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At Berkeley Law, research is part of our DNA.
Berkeley Law hosts more than 25 research centers and initiatives where faculty and researchers seek solutions to wide-ranging challenges, from developing business strategies to combating climate change to safeguarding intellectual property in the global economy.
Centers, Institutes & Initiatives
Berkeley Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice
The Berkeley Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice works to ensure safe, equal and fair access to the marketplace.
Berkeley Center for Law and Business
BCLB is the hub of Berkeley Law’s cutting edge research and teaching on the impact of law on business and the United States’ and global economies.
Berkeley Center for Law & Technology
BCLT promotes the understanding and guides the development of intellectual property and related fields of law and policy as they intersect with business, science and technology.
Berkeley Center for Private Law Theory
BCPLT promotes interdisciplinary research on the ways that private law structures the legal building blocks that most profoundly affect our social and economic life — notably property, contract, and torts as well as central aspects of family law, trust law, and work law.
Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality & Anti-Discrimination Law
A group of scholars, activists, and legal professionals from six continents, joined together by an interest in the study of comparative anti-discrimination law and working together to address the equality issues of the day.
Helen Diller Institute for Jewish Law and Israel Studies
The institute develops opportunities for research, programming, visiting scholars, colloquia and classes to strengthen academic inquiry and discourse related to Jewish and Israeli topics across the Berkeley campus.
Berkeley Judicial Institute
The Berkeley Judicial Institute (BJI)’s mission is to build bridges between judges and academics and to promote an ethical, resilient and independent judiciary.
Robert D. Burch Center for Tax Policy & Public Finance
The Burch Center promotes research in tax policy and public finance, disseminates this research to the academic and tax policy communities, and stimulates informed discussion of tax policies of national significance.
California Constitution Center
The California Constitution Center is the first and only center at any law school devoted exclusively to studying the constitution and high court of the state of California.
Center for Law, Energy & the Environment
CLEE is a research center whose mission is to foster interdisciplinary environmental law and policy research and to translate that research into pragmatic solutions.
Center for Law and Work
A core institutional center for student and faculty professional and scholarly development around the law of work, promoting cross-disciplinary scholarship to address the pressing employment related policy concerns of today.
Center on Race, Sexuality & Culture
The Center on Race, Sexuality & Culture at Berkeley Law will examine contemporary questions of identity and discrimination through the lens of intersectionality, which considers how race, gender, and sexual orientation overlap to produce distinct experiences of vulnerability and resilience.
Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice
The Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice is dedicated to broadening the conversation on reproductive rights and choices through legal scholarship, teaching and conferences, and by bolstering law and policy advocacy efforts.
The Center for the Study of Law and Society
The Center for the Study of Law and Society fosters empirical research and theoretical analysis concerning legal institutions, legal processes, legal change, and the social consequences of law.
Civil Justice Research Initiative
The Civil Justice Research Initiative explores, through interdisciplinary, academically-based and independent research, how the civil justice system can be made more available to everyone seeking relief.
Criminal Law & Justice Center
The Criminal Law & Justice Center is a hub for research, education and advocacy. Blending a data-driven approach with zealous advocacy, the Center offers empirical insights into the intricacies of the legal system and policy outcomes.
Edley Center on Law & Democracy
The Edley Center’s mission is to defend and strengthen democratic institutions in the United States through actionable research and public leadership.
The Election Administration Research Center
The Election Administration Research Center seeks to improve the administration of elections, both within the US and internationally, through research, education, training, technical assistance, and public outreach.
Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice
Established in 1999, the Henderson Center produces and fosters creative scholarship that examines the law through a lens of social justice, and works in partnership with communities to provide education to the general public.
Human Rights Center
The Human Rights Center promotes human rights and international justice worldwide and trains the next generation of human rights researchers and advocates.
The Institute for Legal Research
The Institute combines research, teaching, and public service in constitutional law and history, criminal justice, and environmental law and policy. It houses the Sho Sato Program in Japanese and U.S. Law, and the Law of the Sea Institute.
Kadish Center for Morality, Law & Public Affairs
The Kadish Center seeks to promote research and reflection on moral philosophical issues in law and public life, with special concern for the substantive aspects of criminal law.
Korea Law Center
The Korea Law Center will address the development of the Korean legal, constitutional, and political systems by bringing together scholars, judges, and others to foster a robust exchange of ideas and research.
Law, Economics, and Politics Center
LEAP’s goal is to further interdisciplinary scholarship, ideas, and discussion in law, policy, economics, business, and government.
The Honorable G. William and Ariadna Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law
The Miller Institute supports populations overlooked or unprotected by existing legal infrastructure, with a global focus on climate and energy justice, corruption, rule of law and human rights.
Public Law and Policy Program
The Public Law and Policy Program focuses on scholarship on issues of constitutional and administrative law, and the judicial and legislative process.
The Robbins Collection
The mission of the Robbins Collection is to promote and sponsor comparative research and study in the fields of religious and civil law, including Jewish and Islamic law and the various Christian traditions.
Statewide Database
The Statewide Database is the redistricting database for the State of California. The Statewide Database is a non-partisan resource on census data, elections and election data, districting on all levels, and voting rights.
Featured Research
Highlighting Labor Law Advances
In a new policy brief for the Roosevelt Institute think tank, Professor Diana S. Reddy looks at recent innovations by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which has created policies responsive to economic and institutional realities without the statutory reform many scholars and experts thought would be required to do so.Reforming Rikers
In a new mini-issue of the public affairs magazine Vital City about the ongoing crisis at New York City’s Rikers Island jail, Professor Emeritus Malcolm Feeley and Van Swearingen ’01 analyze the history of efforts to reform prisons and its lessons for today. “From Plantation Prisons to the Modern Era” draws insights from the efforts by judges and special masters to dismantle Southern prisons originally modeled on plantations and mandate changes in California, Feeley and Swearingen propose the jurist handling the Rikers case appoint a receiver to take over.Another Triumph for Dagan
What makes private law private? What is its domain, and the values it promotes? In a new book, Professor Hanoch Dagan and co-author Avihay Dorfman build on years of their scholarship to lay out a new approach to understanding some of society’s most important touchstones. Relational Justice: A Theory of Private Law argues that private law should, and to a significant degree already does, abide by two fundamental commitments: reciprocal respect for self-determination and substantive equality.Laurels for the Miller Institute
The Honorable G. William and Ariadna Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law has been selected from more than 100 nominees as a winner of one of the East Bay Chapter of the United Nations Association’s 19th Annual Global Citizen Awards. Professors Laurel Fletcher and Katerina Linos, the institute’s co-directors, and administrator Toni Mendicino will receive the honor at the association’s U.N. Day celebration on Nov. 3.Analyzing the Impact of the ‘Anti-Regulation Quartet’
In a new essay in the Harvard Law Review’s blog, Professor Elena Chachko explores the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court’s most recent term on internationally informed agency action — the many regulations that incorporate international standards, implement U.S. international commitments, or reflect foreign policy interests.The Lessons of Recent Bank Runs
Professor Prasad Krishnamurthy spoke at a recent conference organized by the Federal Reserve Banks of Dallas and Atlanta gathering academics, bankers, and policymakers to discuss the fallout from a series of bank failures in spring 2023 and offer prescriptions for avoiding future issues.Exploring the Promise of the Racial Justice Act Tool
Berkeley Law’s Paper Prisons Initiative, led by Professor Colleen V. Chien, recently unveiled an innovative database aimed at helping defendants and people convicted of crimes challenge a charge, conviction, or sentence under the California Racial Justice Act (RJA). The initiative’s Racial Justice Act Tool, which is currently in beta mode, reports on data provided by the California Department of Justice’s Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) database of arrests, court actions, convictions, and sentences in California.More Praise for Penningroth
Professor Dylan Penningroth’s book Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights has won the 2024 Scribes Book Award and made the shortlist for the 2024 Cundill History Prize, the latest in a string of accolades and honors. Since its publication last fall, it's racked up a number of awards, including the Law & Society Association’s J. Willard Hurst Book Prize, the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Legal History or Biography and two — the Merle Curti Social History Award and the Ellis W. Hawley Prize — from the Organization of American Historians. The book was also shortlisted for the Lynton Prize and the Stone Book Award from the Museum of African American History.Considering Abortion Restrictions Through the Lens of Religious Freedom
“The Free Exercise Right to Life,” by California Constitution Center Executive Director David A. Carrillo, center senior research fellow Allison Macbeth, and Daniel Bogard, explores the impact of the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause on abortion access in the aftermath of the U. S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which put abortion rights issues in the hands of state legislatures.At the Pinnacle of Corporate Law Scholarship
“Does Voluntary Financial Disclosure Matter? The Case of Fairness Opinions in Mergers and Acquisitions,” an article by Professors Steven Davidoff Solomon and Adam Badawi and Berkeley Center for Law and Business Senior Fellow Matthew Cain, has been recognized as one of the top 10 corporate and securities articles of 2023 by Corporate Practice Commentator. It’s the eighth time on the annual list for Solomon and the second for Badawi.Research to Help Renew Democracy
Professor Emily Rong Zhang is one of the first recipients of Public Agenda’s Democracy Renewal Project grants — which are funding studies that show how to reach universal access to elections while strengthening trust and confidence in one of democracy’s core mechanisms. Zhang and Naomi Sugie of the University of California, Irvine, will expand the scope of a randomized controlled trial testing text-messaging interventions to enhance political participation among individuals with criminal records and their families.Questioning ‘Golden Ticket’ Bankruptcy
In a recent article in the Emory Bankruptcy Developments Journal, Professor Kenneth Ayotte and Alex Zhicheng Huang, a Robbins J.S.D. Fellow, analyze how “debtor-in-possession” (DIP) loans, which are intended to help a company finance its bankruptcy case, are effectively reorganization plans in disguise.
