News Briefs

Gregory Gordon to Aid Cambodian Prosecutors

University of North Dakota (UND) law professor Gregory Gordon ’90 is in Cambodia to train prosecutors preparing for the trial of top surviving leaders of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. An internationally known expert on the prosecution of war crimes and genocide, Gordon heads UND’s Center for Human Rights and Genocide Studies. Part of his focus will be to improve the trial advocacy skills of both Cambodian and international prosecutors involved in the trial. A former war crimes prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the U.S. Department of Justice, Gordon has previously conducted post-civil war justice assessments in Sierra Leone and Ethiopia.

Four Alumni Named to Superior Court Posts

Four Berkeley Law graduates were recently appointed to California Superior Court judgeships. Andrea Flint, appointed in Santa Clara County, has been a deputy public defender for that county since 1997. Leland Davis, appointed in San Mateo County, has been a sole practitioner since 2003 and previously was a deputy public defender in San Francisco and a trial attorney for Hunter and Anderson. Russell Kussman and Robert Willett were appointed in Los Angeles County. Kussman has been a founding partner of Kussman and Whitehill since 1988, while Willett has served as an associate, partner, vice chair, and vice chair emeritus for O’Melveny and Myers since 1974.

Ioana Petrou ’93 Named to Superior Court Bench

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed Ioana Petrou ’93 of Oakland to a judgeship in the Alameda County Superior Court. Since 2004, Petrou has been an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, where she was both chief of major crimes and criminal health care fraud coordinator. Previously, Petrou served as counsel for O’Melveny and Myers and was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. Prior to that, she was an associate for Foley and Lardner from 1995 to 1999 and for Proskauer Rose from 1994 to 1995. Petrou will fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Morris Beatus.

Conference Examines Regulatory Takings Issue

Berkeley Law recently hosted the 13th Annual Conference on Litigating Regulatory Takings Challenges to Land Use and Environmental Regulations. Co-sponsored by Vermont Law School and the Georgetown University Law Center, the day-long event convened top scholars and practitioners to discuss cutting-edge issues raised by recent and pending court cases and new regulatory initiatives. They addressed issues such as the current state of eminent domain law in California, standards for determining government liability for alleged breaches of contracts, takings questions raised by sea level rise and other consequences of climate change, and recent takings cases involving regulations of water use.

Ballot Results Impact Venture Capital Industry

Through its Venture Capital Research Network, the Berkeley Center for Law and Business and National Venture Capital Association have published a detailed analysis of how the November election results will impact the venture capital industry. From defeating Proposition 23 in California to a Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives, voters across the country changed the political landscape, and the implications will be significant for venture capital firms and portfolio companies. The analysis, available here, also examines key issues for 2011, such as tax policy, energy, healthcare reform implementation, FDA and patent reform, and oversight of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Port of Los Angeles Appoints Chris Cannon ’86

The Port of Los Angeles has appointed Christopher Cannon ’86 as its new Director of Environmental Management. He has more than two decades of experience in the environmental services industry and has worked at the Port for several years as a consultant, recently helping to manage the implementation and daily operation of its Clean Truck Program. In Cannon’s new role, he will be responsible for balancing commerce and growth with ecological sustainability at the nation’s busiest container port. His background in environmental regulations includes managing multi-jurisdictional environmental review and technical permitting projects, and working extensively with regulatory agencies and public officials.

Prospective Students Gain Insight in Online Fair

Berkeley Law recently participated in a pioneering virtual online fair that enabled prospective students to learn about various law school programs without having to travel, or even leave their home or office. Admission personnel from several law schools described their programs and curricula, shared insight on choosing the right school, and discussed law school requirements, application and admission procedures, and financing. Potential students were able to participate in a live question and answer session, to communicate with the law school representatives of their choice, and to arrange for future one-on-one communications. The event was sponsored by Concord Law School of Kaplan University.

David Oppenheimer Co-Authors New Book

Director of Professional Skills David Oppenheimer has co-authored a book entitled “The Great Dissents of the Lone Dissenter,” which examines the dissenting opinions of former California Supreme Court Justice Jesse W. Carter. From 1939–1959, Carter’s solo dissents often defended civil rights, civil liberties, and labor rights. The book presents essays on many of them and includes the text of actual dissents, demonstrating Carter’s passion against racial discrimination and the hysteria over loyalty oaths. Co-written by Allan Brotsky, a law professor emeritus at Golden Gate University, the book also includes an essay by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan on the role of dissenting opinions.

Varty Defterderian Wins ‘Virtual’ Writing Prize

Recent graduate Varty Defterderian '10 was one of five category winners in the inaugural Virtual Worlds Legal Writing Competition, sponsored by Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. Defterderian won $500 for the best paper in the Agreements & Policies for Virtual Worlds category for her entry, “Freedom of Virtual Speech.” The competition was open to law students interested in how emerging, powerful technologies are provoking novel legal issues for users and businesses. Judges selected a best paper in each category, including a best overall paper, with the winners picked by Pillsbury lawyers based on originality of thought, persuasiveness of argument, and overall writing quality.

Recent Patent Conference Honors Robert Merges

Indiana University recently hosted a conference on the impact of a transformative article co-authored by Berkeley Law Professor Robert Merges. At Patent Scope Revisited: Merges & Nelson’s ‘On the Complex Economics of Patent Scope,’ 20 Years After, scholars discussed the dramatic changes in patent law since 1990. The article showed that patent scope determinations had tremendous significance to the patent system, but had attracted little economic analysis. Merges and co-author Richard Nelson illuminated how such decisions affect technological development, asserting that the law should preserve competition for improvements. Merges concluded the conference with a presentation on his article and the modern patent system.

Kate Jastram Tackles Australian Asylum Debate

Lecturer in Residence Kate Jastram ’86 recently returned from Australia, where she participated in an asylum forum at the University of New South Wales’ law school in Sydney. The debate is available here. Jastram was quoted in an Australian Financial Review news article about the event, a Q&A-style panel discussion with renowned international refugee law experts. A senior fellow at Berkeley Law’s Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law, Jastram served as a legal advisor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1991–2001 in Geneva and Washington, D.C. After graduating from Boalt, she practiced immigration and nationality law in San Francisco and directed a pro bono asylum program in Minneapolis.

Virginia Phillips ’82 Halts ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

California district court judge Virginia Phillips ’82 recently declared unconstitutional the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law governing gay and bisexual members of the U.S. military. Her opinion described the law as a violation of First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and Fifth Amendment guarantees of substantive due process. Since 1993, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has restricted the military from efforts to discover closeted gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members or applicants—while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual individuals from military service because “it would create an unacceptable risk” to the military’s “high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion.”

Ann O’Leary ’05 Helps Drive Alzheimer’s Report

Ann O’Leary’05, executive director of the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security, contributed a chapter and provided the academic anchor to the newly released “Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Takes on Alzheimer’s.” Maria Shriver and the Alzheimer’s Association issued the report, which describes a major epidemic for which American women, government, business, and families are ill-prepared. On October 17, O’Leary joined Shriver on CNN’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour, kicking off a network-wide series on the scope, costs, and impact of Alzheimer’s. The next day, O’Leary spoke on the topic at a Center for American Progress panel in Washington, D.C.

Maya Rupert ’96 Wins Opinion Writing Award

Maya Rupert ’96 has won a 2010 Excellence in Journalism Award from the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA). She was honored for her L.A. Watts Times column “I Believe in America,” available here, on repealing the military’s Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy. Founded in 1990, NLGJA consists of journalists, media professionals, educators, and students working from within the news industry to foster fair and accurate coverage of LGBT issues. Earlier this year, Rupert left the Los Angeles office of Sidley Austin in Los Angeles to become a federal policy attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights in Washington, D.C.

Angela Bradstreet ’80 Named Superior Court Judge

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed California State Labor Commissioner Angela Bradstreet ’80 to be a San Francisco Superior Court judge. Bradstreet worked for Carroll, Burdick & McDonough in San Francisco from 1981-2007, including two two-year stints as a firm-wide managing partner, before being named state labor commissioner. A former president of California Women Lawyers and the Bar Association of San Francisco, Bradstreet won a 2003 Diversity Award from the State Bar of California for working to eliminate the glass ceiling for women lawyers and to prohibit judges from belonging to organizations that discriminate against gays and lesbians.

EBCLC Project To Serve Oakland Middle Schools

The East Bay Community Law Center (EBCLC) will help provide legal assistance to children and families in five Oakland public middle schools in partnership with “Elev8 Oakland,” a national program offering educational, health, and family support services. EBCLC has hired a full-time staff attorney to supervise Berkeley Law students involved. More than 85 percent of students at the Elev8 Oakland schools live in poverty and face challenges such as violence, safety concerns, drugs, health problems, and parents with low levels of education and high levels of unemployment. All five schools have Academic Performance Indexes well below California’s target of 800.

Law School Friend William Coblentz Dies at 88

William Coblentz, a major supporter of Berkeley Law, died September 13 at age 88. He was senior partner of Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass, whose $500,000 contribution in 2008 established The William K. Coblentz Civil Rights Endowment Fund to foster student and faculty research related to racial and ethnic justice. Repeatedly listed in Best Lawyers in America, Coblentz specialized in land use and development, real estate law, and complex business transactions. A director, trustee, regent, and counselor of numerous public entities, charities, businesses, foundations, and families, he chaired the UC Board of Regents, received UC Berkeley’s prestigious Berkeley Citation Award, and was recently named co-chair of Berkeley Law’s I. Michael Heyman Project.

Nan Joesten ’97 to Co-Chair ABA Annual Meeting

Farella Braun + Martel partner Nan Joesten ’97 has been appointed co-chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) 2012 Annual Meeting in Chicago. She previously co-chaired both the ABA Section of Litigation’s Woman Advocate Committee and Mentoring Subcommittee. A former Boalt Hall Alumni Association president, Joesten won the 2007 UC Berkeley Foundation Trustee’s Citation Award for outstanding service to Berkeley Law, and will receive the law school’s annual Young Alumni Award October 1. Her complex litigation practice emphasizes intellectual property matters, including patent and trademark disputes, trade secret misappropriation cases, and technology-related litigation for U.S. and international companies.

Mallika Kaur ’09 Awarded Harvard Fellowship

Mallika Kaur ’09 has received Harvard’s Sheldon Traveling Fellowship, given annually to one individual from across the university. Selected from an applicant pool spanning all Harvard graduate schools, Kaur is the co-founder and coordinator of the Kashmir Initiative at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. The initiative, which began in spring 2009 and recently appointed an advisory board, promotes inclusive security and democracy in Indian-administered Kashmir by fostering research and creating an interdisciplinary dialogue with students, academics, policymakers, Kashmiris, and non-Kashmiris. The Sheldon Fellowship will support Kaur’s travel, study, and writing on gender issues in Kashmir.

Robert McNulty ’65 Receives John Parr Award

Robert McNulty ’65 has won the 2010 John Parr Award, given by the American Chamber of Commerce for outstanding individual leadership in advancing regional stewardship of metropolitan areas. An experienced civic strategist, McNulty has spent 35 years working to enhance communities across North America. In 1977 he founded Partners for Livable Communities, a national nonprofit organization that helps restore and renew living areas. McNulty, who has worked in more than 400 communities, helped put together and support new regional leadership groups in 20 cities. He also writes articles on urban strategies for publications such as the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, and California Monthly magazine.

Martinez Joins Cities with Surveillance Cameras

Martinez, California is installing six surveillance cameras to monitor crime, joining neighboring cities Pinole, Pittsburg, and Brentwood in using cameras to track criminal activity. A study of surveillance cameras in San Francisco last year by Berkeley Law’s Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic has influenced their implementation in other jurisdictions. While San Francisco’s cameras had no discernible effect on homicides, drug dealing, prostitution, or vandalism, property crimes dropped significantly near camera locations. Martinez’s cameras will monitor high-crime public areas and feed live images to a police station computer screen so dispatchers can zoom in if they see something suspicious.

Obama Taps Theodore Olson ’65 for New Role

President Obama has appointed Theodore Olson ’65 to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States, which aims to improve the efficiency, adequacy, and fairness of procedures by which federal agencies conduct regulatory programs and administer grants and benefits, among other functions. A partner at Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher in Washington, Olson was U.S. Solicitor General from 2001-2004. He has won more than 75 percent of his cases argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, and recently received a winning verdict for the plaintiffs in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, in which a federal judge ruled that Proposition 8—the California ballot measure prohibiting same-sex marriage—was unconstitutional.

Supreme Court Triumph for Beth Stephens ’79

Beth Stephens ’79 has helped win a U.S. Supreme Court case in favor of Somali civilians seeking damages for torture and other human rights abuses. Stephens was second chair at oral argument in Samantar v. Yousuf, in which her clients sought to hold accountable Mohamed Ali Samantar, Somalia’s former defense minister who now lives in Virginia. Samantar claimed immunity under a U.S. statute on the grounds that he committed the acts on behalf of his government, but the Court held that the statute does not protect individual foreign government officials. A professor at the Rutgers School of Law-Camden, Stephens is a board member at the Center for Justice and Accountability, which can now pursue its case against Samantar.

San Diego Legal Icon Alec Cory ’39 Dies at 95

Alec Cory ’39, who was instrumental in the financing and development of many areas throughout San Diego County, built one of its top law firms (Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch), and founded the city’s Legal Aid Society, died on July 27. He was 95. During a legal career that spanned more than six decades, Cory was one of Berkeley Law’s most generous supporters and established a summer fellowship and scholarship fund that both assist students with a demonstrated interest in public service or public interest law. The Barbara and Alec Cory Scholarship Fund annually supports two students—one male and one female—for their entire three years at the school.

UC Regents OK Online Degree Pilot Program

The University of California’s Board of Regents recently endorsed a pilot program to develop and test a fully online undergraduate degree program at the school. They largely concurred with Berkeley Law Dean Christopher Edley, Jr., the plan's leader, that such a program could save the university considerable money while expanding access to students far from campus. Despite earlier warnings from some instructors that a UC online degree program could damage the university’s credibility, several regents countered that UC has the ability and incentive to create the nation’s first highly selective, Web-based degree program for undergraduates.

Three Grads Tapped for State Superior Courts

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed Carlos Vazquez ’88 and Yvette Verastegui ’93 to Los Angeles County Superior Court judgeships, and Cheri Pham ’90 to a judgeship in the Orange County Superior Court. Vazquez has been a deputy district attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office since 1988. Verastegui has served as a deputy alternate public defender for the Los Angeles County Alternate Public Defenders Office since 2001, and previously was a deputy public defender in two counties. Pham has been a deputy district attorney for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office since 1997 and has experience in public and private practice.

Alan Brayton ’76 to Claim ABA Justice Award

The American Bar Association (ABA) Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section will soon honor Alan Brayton ’76 with its Pursuit of Justice Award, which recognizes lawyers and judges who have shown outstanding merit and who excel in providing access to justice for all. The award will be presented August 6 during the ABA’s annual meeting in San Francisco. Brayton, a founding and senior partner of Brayton Purcell, has gained national acclaim as a leading lawyer representing victims of asbestos-related disease. A U.S. Air Force Academy graduate, he spent 12 years on active duty, including seven as a judge advocate.

Incoming Student Granted National Fellowship

Charlynn Weissenbach, who will attend Berkeley Law in the fall, is this year’s recipient of the $2,500 Catherine Wills Coleman fellowship from Mortar Board, a top national honor society recognizing college seniors for outstanding achievement in scholarship, leadership, and service. A recent San Diego State graduate, Weissenbach was Mortar Board’s co-chair of philanthropy in 2009, led a book drive to benefit the children of an autism support group, and raised awareness about autism on campus. Weissenbach, the first member of her family to attend college, was also president of the Pre-Law Society and a member of several honor societies.      

Judith Kleinberg ’71 Takes New Leading Role

Former Palo Alto mayor Judith Kleinberg ’71 has joined the Knight Foundation as its San Jose and Silicon Valley program director. The foundation seeks to “advance journalism in the digital age” and improve communities through programs such as grants to charities and projects nationwide, awards for digital journalism experiments, and journalism training programs. The chief executive of several award-winning non-profits, Kleinberg began her career as a lawyer and broadcast journalist. She was the first employee and served as vice president, chief operating officer, and general counsel for InSTEDD, which promotes using technology to respond to humanitarian disasters and diseases.

Diverse Summer Projects for BCLB Fellows

Four student fellows are pursuing summer research projects sponsored by the Berkeley Center for Law and Business. Aria Safar is studying private commercial dispute resolution in China while interning at the Beijing Arbitration Commission. Doctors David Goetz ’12 and Asher Benjamin Hodes ’12 are examining how advances in genetic and stem cell sciences may affect regulation of assisted reproduction technologies and how FDA oversight will impact the business and science of individualized stem cell therapies, respectively. Dr. Matt DalSanto ’11 is expanding on his previous research on how states use interstate compacts to finance and develop public infrastructure.   

Ethan Elkind Op-Ed Targets Mortgage Insurers

A San Jose Mercury News op-ed by Ethan Elkind, Berkeley Law’s Climate Change Research Fellow, criticizes mortgage insurance giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae for obstructing a program to finance climate change solutions and promote clean energy. Available here, the op-ed describes how the program helps homeowners pay for the upfront costs of environmentally friendly upgrades through municipal bonds and property tax bill assessments. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have threatened to prohibit mortgages on properties with this assessment because foreclosures result in property tax liens taking priority over the mortgage—meaning the government would get repaid first with the bank receiving the remainder.   

Wayne Brazil ’75 Authors Key Campus Report

Professor in Practice Wayne Brazil ’75, chair of UC Berkeley’s Campus Police Review Board, authored a recent report on how campus police and administration handled the November 20 protests to UC budget cuts that resulted in the occupation of Wheeler Hall and 46 arrests. The report, available here, portrays campus administrators and police commanders as not fully prepared for such a large demonstration. It includes in-person interviews with more than 25 witnesses and a review of relevant documents and some 140 YouTube recordings of what happened. “It is meticulous in dealing with the evidence, balanced and reasoned in its judgments, and modest and respectful in tone,” says law professor Stephen Bundy ’78.

Vermont Law School Tenures Two Alumni

Vermont Law School (VLS) has granted tenure to Professors Mark Mihaly ’75 and Mark Latham ’89. Mihaly, one of the nation's leading environmental law attorneys, is associate dean of the VLS environmental law program and director of its Environmental Law Center. He co-founded Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger in San Francisco and was its managing partner for 17 years. Latham specializes in environmental issues that arise in corporate and commercial real estate transactions and brownfields redevelopment. He was a partner and chair of the environmental practice group at Gardner, Carton, and Douglas (now Drinker, Biddle and Reath) before joining VLS in 2005. 

Santa Clara County Taps Miguel Márquez ’96

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors recently appointed Miguel Márquez ’96 as county counsel. He had been serving as acting county counsel since July, when his predecessor joined the Obama Administration. Márquez, previously an assistant counsel in the 59-attorney office, has worked on such issues as elder abuse, childhood obesity, and federal benefits for the disabled. Along with the San Francisco city attorney's office, Márquez recently secured Medi-Cal coverage for children in the juvenile justice system to receive psychiatric care. Prior to joining the county, Márquez served as general counsel for the San Francisco Unified School District.    

Hilda Chan ’12 Receives ABA Fellowship

Hilda Chan ’12 was one of four law students to receive a summer fellowship from the American Bar Association’s John J. Curtin Justice Fund Legal Internship Program. Chan will intern in San Diego at the Supportive Parents Information Network, a grassroots anti-poverty organization that defends safety-net programs through community organizing, direct legal services, and policy-based advocacy. The Curtin Justice Fund, managed jointly by the ABA’s Commission on Homelessness and Poverty and Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants, provides students with a $2,500 stipend to work with legal organizations serving the homeless and low-income clients.

Robert O’Neil Leads Professors’ Association

Robert O’Neil, a former Berkeley Law professor who chaired UC Berkeley’s Academic Senate Committee on Academic Freedom, was named general counsel of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) for 2010–12. His duties will include advising the organization, preparing amicus briefs, and monitoring legal developments in higher education. An expert on academic freedom and the author of several books, O’Neil is the founding director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression and a former president of the University of Virginia and the University of Wisconsin system. This marks his third different term as AAUP general counsel. 

Berkeley Law Foundation Funds LGBT Project

Daniel Redman ’08 has been awarded a Berkeley Law Foundation (BLF) grant to help fund the LGBT Elder Advocacy Project at the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco. Redman’s project aims to educate LGBT elders about their rights, design LGBT-inclusive policies for institutions that serve elders, and litigate on behalf of this population. BLF also doubled its number of summer grants this year, and student recipients will soon work at nonprofit organizations such as the National Center for Youth Law, Cambodian Organization for Research and Development, Employment Law Center, and Drug Policy Alliance Office of Legal Affairs.

Empirical Legal Studies Fellows Announced

The Center for the Study of Law and Society and Berkeley Empirical Legal Studies (BELS) program announced their 2010-11 BELS graduate fellows. The 11 fellows—six from Berkeley Law’s Jurisprudence & Social Policy Program—were chosen from doctoral, JD, and JSD students engaged in theoretically-informed, empirical research projects that investigate the origins, dynamics, and consequences of law and law-related social institutions. Fellows receive $1,000, share workspace, and conduct monthly workshops to present and discuss research. The JSP fellows are Gwendolyn Leachman, Larisa Mann, Jamie Rowen, Douglas Spencer, Christina Stevens, and Shauhin Talesh.

Robert Yeh ’12 Awarded Diversity Fellowship

Dr. Robert Yeh ’12 has received one of three diversity fellowships awarded to first-year law students each year by the law firm Fish & Richardson. Yeh, who received a Ph.D. in chemistry at UC Berkeley, and the two other recipients were selected from a pool of more than 280 candidates. He will receive a $5,000 academic scholarship, mentoring by a principal of the firm, and a paid 2010 summer associate position at its Southern California office. Fish & Richardson, which specializes in intellectual property (IP) strategy and counseling, IP litigation, and business litigation, has received several national honors for its IP work.

New Director for Entrepreneurship Program

Rob Majteles has joined the Berkeley Center for Law and Business as director of its Entrepreneurship Program. A lecturer at Berkeley Law and UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Majteles is the managing partner of Treehouse Capital LLC, an area investment firm. He is a frequent lecturer, speaker, and panelist on topics such as board governance, investment process and methodology, entrepreneurial strategic planning, and metrics-driven business model execution. Prior to launching Treehouse, Majteles was chief executive officer of three technology companies, an investment banker, and a mergers and acquisitions lawyer.     

New Student Organization Offers Peer Counseling

Law Students for Law Students (LSLS) is a new student organization dedicated to providing support for law students through peer counseling and wellness programming. Students who have received training in basic counseling techniques, interpersonal skills, and crisis intervention are now offering free, confidential counseling services to their peers in the form of 30-minute appointments. While it is considered neither therapy nor a substitute for professional counseling, peer counseling is widely used in academic and community settings as a complement to professional resources, and peer counselors often provide referrals to community resources. More information is available here.

Tamar Gubins ’09 Pushes to Update Privacy Law

Tamar Gubins ’09 has published an op-ed in the Daily Journal, California’s largest legal news provider, asserting that electronic privacy law is badly outdated. A technology and civil liberties policy associate at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, Gubins notes that the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA)—created to protect the privacy of electronic communications and personal information from inappropriate government or third-party demands—was written before many modern technologies existed. The op-ed, available here, describes how Internet users and businesses are affected by inadequate legal standards and offers suggestions to help make the ECPA compatible with today’s digital world.

New Fellow Joins Professional Skills Program

Inna Vinogradov ’09 has joined Berkeley Law’s Professional Skills Program as a public interest fellow. She will coordinate and support the work of the Student-Initiated Legal Services Programs, formerly known as the first-year clinics, which attracted more than 200 first-year students this school year. Vinogradov has worked at Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in Oakland, San Francisco’s Office of Citizen Complaints, and Legal Community against Violence, a public interest law center dedicated to preventing gun violence. While a student at Berkeley Law, she gained experience at the East Bay Community Law Center, Asylum Representation Clinic, and Berkeley New Business Counseling Clinic.

Wayne Barsky ’83 Receives Learned Hand Award

Wayne Barsky ’83 has received this year’s Learned Hand Award from the American Jewish Congress (AJC), given annually to a leader who has played a significant role in bettering the community and promoting human rights. A partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in Los Angeles and co-chair of the firm’s 125-lawyer intellectual property practice group, Barsky chaired and is still a member of the executive committee and board of directors at Public Counsel Law Center, the nation’s largest pro bono law office. He also served on the Association of Business Trial Lawyers’ Board of Governors and as a Judge Pro Tempore in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Felicity Hannay ’75 Named to New Federal Post

Felicity Hannay ’75, a former Colorado deputy attorney general who spent three decades focused on water and resource law, has been appointed U.S. Commissioner on the Upper Colorado River Commission. Hannay served as deputy attorney general for natural resources and the environment from 1999–2004 under then-Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar, now U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Created in 1948, the Upper Colorado River Commission oversees water allocations for the river’s upper basin states: Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico. A partner at Davis Graham & Stubbs in Denver, Hannay was editor-in-chief of Ecology Law Quarterly during her time at Berkeley Law.

Berkeley Law Trio Named 2010 Skadden Fellows

Angela Turner ’10, Shira Wakschlag ’10, and Meredith Desautels ’08 have been named Skadden Fellows for 2010. The Skadden Fellows program, described by the Los Angeles Times as “a legal Peace Corps,” supports graduating law students and judicial clerks who wish to devote their professional lives to providing legal services to underserved members of society, including the poor, elderly, disabled, and those deprived of their civil or human rights. Turner ’10 will work for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, Wakschlag for the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, and Desautels for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Samuelson Clinic Drafts Smart Grid Comments

The Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic has submitted formal comments regarding the California Public Utility Commissions’ Smart Grid Rulemaking. Filed on behalf of the Center for Democracy & Technology, the comments urge the commission to build strong privacy protections into the Smart Grid, and to issue privacy-protecting regulations. New smart meters installed in California homes can reveal detailed information on household activities such as sleep, work, and travel habits—a radical departure from traditional monthly manual readings. Four students worked with clinic fellow Jennifer Lynch ’05 and co-director Jennifer Urban ’00 to draft the comments.

Obama Taps Melinda Haag ’87 for U.S. Attorney

President Barack Obama has nominated Melinda Haag ’87 to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California. A partner at the San Francisco office of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe since 2003, Haag works in the firm’s white collar criminal defense and corporate investigations group, which handles cases involving antitrust violations, environmental crimes, and health care fraud. She previously headed the San Francisco U.S. Attorney’s Office White Collar Crime Unit and was deputy chief of its General Crimes Unit. If the Senate confirms her appointment, Haag would become the first woman to hold the position in San Francisco since Annette Adams from 1918–1920.

Samuelson Clinic Site Offers Free Sample Briefs

Berkeley Law’s Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic has created and now oversees BriefBank, a free online database of sample briefs donated by legal scholars and partner organizations. A community-supported resource designed to help researchers who already have significant knowledge of the legal domain, BriefBank collects and redistributes briefs in the area of law, technology, and public policy—a concentrated collection that allows the site to provide a depth of information not presently available in disparate competing systems. The Samuelson Clinic is responsible for BriefBank’s system administration and staff support.

Phil Isenberg ’67 on Delta Stewardship Council

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed Phil Isenberg ’67 to the seven-member Delta Stewardship Council (DSC), which was created in legislation sponsored by State Senator Joe Simitian ’77 last year to address problems with the vital state water system. The DSC will work to develop a plan to help restore and enhance the Delta ecosystem and ensure water supply reliability. President of Isenberg/O’Haren Government Relations, Isenberg was Sacramento’s mayor from 1975–1982 and served in the California State Assembly from 1982¬1996. He chaired the California Marine Life Protection Act Blue Ribbon Task Force from 2004–2006, and the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force from 2007–2008.

California Lawyer Honors Sky Stanfield ’05

California Lawyer magazine has named Sky Stanfield ’05 Attorney of the Year in its environmental category. An associate at Farella Braun + Martel, Stanfield shared the award with Farella partner David Lazerwitz for their victory in Center for Biological Diversity, et al. v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which helped protect California’s Mojave desert from off-highway vehicle impacts. Part of a pro bono legal team, Stanfield and Lazerwitz represented seven of the 11 plaintiff environmental organizations. Their case demonstrated that governmental designation of off-highway vehicle routes in part of the California Desert Conservation Area violated both the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and National Environmental Policy Act.  

Center Works to Avoid Cap-and-Trade Fraud

Berkeley Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment is among a group of organizations working with California regulatory officials to develop policies and recommendations for establishing a broad carbon market oversight and enforcement program. California is the only state with a climate-change law that mandates reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and policymakers are pushing to ensure that state, regional, or federal cap-and-trade initiatives have maximum protection from fraud and manipulation. A new oversight and enforcement program may soon be included in California’s cap-and-trade proposal, and will likely help shape federal legislation and regulations.  

John Walker Lindh’s Father To Speak March 1

On March 1, Berkeley Law will be one of eight sites around the country to host an Amnesty Interational-sponsored event promoting accountability for alleged abuses in U.S.-controlled detention centers. Hosted by the Boalt Alliance to Abolish Torture, the program (12:45–2 p.m. in Room 105) will feature Frank Lindh—the father of John Walker Lindh, who was captured during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and is now serving a 20-year prison sentence for his involvement with Afghanistan’s Taliban army. Over the next few weeks, human rights groups will conduct panels, film screenings, vigils, and letter writing campaigns to push for legislation designed to prevent violations of detainees’ rights.

Two Berkeley Law Alumni Join Superior Court

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently announced the appointments of David Fields ’88 and Laura Laesecke ’92 to judgeships in the Los Angeles County Superior Court. A partner with Brown, White & Newhouse, Fields has worked in private practice since 2001 after a 10-year stint as assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, where he served as deputy chief of the major crimes section and domestic terrorism coordinator. Laesecke has been a deputy district attorney for the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office since 1992. She has tried more than 30 murder cases, and spent eight years in the office’s Hardcore Gang Unit prosecuting gang members for violent felonies.

Susan Poser ’91 Named Law Dean at Nebraska

Susan Poser ’91 has been appointed dean at the University of Nebraska College of Law, and will assume the post May 15. Currently a law professor at the school and chief of staff and associate to the chancellor, Poser joined Nebraska’s faculty full-time in 1999. She received the law school’s Distinguished Teaching award in 2005, and directs its Kutak Center for the Teaching and Study of Applied Ethics. Poser earned both her J.D. and Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program Ph.D. at Berkeley Law, where she served as a visiting professor in 2004. Before entering teaching, she clerked on the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and practiced law in Philadelphia.

Center Tackles Energy-Efficient Mortgages

The Berkeley Center for Law and Business (BCLB) will play a key role in a government-funded project aimed at incorporating energy efficiency into commercial mortgage underwriting. BCLB Faculty Co-Director Nancy Wallace and advisory board member Dwight Jaffee, with colleagues at the Haas School of Business, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Department of Civil Engineering, have received a $760,000 U.S. Department of Energy grant to develop a protocol and prototype tool that explicitly factors energy efficiency metrics into valuation and underwriting. BCLB’s contributions will include identifying commercial lease terms and lien enforcement rules and procedures that may impact that process.

New Exhibition: Berkeley Law in the Cold War

A new exhibition in the law library’s Main Reading Room examines events at Berkeley Law amid the Cold War clash between politics and academic freedom. During the 1949-50 academic year, for example, all university faculty members had to sign a written loyalty oath swearing that they were not members of, nor sympathetic to, the Communist Party. Any faculty member who refused to sign this oath would be summarily fired—regardless of tenure status. A few years later, government agencies regularly checked in with Berkeley Law professors to see if their students expressed “unacceptable” political views in classroom discussions or written class assignments. More information on the exhibit is available here.         

Andrea Russi Named BCCJ Executive Director

The Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice (BCCJ) has named Andrea Russi its new Executive Director. Russi, who was serving as BCCJ’s Associate Director, previously spent nearly eight years as a federal prosecutor in Los Angeles and argued more than 20 cases before the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. She replaces BCCJ founding Executive Director David Onek, who will stay on at the center as a part-time Senior Fellow and produce a series of Criminal Justice Conversations Podcast, a joint production of BCCJ and the Berkeley School of Journalism. Also, longtime National Center for Crime and Delinquency President Barry Krisberg has joined BCCJ as a Distinguished Senior Fellow and Lecturer in Residence.

Obama Re-nominates Judge Edward Chen ’79

President Barack Obama has re-nominated Edward Chen ’79 to serve as a U.S. District Court judge for the Northern District of California. Chen was first nominated by Obama on August 6, 2009, but the Senate did not act upon the nomination during its last session. Under Senate rules, the nomination was returned to the president and could not be considered unless made again by the president. A magistrate judge of California’s Northern District since 2001, Chen was re-nominated to fill a judgeship vacant since April 4, 2008. The Northern District court is authorized 14 judgeships—three of which are currently vacant. More information about Chen’s initial appointment is available here.  

Michael Serota ’10 Pens Op-Ed on Students

Michael Serota ’10 recently wrote an op-ed, published by the Oakland Tribune, urging American students to draw inspiration from their counterparts in Iran. The op-ed, available here, suggests that in the face of current economic and policy challenges in the United States, Americans can channel into their own lives the courage to face adversity seen from televised images of recent Iranian student protests against that country’s Baseej militia. Serota calls those images a powerful reminder that the human spirit “is capable of incredible achievements” and “able to transcend the limits of physical strength or brute force and reach something much greater.”

APALSA Fellowship Dinner on Tap February 11

Berkeley Law’s Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA) will host its third annual alumni and public interest fellowship dinner February 11 in San Francisco. APALSA, Berkeley Law’s largest student-run organization, will honor Judge Edward Chen ’79 with its Alumni of the Year Award as well as this year’s Dale Minami ’71 Public Interest Fellowship recipient. The dinner raises funds to help endow the fellowship; candidates are selected for their diverse backgrounds, exceptional academic and professional accomplishments, leadership in community service, and commitment to social justice and public interest work. More information about the dinner and fellowship program is available here.    

Su Li: New Empirical Legal Studies Statistician

Dr. Su Li has joined Berkeley Law as its new Statistician in Empirical Legal Studies, and will be available for consultation to all faculty members, research centers, and students engaged in empirical research. Li received her Ph.D. in Sociology and a Master’s in Mathematical Models for Social Science at Northwestern University. An expert in quantitative methodology, she will provide consulting and programming expertise for database management, and assist with procuring data sets and facilitating data use with statistical packages used in the social sciences. Li will also hold weekly open consultation sessions, and assist editors of the California Law Review in reviewing article submissions that involve quantitative empirical analysis.

Law Student Shares in Prestigious Film Honor

“The Judge and the General,” a documentary that Amanda Beck ’11 spent two years working on as an assistant producer, has won a prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for excellence in broadcast journalism. The film centers on Judge Juan Guzmán’s investigation and prosecution of human rights violations in Chile during the reign of former dictator Augusto Pinochet—and how Guzmán discovered information that revealed his own role in the tragic events. The prize committee, which lists Beck among 10 people who worked on the documentary, praised it for bringing to light “one of the 20th century’s most notorious episodes” and called it a “beautifully edited film with revealing interviews and astounding archival footage.”

Wallace Named BCLB Faculty Co-Director

Nancy Wallace, a UC Berkeley Haas School of Business professor and chair of its Real Estate Group, has joined the law school’s Berkeley Center for Law and Business (BCLB) as faculty co-director. An expert on real estate investment analysis and finance, Wallace has assisted BCLB researchers on several projects and played a key role in developing a popular real estate development and finance course that enables law and business students to work together. She also co-chairs Haas’ Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics. BCLB, a hub for Berkeley Law’s research and teaching on the impact of law on business and the American and global economies, collaborates regularly with Haas faculty.

Holly Doremus Refutes Part of 60 Minutes Story

Berkeley Law Professor Holly Doremus, an expert on environmental and natural resources law, recently took CBS’s 60 Minutes to task for a December segment it aired about the California water crisis that was flawed by major inaccuracies and omissions. In a post on Legal Planet—a popular blog maintained by Berkeley Law and UCLA Law School faculty—Doremus faulted the news program for accepting “... a tall tale concocted by anti-regulatory interests: that protecting the Delta smelt has economically crippled California agriculture.” Citing an independent report from a University of the Pacific economist, Doremus says that the San Joaquin Valley’s economic downturn was caused by the collapse of the housing market, not water shortages.

Legal Studies Program Names New Director

Professor Michael Musheno has been named Berkeley Law's new Director of Legal Studies. The Legal Studies Program, an interdisciplinary major for undergraduates in law and legal studies, provides a substantive liberal arts curriculum on law and legal institutions, practices, and discourses. A criminal justice professor at San Francisco State, Musheno has developed and directed legal studies programs both there and at Arizona State. He has already served Berkeley Law as a Legal Studies Program lecturer, a researcher, and a Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law and Society. Musheno will be oversee the Legal Studies Program’s daily administration and act as chief faculty adviser to all Legal Studies majors.

Melissa Murray Receives Junior Faculty Award

Berkeley Law assistant professor Melissa Murray recently received the 2010 Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Derrick A. Bell, Jr. Award. Every year, the Executive Committee of the AALS Minority Groups Section bestows the award on a junior faculty member who has made an extraordinary contribution to legal education, the legal system, or social justice through activism, mentoring, colleagueship, teaching, and scholarship. After graduating from Yale Law School in 2002, Murray clerked for Sonia Sotomayor—the newly appointed U.S. Supreme Court Justice—on the U.S 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. Murray, who teaches family law and criminal law, focuses her research on the roles that each play in articulating the legal parameters of intimate life.

Barton Gaut ’62 To Retire From State Bench

After a 47-year legal career, Judge Barton Gaut ’62 of the California Court of Appeal’s Fourth Appellate District will retire at the end of February. In 12 years at the Court of Appeal, Gaut authored about 1,900 opinions. Previously, he spent 33 years at Best Best & Krieger, specializing in complex civil trial and appellate litigation, and two years as a Riverside County Superior Court judge. A past president of the Riverside County Bar Association, Gaut was a regular Best Lawyers of America entry in business litigation. Manuel Ramirez, the presiding justice of Gaut’s court, describes him as “hardworking, productive, and always available … principled but open to a different perspective.”

Two Berkeley Law Grads Named to California Court of Appeal

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently appointed three judges to the California’s First District Court of Appeal, including two Berkeley Law alumni: Terence Bruiniers ’73 and Robert Dondero ’70. Bruiniers had been a Contra Costa Superior Court judge since 1998, before which he was a principal for Farrand, Cooper & Bruiniers and an Alameda County deputy district attorney. Dondero had been a San Francisco Superior Court judge since 1992, before which he was an assistant U.S. attorney for the Justice Department and a deputy district attorney in San Francisco.

Jeffrey Smith ’88 Named Santa Clara County Executive

Soon after approving one of its darkest budgets in years, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors chose Jeffrey Smith ’88 as its new county executive. As executive director of the Contra Costa Regional Medical Center and Health Centers, Smith has overseen Contra Costa County’s general acute care hospital, outpatient clinics, and detention health services for county jail and juvenile facilities. Previously, he served as a Contra Costa County supervisor and Martinez city councilman.  

Calvin Morrill to Lead Law School’s Center for the Study of Law and Society

Calvin Morrill, a visiting professor in Berkeley Law’s Jurisprudence and Social Policy program this past school year, was named director of the law school’s Center for the Study of Law and Society. A top expert in ethnography and generally qualitative methods, Morrill recently chaired UC Irvine’s Department of Sociology and was co-director of its Center for Organizational Research. He was also a professor of sociology, business, and criminology, law & society at the school.  

Helene Kim to Lead New International Program

Helene Kim has been named the first executive director of Berkeley Law’s new International Executive Legal Education Program. Her extensive legal and management experience includes stints working at the Great Wall Law Firm in Shanghai and with McKinsey & Co. in Seoul. Kim also co-founded an organization that developed an online learning application that provides college preparatory counseling and cross-border foreign language learning instruction through real-time video-conferencing. A graduate of Harvard Law, Kim served on then-Senator Barack Obama’s Asian-American Pacific Islander Leadership Council during his presidential campaign in 2008.

Harini Raghupathi ’06 Takes Aim at ‘Sheriff Joe’

Harini Raghupathi ’06, a Skadden Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project, recently co-authored a complaint against “Sheriff Joe,” Sheriff Joseph Arpaio, and Maricopa County (AZ). The complaint is challenging the arrest and detention of Julian Mora and his son Julio Mora, legal U.S. residents who were arrested while driving down a public roadway and taken to the site of an immigration raid by Sheriff’s Office deputies. It also alleges racial profiling and violating constitutional guarantees of equal protection under the law and prohibition of unreasonable seizures.

Obama Taps Michael Mundaca ’92 For Tax Post

President Barack Obama has nominated Michael Mundaca ’92 to be Assistant Secretary for Tax Policy. Mundaca served in the Treasury Department during the Clinton Administration and returned in 2007 as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Tax Affairs. Before that appointment, he was a partner for over five years in the international tax services group of Ernst & Young’s tax department in Washington, D.C. Mundaca also worked for more than five years in the Treasury’s Office of the International Tax Counsel, and served as the department’s Senior Advisor on Electronic Commerce. While a student at Berkeley Law, Mundaca was senior executive editor of the California Law Review and member of the Order of the Coif.

Raymond Ocampo, Jr. ’76 Wins Diversity Award

Raymond Ocampo, Jr. ’76 will receive a Spirit of Excellence Award from the American Bar Association Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession. Commission chair Fred Alvarez called Ocampo “a tireless champion of diversity throughout his career” and “a vocal leader during a time when silence about inequities was the professional norm.” Ocampo was the first minority director of Hastings College of Law’s Legal Educational Opportunity Program. Later, as Oracle Corporation’s general counsel, he required outside counsel to assign women and minorities to company cases. After retiring from Oracle, Ocampo co-founded the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology in 1997 and was executive director for two years.

Miller Institute Files Third-Party Intervention

The Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law has submitted a third-party intervention to the European Court of Human Rights on Kaos GL v. Turkey. The case raises questions regarding states’ obligations to protect rights of sexual expression for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people under the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The institute partnered with two human rights organizations in drafting the intervention, which argues that open-ended and vague obscenity clauses that restrict freedom of expression are incompatible with global understandings of sexual expression as a basic right. Drafters included Miller Institute senior fellow and lecturer in residence Alice Miller, and Berkeley Law students Janaki Gandhi ’10 and Celeste Kaufman ’10.

IP Faculty Rated Nation’s Best by Recent Poll

A recent informal poll conducted by University of Chicago Law School professor Brian Leiter ranked Berkeley Law’s intellectual property faculty as the best in the nation. More than 300 people cast votes in the poll, which asked participants to rank listed faculties “in terms of their scholarly distinction in the areas of intellectual property and Cyberlaw.” Berkeley Law’s intellectual property group—Amy Kapczynski, Peter Menell, Robert Merges, Pamela Samuelson, Suzanne Scotchmer, Paul Schwartz, Talha Syed, and Molly Van Houweling—was rated first among faculty units from 24 law schools.