Articles

“The Supreme Court’s ruling on Monday allowing President Trump’s executive order on mail voting to go forward is stunningly insensitive to the context: Trump is trying to exercise control over elections when he has absolutely no authority to do so,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

“The very first desegregation agreements that [OCR] was created by Congress to enforce included requirements that discriminatory discipline practices end,” says Catherine Lhamon, executive director, Edley Center on Law and Democracy. These practices, she says, are “a feature of discrimination. And it’s something that we have seen persist in schools over decades.”

“The Supreme Court’s decision in Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe I, decided in June, is a lethal blow to suits under the federal Alien Tort Statute,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy.

The 365 J.D. students boast a median GPA of 3.93 and a median LSAT score of 171, hailing from 35 states and 11 countries.

“It’s not simply that social media is addictive, but that it was intentionally so,” said Stavros Gadinis, a professor of law at Berkeley Law School. “There were systematic design choices that the company made, and these design choices lead to longer engagement.”

David A. Carrillo, executive director at UC Berkeley’s California Constitution Center, said the justices move cases up when they “need to move fast” on matters with a hard deadline, such as an election, or whenever doing so “serves the needs of justice.”

From Silicon Valley startups to established corporate pillars, alums in high-level legal roles are propelling meaningful change in areas such as electric vehicles, finance, consumer goods, and social media.

“The reality is there’s not enough places for people who are currently unhoused and unsheltered to go,” said UC Berkeley Law’s assistant dean of clinical education Laura Riley.

Vincent Joralemon comments on the landmark Meta trial.

“In the face of liability for their role in the devastating wildfires, California utility companies are pushing to change the law,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “They are doing so while pretending that their concern is helping those who suffer great losses.”

“No one’s talking really about speculation, although if you create the market, that will happen, right? You create the market, inevitably people will use it to bet on these prices,” said Professor Frank Partnoy.

Atkinson, whose scholarship examines consumer law through the lens of economic inequality, is enjoying the chance to work more closely with her colleagues, particularly junior faculty.

“Anything that chills speech online will have a very high bar to clear in courts,” Joralemon said. “Courts will look at the impact on everyone, not just children.”

Professor Pamela Samuelson, a copyright law professor at University of California, Berkeley, described that process to Inc. as a form of “format shifting.” “It didn’t multiply the number of copies of the work in existence so not an infringement,” Samuelson said.

In Berkeley Law’s mentorship series, lecturer Talha Syed and Zara Tayebjee ’26 discuss office hours, the Socratic Method, and how a half-hour conversation about a pen helped shape a student’s intellectual path.

Vincent Joralemon, director of the Life Sciences Law and Policy Center at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology weighs in on the suit against Meta.

The school’s strong run of faculty hiring under Dean Erwin Chemerinsky continues with Harawa, a criminal procedure expert who arrives in January, and legal historian Hall.

Dean Erwin Chemerisky weighs in on West Virginia v. B.P.J. upholding a West Virginia law prohibiting transgender girls and women from participating in sports corresponding to their gender identity.

Working for the Office of Legal Counsel in the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, Pantoja gains perspective and confidence while helping protect public health and the environment.

“The 4Ds model needs a fifth ‘D’—it’s the key to keeping human judgment at the center of AI-powered legal practice,” writes Wayne Stacy, executive director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology.

UC Berkeley Law, Berkeley Judicial Institute Executive Director Judge Jeremy Fogel joins Legal Face-Off to discuss the latest on judiciary threats around the country.

Professors Khiara M. Bridges and David Oppenheimer weigh in on a suit brought against the City of Chula Vista by Roxana Kennedy, the city’s longtime police chief who alleges that city leaders secretly conspired to oust her.

“Simply put, the bill would prevent the government from compiling a massive database on those who are not suspected of anything,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Professor Kevin Washburn discusses why the timing of the latest National Indian Gaming Commission revenue report may not capture the effects of prediction markets, the broader risks he believes prediction markets pose to tribal gaming, and the legal questions he believes are headed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

According to data from reform states, juvenile courts no longer charge youth and families more than $61 million in fees each year, and they have discharged a staggering $783 million in debt.

“In terms of a civil penalty from a company to journalists, this is unprecedented on an order of magnitude,” said Vincent Joralemon, a director at UC Berkeley Law and a former corporate lawyer.

“It’s really unclear right now whether the United States has legal authority to do this, to issue these permits,” said UC Berkeley law school professor Holly Doremus, co-director of the school’s Law of the Sea Institute.

The new system greatly speeds up the process of deleting personal data, says Vincent Joralemon, director of the Life Sciences Law and Policy Center at UC Berkeley. Before the DROP system, people would need to contact each data processor and request that their information be deleted.

Edley Center senior fellow Seth Galanter comments on the department’s decision to abandon the collection of key civil rights data on the nation’s LGBTQ+ students, cutting out data and definitions related to harassment, bullying and assaults.

The $500,000 commitment from Ruth Bell ’67 and her husband Joseph Bell aims to expand the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment’s impact in guiding California policymakers on vital issues. 

“No library can buy every book. It always has to make choices,” Chemerinsky said, but a library that chooses to acquire only books that support the current presidential administration would clearly violate the Constitution. “Where is the line to be drawn?”

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Professor Claudia Polsky comment on the targeting of California and other blue states by the Trump administration for political reasons, when cutting funding for clean energy projects. 

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky discusses notable concurring opinions from the most recent Supreme Court term.

Bhargava, who helped develop an AI-powered learning platform in India, and LL.M. classmate Anže Erbežnik aim to streamline criminal proceedings and improve efficiency in bilingual legal environments.

Professors Khiara M. Bridges, Colleen V. Chien ’02, and Dhammika Dharmapala, and Assistant Professor Manisha Padi were recognized for their scholarly and teaching accomplishments.

“For the federal government to announce that it will no longer consider particular kinds of discrimination to violate the law, that guarantees that no person will experience that discrimination, is an incredible diminution of the long-standing protection that Congress has guaranteed to all of us,” said Catherine Lhamon, executive director of the Edley Center on Law and Democracy.

“Never before in American history has there been a president who has shown such disregard for the Constitution and laws of the United States.” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “It is imperative that there be an attorney general who will try to stop this, not facilitate it. Todd Blanche is clearly not that person, and his nomination should be rejected.”

The Criminal Law & Justice Center at Berkeley Law, along with three partner organizations filed a major new case challenging Solano County’s ban on in-person family visits at its jails. 

“For the first time since 1964, the federal government is closing its eyes to some forms of discrimination, and that leaves more people more vulnerable,” said Catherine Lhamon, executive director of the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at the University of California-Berkeley Law School. “It’s unnecessary and incredibly ugly—it’s about closing a door on federal protection against harm.”

Professor Dan Farber discusses environmental law, climate change, and what happens to environmental law when the federal government turns it’s back on climate action.

Valentine parlays pivotal hands-on experience gained at Berkeley Law into a rewarding internship with the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office Immigration Defense Unit.

Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, joins the conversation about how the widening technology gap and lukewarm federal support for clean vehicles threatens the entire U.S. auto industry with obsolescence, and what California is doing about it.

“It is essentially a declaration of liability that institutions can take to the Court of Federal Claims and ask to have their grants reinstated,” says Professor Claudia Polsky, who won a suit last year on behalf of UC faculty whose grants had been terminated. “These states made a really smart strategic decision to seek clarity on the termination clause because it has been invoked so often by the Trump administration.”

“Popular constitutionalism reflects a simple ideal: The Constitution belongs not just to the courts, but to all of us. The American people can and should shape the meaning of the Constitution,” write Professors Joy Milligan and Bertrall Ross.

“If San Francisco wants to support housing, small businesses or green infrastructure, it already has abundant tools to do so with far less risk,” writes Professor Prasad Krishnamurthy.

Investigation co-led by Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center documents 412 incidents of misuse and 203 injuries across 16 U.S. cities from June 2025 through May 2026.

“When we deny adequate legal representation to individuals trying to correct proven errors or systemic bias, we undermine trust in the law itself,” writes Andrea Crider, staff attorney and lecturer at UC Berkeley School of Law’s Criminal Law & Justice Center.

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky discusses what surprised him most about the latest Supreme Court term.

Taught by two industry experts, the class focuses on the legal, regulatory, and ethical challenges posed by AI-driven innovation in the life sciences.