Back-to-Boalt Day

Dean’s Message

Dean EdleyEight years ago, I thanked you for welcoming me into the Boalt family. Today, I thank you for being part of the most inspiring community I’ve ever known.

Each of us shares a unique connection with Boalt Hall, which looks better than ever during its 100th birthday celebration. We are poised for an even more remarkable second century—no small feat, given the accomplishments of our first.

I hope you will join us for what is shaping up to be a memorable All-Alumni Weekend. It begins with a lively conversation about our upcoming presidential election, moves into a day of dialogue about the future of legal education and Boalt’s place at the vanguard of change, and concludes with special dinners for alumni celebrating their reunions this year.

We promise to engage your mind, connect you with friends and faculty, introduce you to our current crop of exceptional students, and welcome your ideas as Boalt forges a promising path toward its second century.

I hope to see you at the Herbst Theatre for our Political Roundtable on September 21, and then back at the revitalized Boalt Hall on September 22.

Sincerely,

Christopher Edley, Jr.
The Honorable William H. Orrick, Jr. Distinguished Chair and Dean


Online registration for Back-to-Boalt Day is now closed. Please email rsvp@law.berkeley.edu for more information on attending.


PROGRAM – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Daytime Activities

8:30 – 9:30am

Registration & Continental Breakfast

Join fellow Boalt graduates, friends, family, and guests for a simple continental breakfast and start your morning mindfully. Join us for a brief presentation about mindfulness meditation and how it helps lawyers and law students to be less stressed, happier, and more effective. During this session attendees will learn more about the Berkeley Mindfulness in Law Initiative. The overview from program director Charlie Halpern will provide insight on this important work dedicated to making ‘happier and more productive law students and lawyers.’

9:30 – 10:45am

Plenary Session
Boalt at the Vanguard: Evolving Legal Education
(1 hour CLE credit)

Dean Christopher Edley, Jr. leads a conversation on how Boalt Hall is leading curricular and clinical program changes to better meet the needs of law students and fuel exceptional legal scholarship. Joining Dean Edley will be Associate Dean for J.D. Program and Curriculum Planning Gillian Lester, Professor Robert Bartlett, Executive Director of Advanced Degree Programs Amelia Miazad ’02, and Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton partner and Berkeley Law lecturer Neil Popovic ‘87. The panel will address how a great public law school must adapt and change in training the next generation of attorneys for the practice and business of law, and for the good of society.

11:00am – 12:15pm

Rethinking Practical Skills: The Great Lawyer of the Future

Panel 1: Clinical Programs – Death Penalty Clinic (1 hour CLE credit)

 

As the Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic launches its second decade, clinic faculty and alums will describe how innovative teaching and immersion in capital defense prepare students to become skilled, vigorous, and professional advocates. Death Penalty Clinic Director, Professor Elisabeth Semel, and Associate Director, Professor Ty Alper, Racheal Turner ’02 and Atteeyah Hollie ’10 will address how the clinic approaches individual representation and impact litigation, and how it readies students for practice with a lifetime commitment to the public interest.

Panel 2: Skills Programs – James Patterson McBaine Honors Competition/Advocacy Programs (1 hour CLE credit)

How should law students learn to be lawyers? Education theory advocates active learning, that is learning by doing. Active learning has been a Boalt tradition for the half-century that students have been competing in the James Patterson McBaine Honors Competition. Find out how McBaine and a variety of newer skills programs at Boalt Hall have equipped student with tools for effective advocacy.

11:00am – 12:15pm

Golden Circle Brunch

Join fellow alumni who graduated from Boalt in 1962 or earlier to share memories and discussion with Professor Bob Cole. Reconnect with friends, peers, and colleagues at this special brunch.

12:30 – 2:00pm

Lowell and Barbara Jensen Public Service Award Luncheon

Boalt Hall will honor alumnus Sandy Svetcov ’64 with the D. Lowell and Barbara Jensen Public Service Award at this festive luncheon. Plan to attend as your law school honors this distinguished alumnus for over 45 years of top-level appellate practice and his extensive activities in service to the U.S. and State Attorney’s office, the California Legislature, Federal Appellate and Ninth Circuit Rules committee, the California Bar and legal education institutions. In addition to presenting the Jensen Award to Sandy, Professor Richard Buxbaum ’53 will provide attendees with a retrospective of Boalt’s first century as a great public law school.

2:15 – 3:30pm

Pioneers of Policy, Advocacy & Research: Scholarship and Action for Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Panel 1: Emerging Law Policy and Advocacy – Center for Law, Energy & the Environment and Wheeler Institute for Water Law & Policy
(1 hour CLE credit)

Join Professors Dan Farber and Michelle Anderson as they discuss the evolution of environmental law education at Boalt, highlighting law and policy research by the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) and experiential opportunities available to students, including the Environmental Justice Practice Project. You will then hear from special guest Alf Brandt (’88), principal consultant to the California State Assembly specializing in California water resource law and policy. Finally, the Associate Director of the newly established Wheeler Institute for Water Law & Policy, Mike Kiparsky, will present on the institute’s work fostering innovation in water resource management.

Panel 2: The Intersection of Law and Society – Center for the Study of Law and Society and the East Bay Community Law Center
(1 hour CLE credit)

This informative panel will start with a presentation by Professor Calvin Morrill, Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Society (CSLS), which for more than 50 years has been the leading center in the world for study and research on the interplay between law and society, providing opportunities for students to participate in and learn about developments in the field. CSLS provides new empirical insights for policy transformations across court, regulatory, police, civil rights, and social change processes, and builds capacity in empirical legal methods among students and faculty through ongoing seminar series and student fellowship opportunities.

The panel then moves to a discussion of the East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC), Berkeley Law’s community-based clinical program. At this panel you will hear from staff, alumni, law students, and founders about EBCLC’S incredible growth and development as it enters its 25th year. Learn how EBCLC is addressing the growing justice gap by providing critical legal services and advocacy in low-income communities while training the next generation of lawyers in the areas of housing, welfare, health, immigration, criminal justice, consumer, homelessness, public policy, and economic development.

3:45 – 5:00pm

The Tradition and Future of Student-Driven Legal Scholarship
(1 hour CLE credit)

Student journals constitute the tangible result of peer-driven legal research and thinking. In this Centennial year, we invite you to join leaders of the California Law Review (celebrating 100 years of innovative legal scholarship), the La Raza Journal, and Ecology Law Quarterly (each celebrating 30 years atop their respective fields) for a fascinating discussion about the role of student-driven journals in advancing legal education in the 21st century.

3:45 – 5:00pm

Tour of the Rejuvenated and Renovated Boalt Hall

Haven’t seen the renewed Boalt Hall? First time back since the South Addition was completed? Don’t know where Café Zeb moved? Join current students for a tour of your law school. See the new building and the changes helping foster a collaborative and engaging environment for students, faculty, administration, staff and scholars.

Evening Activities

6:30pm

All-Alumni Reception

Alumni from reunion classes (graduation years ending in 2 or 7) are invited to join together to raise a glass in honor of Boalt’s Centennial. The All-Alumni Reception is a chance to connect with other reunion-year Boalt graduates before heading to your class dinner.

7:30pm

Reunion Class Dinners – 1962, 1967, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007

Following the reception, alumni in reunion classes will join their classmates for a festive dinner in the newly renovated Boalt Hall. Don’t miss this chance to connect, engage and reminisce with members of your class as you enjoy the newly renovated Boalt Hall and celebrate the beginning of a second century for your law school.