.
By Alex A.G. Shapiro
In the late 1950s, Sylvia Prozan was told she would not deliver the news on television. A sponsor made it clear: No woman would do that job on his station.
She did it anyway.
Prozan became the first woman to present the weather in Cleveland, and among the first in the country. She later reported for KQED in San Francisco and in 1968 joined KNTV in San Jose, where she interviewed Ralph Nader, Dolores Huerta, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Her face appeared on billboards along the freeway.
At 40, she went to law school.
Prozan graduated from Berkeley Law in 1975, opened a solo practice in Burlingame, and built a litigation career that reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Her view of the profession was practical: Litigation turned on execution — not the idea of a case, but how it is built, challenged, and defended.
This semester, her name was attached to a course built on that idea.
The first motion
The Sylvia Prozan Motion Practice Intensive, funded by the Prozan family, is a one-unit course open to 2Ls, 3Ls, and LL.M. students. Students are assigned opposing sides of a motion. Each writes a memo. Each argues. Rounds narrow until two remain.
The course is taught by Judge Mario M. Choi, who spent nearly two decades litigating complex commercial cases before joining the California Office of Administrative Hearings. Choosing to have the students take on a trade secrets demurrer was deliberate.
“The first motion that most civil litigators will encounter in a new lawsuit is the demurrer, or motion to dismiss,” Choi says. “Handling a demurrer gives students an understanding of how important the allegations of a complaint are, and how one should — and should not — draft those allegations.”
The inaugural cohort included seven students across the J.D. and LL.M. programs: Aidan Arnold-Galati, Areya Behrouzian, Josh Cenzano, Julia Harvey, Austin Prather, Sean Silverman, and Sarah Wu.
“I was impressed by their interest in civil litigation and their willingness to be our guinea pigs for this new class and competition,” Choi says. “This cohort has demonstrated why they will be fantastic litigators in the future.”
Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky says the school is “deeply grateful to the Prozan family for this gift and to everyone involved in making this inaugural year a success.”
The final round
On the evening of April 16, the final round took place in Law 140. The mock case of OceanView Analytics, Inc. v. MarineData Systems, Inc. OceanView had sued MarineData under the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act, alleging that its new sonar system was built on proprietary methods carried over by two engineers who had jumped to the competitor. MarineData’s demurrer argued the complaint failed to identify the trade secrets with sufficient particularity.
Silverman, counsel for the movant, argued that the complaint should be dismissed. As counsel for the respondent, Wu argued that it should survive.
Rebecca Prozan, founder and CEO of Prozan Strategies, LLC, presided from the bench. Retired Alameda County Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo and Santa Clara County Superior Court Commissioner Leah N. Abraham joined her on the panel.
At one point, the judges pressed both advocates on the same issue: Where, exactly, in the complaint was the alleged trade secret defined?
Each student had to answer, then defend the answer.
Abraham told the finalists what she saw. “Both of your arguments were among the best arguments I’ve ever heard in court,” she said. “You are comparable to any attorney that I’ve ever heard in California. You should walk away from this experience knowing that you are certainly ready for practice.”
Grillo offered a practitioner’s note: Never open a demurrer argument by reciting the standard of review, because any judge who has been on the bench more than a couple of years has heard it too many times. “Get to the meat,” he advised. Grillo praised Wu’s command of the case law and her ability to weave it into the facts of the record, calling it “a pretty unique skill.”
Prozan gave each finalist specific feedback before the ruling. She told Silverman he responded well on his feet and praised him for standing his ground when she pressed him on whether a narrower remedy would resolve the dispute.
“You said ‘No, it does not. I want my demurrer and I want it today,’” she recalled. Then she turned to Wu. “The way that you wove the law into the facts, you took it to the next level. Brilliant. You should be considering a career in IP if you are not already.”
Wu took the championship. Silverman was named runner-up. The panel also recognized Prather for best memo in support of the motion and Behrouzian for best memo in opposition.
“To say that we are setting the standard for future years is not something that happens very often,” Wu said. “To be in the final round is an honor in and of itself.”
Silverman, for his part, saw the value in the type of motion the course chose. “As opposed to an appeal, which is the last word in a case, this is one of the first,” he said. “It’s something we will be dealing with in actual litigation a lot more often. It’s great to have a chance to deal with this type of work before we get there.”
More than a credit
For most of the evening, Rebecca Prozan had been a judge. Now she was a daughter.
“This class is named after my mom,” she told the room. “My mother loved the law. She was such a nerd. When we were cleaning out the house, she had reams of paper of her notes and her books.” Prozan paused. “She would have loved the combination theory. She would have loved the standard on the pleading.”
With her brother, sister, father, and wife all in the room, Prozan turned to the finalists. “I just wanted to thank both of you for your preparation, for the hours that you put into this case. Because it means a lot to my family,” she said. “I know that this is just another class, another credit, all those things. But sometimes there’s a higher meaning in this stuff.”
Her family has described Sylvia Prozan as someone who combined presence with precision, capable of holding a line and holding a room. On April 16, the room was Law 140.
Prozan Competition Video
The Sylvia Prozan Motion Practice Intensive returns in spring 2027. Questions about the course can be directed to the Advocacy Competitions Program.