“Public schools in California — and in other states like Washington and Michigan — where affirmative action has been eliminated, must now be leaders and show how to achieve diversity without engaging in affirmative action,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinksy.
“I think that had the cards been dealt some other way, it very well could have come out a different way for me had I gone to Harvard, UNC, or the University of Texas at Austin for law school, because these schools do use race-conscience admissions,” said Traelon Rodgers, a third year law student at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
“Law firms will have to develop some expertise around these new rules, that’s going to take time,” said Adam Badawi, a UC Berkeley Law professor. “If these rules do become final, it will take a year or two for them to start feeling comfortable with them and it’s going to slow the deal process down.”
“Many people active in open source reporting will be playing close attention to whether the BBC succeeds,” said Alexa Koenig, executive director of the Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley’s law school.
The Honorable Jeremy Fogel, Executive Director of Berkeley Law’s Berkeley Judicial Institute comments on controversies over perks accepted by Supreme Court justices.
“Why don’t the Supreme Court justices understand that they would benefit greatly from an ethics code and an independent office to assess their ethical issues?,” writes Dean Chemerinsky.
“I’ve always marveled at the fact that a lot of people think that courts are like ‘Judge Judy,’ or that [they are like] some other show they see on TV,” said Judge Jeremy Fogel, executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute. “When I was a young lawyer, they expected you to do what Perry Mason did: produce the guilty person.”
“Most big firms, I think they’d say they’re busier again,” said Adam Sterling, the assistant dean for executive education and revenue generation at Berkeley Law. “But law firms aren’t great about managing their head count on a regular basis. Often, they take action in response to crises. Either there’s too much work and attorneys are complaining about how much they’re billing, or the market is slowing, and some firms are laying off people, so others say we should do it as well.”
“We’re so far removed from anything that’s ever happened,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law expert at the University of California, Berkeley. “It’s just guessing.”
Musk’s takeover sparked a “reprioritization of what Twitter means to the world,” said Alexa Koenig, the co-director of the Berkeley School of Law’s Human Rights Center. “I think right now, any responsibility to respect, protect and remedy human rights violations that the company may be causing or contributing to is very clearly taking a back seat to the financial interests.”
“Many of us are watching to see how visual and other forms of digital evidence become useful or are challenged, what the judges think,” said Alexa Koenig, a co-director of the University of California, Berkeley’s Human Rights Center and a leading expert on the use of emerging technologies in human rights practice.
“All of this evidence that we’ve seen is that any harm to the states is so weak, it’s way too hypothetical,” said David Nahmias, a staff attorney at the Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law. “For a party to have standing to sue they need to indicate they’ll be directly injured by a policy and that a court could redress the harm.”
“Escalations of assaults and shootings can have ripple effects for years,” said UC Berkeley law Professor Jonathan Simon, noting that friends or family members often feel compelled to retaliate. “Disrupting that cycle is complex and challenging. Traditionally, the onus has been on law enforcement to intervene, though in recent years many cities have shifted resources from police to civilian interrupters, whose work is still “an imperfect art form.”
“Like affordable housing, mobility and transportation are a basic human right,” said Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program for the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at University of California Berkeley law school.
Retired U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel, who presided in the Northern District of California, said judges are “uniquely situated” to educate the public as neutral parties. And they’re encouraged by most codes of conduct to do so, said Fogel, who now serves as executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute.
“The Economic Inclusion Civil Rights Act would be the most important legislative advance for civil rights in over a quarter century,” explains the Dean of UC Berkeley School of Law, Professor Erwin Chemerinsky. “It would restore the law to what it was before unfortunate Supreme Court decisions that very restrictively interpreted landmark civil rights statutes. The new Act would be a vital protection against discrimination and achieving economic justice.”
“If I’m a lawyer sitting in court, week after week, watching juries come in and I’m not seeing Black people, I’m not seeing Latinx people, and I know what their population is in my county, I know something is wrong,” said Elizabeth Semel, an expert on discriminatory jury practices and co-director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. “But how can I figure it out without the data? I can’t.”
Berkeley Law, which has an acceptance rate of under 13%, collects detailed financial data from accepted students through need-based scholarship applications in order to direct financial aid to them in hopes they will enroll. But bolstering economic diversity does not yield the same level of racial diversity as considering race directly, Chemerinsky said.
By offering this support, Berkeley Law Executive Education hopes not only to “mitigate the disruption caused by job loss, but also to foster a vibrant, interconnected community of lifelong learners, ready to adapt to and shape the future of the legal profession,” said Adam Sterling assistant dean of Berkeley Law’s Executive Education and Revenue Generation, and the executive director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Business at Berkeley Law.
Three Jewish students at Berkeley Law received a standing ovation in a Tel Aviv ballroom while receiving an award for Campus Advocacy from the American Jewish Committee.
“Just as cities don’t wait for rush hour to erect traffic lights, the state shouldn’t wait until widespread water scarcity strikes again to empower the Water Board to respond effectively,” write Nell Green Nylen, senior research fellow at the Wheeler Water Institute in the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at Berkeley Law, Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute and Dave Owen, professor at UC College of the Law San Francisco.
“Gadfly, provocateur, contrarian,” said Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment at UC Berkeley, after being asked to describe the group. “They present themselves as, ‘We’re basically liberals, just ones who arrive at different conclusions.’ ”
“The Biden administration crossed a constitutional Rubicon this week,” write Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo and Washington Fellow of the Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life, Robert Delahunty. “For the first time in our history, federal prosecutors have charged a former president.”
“All other judges in the country — state and federal — are bound by ethical rules,” writes Dean Chemerinsky. “It is inexcusable that the most important and powerful judges are not.”
“The fish don’t care if the lawyers are trying to figure out who’s right or wrong if they’re dead,” said Michael Kiparsky, water program director at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at UC Berkeley School of Law.
“We’re not advocating a vote for or against any of the educational quality measures, but we are in favor of clear constitutional commands,” write David A. Carrillo and Stephen M. Duvernay of the California Constitution Center at Berkeley Law.
“I am thrilled to be joining a phenomenal group of scholars and students whose work and ideas inspire me everyday,” Boudin said. “Their creativity, their energy, their vision — I am excited to be part of this team and am excited for all of the work we will do together.”
Michael Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at the UC Berkeley School of Law, said it’s vital that state officials look ahead now to improve how the system functions to respond to the next drought.
“Descriptively speaking, it’s not a doctrine, because there is no case law behind it,” Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, told me. “Normatively speaking, I hope it doesn’t become a doctrine, because it’s incredibly frightening.”
“The National Labor Relations Act was intended to provide clarity and solid ground on which employees and employers could resolve their differences,” write Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Professor Catherine Fisk. “With Thursday’s ruling, the justices have done the opposite, and workers will pay the price.”
“It’s going to bring relief to a lot of vulnerable families,” said Devan Shea, who helps run the Berkeley Law clinic that studied Arizona’s juvenile court fees.
“The long-term task and responsibility of those who believe in a more just criminal legal system are to educate the public to see these issues with greater clarity — and to mobilize that public to build institutions and infrastructure capable of supporting a society that is safe and just for all,” writes Chesa Boudin, executive director of Berkeley Law’s Criminal Law and Justice Center. “That work is now more important than ever. I look forward to the challenge of taking it on.”
Boudin, who has largely stayed quiet since the recall, steps into a new role this week, as the founding executive director of the new Criminal Law and Justice Center at the U.C. Berkeley School of Law.
“Make no mistake, deposits in the United States are insured whether the law says so or not,” writes Professor Krishnamurthy. “It is time to recognize this reality and adopt explicit and progressive insurance for large deposits.”
Professor John Yoo with Robert Delahunty, a Washington fellow of the Claremont Center for the American Way of Life, says ethics war on the Supreme Court is a warning for 2024.
“What makes the Fifth Circuit so stunning is not only that it’s dominated by Republican appointees but how conservative they are,” Dean Chemerinsky said.
“There are still some open questions about the extent to which states can issue rules like this,” said Tejas Narechania, faculty director at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. “I think the decision here maybe points toward the states being able to do more of that. I think that’ll be true in the tech space, in particular.”
