Spotlights

The New Yorker recently profiled the remarkable life of Pauli Murray (LL.M. ’45). An orphan at 13, she became a leading activist, lawyer, labor organizer, and the first black female Episcopal priest. Thurgood Marshall called her 1950 book on segregation, “States’ Laws on Race and Color,” the “bible” of Brown v. Board of Education.

Congratulations to Berkeley Law Class of 2017! Graduates celebrated at a Greek Theatre ceremony on 5/12, along with families, friends, and the law school community. Guest speaker Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and faculty speaker Tirien Steinbach inspired the crowd with stories of challenge and triumph. See photos and videos.

Berkeley Law’s International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) recently received a Chancellor’s Award for Public Service. Part of the school’s Student-Initiated Legal Services Projects, IRAP won the Student Group-Civic Engagement category for deftly assisting some of the world’s most vulnerable refugee groups.

David Lieberman is one of just two winners of the 2017 Berkeley Faculty Service Award, which honors a UC Academic Senate Berkeley Division member for outstanding service to the campus and for enhancing its educational value. Among his many contributions, Lieberman revitalized the Jewish Studies program.

The Atlantic magazine’s latest issue heralds the “corporate-raiding adventure” of Berkeley Law’s Steven Davidoff Solomon and his USD colleague Frank Partnoy. Mimicking activist hedge funds, the co-authors invested in a languishing company with a plan to turn it around. That scheme fizzled, but not without a financial reward.

Professor Daniel Rubinfeld won a 2017 Antitrust Writing Award from Concurrences, a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to national and European Union competition laws. Chosen by a jury of practitioners, enforcers, and scholars, his paper Access Barriers to Big Data won the Academic Articles–Unilateral Conduct category.

Amatullah Alaji-Sabrie has received the Chancellor’s Outstanding Service Award, which honors exceptional work by UC staff. Alaji-Sabrie is a member of Berkeley Law’s Faculty Support Unit, the administrative coordinator of its Kadish Center, and a leader of the Staff-Faculty Climate Committee.

UC scholars will assess the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency at a campus symposium on April 21. They will discuss the impact of administration policies and the legal questions surrounding its agenda. Speakers include Berkeley Law Professors Bertrall Ross, Jonathan Simon ’87, and Melissa Murray.

Andrea Roth has won the Prytanean Faculty Award, a $25,000 grant awarded annually to an outstanding woman junior faculty member at UC Berkeley. Each year since 1986, the Prytanean Alumnae organization has honored an educator for outstanding teaching, scholarly achievement, and success as a role model for students.

The President has nominated U.S. District Court Judge Amul Thapar ’94 to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Thapar, the first South Asian Article III judge, is also on Trump’s short list for the U.S. Supreme Court. He now serves in the Eastern District of Kentucky.