244.13 sec. 001 - Suing Corporations (Fall 2025)
Instructor: Adelina Acuna (view instructor's teaching evaluations - degree students only)
View all teaching evaluations for this course - degree students only
Units: 2
Grading Designation: Graded
Mode of Instruction: In-Person
Meeting:
W 6:25 PM - 8:15 PM
Location: Law 240
From August 20, 2025
To November 19, 2025
Course End: November 19, 2025
Class Number: 32469
Enrollment info:
Enrolled: 21
Waitlisted: 13
Enroll Limit: 25
As of: 07/12 11:43 PM
Suing Corporations
This practitioner-led course will teach aspiring affirmative litigators to investigate, serve, conduct discovery, and prepare for trial against corporate defendants. Students will gain introductory knowledge of business organizations, bankruptcy, and California civil procedure. Using consumer protection and employment litigation against corporate defendants as a model, the course will introduce and develop core litigation skills such as propounding and responding to discovery, meeting and conferring, taking deposition testimony, and marshaling evidence for trial. Course requirements include three practical problem-set assignments, two robust simulation exercises, and a take-home exam.
Instructor Bio:
Adelina Acuña is a consumer protection prosecutor dedicated to combating fraudulent and predatory business practices that target Californians. She has been a Deputy Attorney General in the California Attorney General's Office since 2012, when she joined as an Honors Attorney in the AG's inaugural Honors Attorney program. For her first three years, she served in the Corporate Fraud Section and on the AG's Mortgage-Backed Securities Strike Force, which investigated and litigated against several major national banks and rating agencies and recovered over $1 billion in financial-crisis losses for California's pension funds. Ms. Acuña subsequently joined the AG's Consumer Protection Section, where she has litigated, settled, and tried numerous multi-million dollar cases for the benefit of Californians. Most notably, she helped win and defend on appeal a record-setting $302 million penalty award against Johnson & Johnson for its deceptive marketing of pelvic mesh implants. Her litigation team received the California Lawyer Association Public Law Section's inaugural 2020 Outstanding Achievement in Public Law award.
Ms. Acuña has served numerous times as a Practitioner-Adviser for Berkeley Law's Appellate Advocacy course, presents annual CLE courses for the Consumer Protection arm of the California District Attorneys Association, and has conducted investigation and litigation skills trainings within the Department of Justice. She recently co-authored the California chapter of the first edition of the ABA treatise, State Consumer Protection Law (2022). Ms. Acuña is also a former board member and Chair Emeritus of the Bay Area Lawyer Chapter of the American Constitution Society.
Attendance at the first class is mandatory for all currently enrolled and waitlisted students; any currently enrolled or waitlisted students who are not present on the first day of class (without prior permission of the instructor) will be dropped. The instructor will continue to take attendance throughout the add/drop period and anyone who moves off the waitlist into the class must continue to attend or have prior permission of the instructor in order not to be dropped.
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Requirements Satisfaction:
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Exam Notes: (TH) Take-home Final Exam
(Subject to change by faculty member only through the first two weeks of instruction)
Exam Length: 4 hours
Course Category: Litigation and Procedure
This course is listed in the following sub-categories:
Business Law
Consumer Law & Economic Justice
Social Justice and Public Interest
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Readers:
No reader.
Books:
Instructor has indicated that no books will be assigned.