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July 12, 2023
Dear Berkeley Law Alumni,
I hope you are enjoying a wonderful summer. As I write this quarterly message, our executive track LL.M. classes are wrapping up their summer studies and we’re preparing for the start of the Fall 2023 semester, which will begin on Monday, August 21. I’m pleased to relay a wide range of positive news.
Alumni Support and Engagement
I am delighted to report that in the fiscal year that just ended, Berkeley Law had its best development year ever. We raised $36 million, which will support student scholarships, new faculty chairs, faculty retention and recruitment, our centers and clinics, and the many programs of the Law School. To put this in context, this is more than twice what we raised five years ago. We first crossed the $30 million mark in each of the last two years and our previous record had been $30.9 million.
This success is because of the tireless efforts of our development officers and team and the wonderful support of our alumni. I especially want to thank Veronica Alexander, our Assistant Dean for Development and Alumni Relations, who leads this effort, our development officers — Eve Cowen, Stephanie Deaner, Leah Edelstein, Jenny Hogg, Alan Iijima, Judith Katz, Katie Fournier, Ingrid McKenney, and all in our development offices who provide superb support for these efforts.
It is difficult to express how important this is to the school. We get relatively little state money and tuition covers only a portion of our expenses. Development is crucial and I am enormously grateful to all who supported Berkeley Law. Our remaining an outstanding Law School requires that we build on this success next year and in all the years to come.
Our alumni also help us tremendously through their engagement in Law School activities. Over 600 alumni volunteered through programs coordinated by the Development and Alumni Relations Office. Alumni served as:
- Alumni Admissions Outreach volunteers assisting the Admissions Office with recruitment of a talented and diverse class of new J.D. students.
- Alumni Guides helping new students transition to Berkeley Law.
- Career Mentors for rising 2L students interviewing for positions at law firms during Early Interview Week.
- Berkeley Law Alumni Association Board members. Special thanks to our outgoing members David Zapolsky ’88 and Jay Purcell ’11 as well as outgoing faculty representative Jonathan Simon ’87. Thanks as well to student representatives Sewit Beraki ’24 and Kendrick Peterson ’24. In the new fiscal year, we welcome Judge Bryant Yang ’07 and Liwen Mah ’05 to the board. We also welcome Student Association at Berkeley Law Co-Presidents Angélica César ’25 and Caleb Charles ’25 as our student representatives to the board. A new faculty representative will be announced in the fall.
- Volunteers working directly with our Career Development Office, Pro Bono Program, and various centers.
And thank you to all of our terrific alumni who volunteered as captains at their organizations for this year’s Alumni Workplace Challenge (formerly Partners in Leadership). We had 76 alumni at 55 workplaces come together for this annual friendly fundraising competition to encourage their colleagues to support Berkeley Law. Special thanks to David Zaplosky ’88 (Amazon.com, Inc.), Michael Charlson ’85 (Vinson & Elkins), Anna Remis ’07 (Sidley Austin), and Theresa Lee ’03 (Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman) for their contributions as part of the Challenge’s steering committee. The campaign finished strong with 44% overall giving from alumni at participating workplaces raising nearly $900,000!
New Faculty
We have been blessed with the hiring of many extraordinary educators in recent years, and this year is truly remarkable with eight standout professors joining our faculty (and we still have a few offers outstanding!). Five who have accepted our offers are senior scholars and truly stars in their fields.
Hanoch Dagan joins us from Tel Aviv University, where he taught for nearly three decades and is a former dean of the law school. He graduated from Tel Aviv University Law School, and earned his LL.M. and J.S.D. degrees from Yale Law School. His teaching and scholarship center on private law theory, and we’re thrilled that he will head a new Berkeley Law center focused on that area.
Dhammika Dharmapala joins us from the University of Chicago Law School. He specializes in law and economics, tax, and public finance, and will teach in our Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program. Co-editor of the Journal of Law and Economics, Dhammika earned two degrees from the University of Western Australia and a Ph.D. in economics at UC Berkeley.
Ofer Eldar joins us from Duke University School of Law, where he also held appointments in the economics department and business school. A former corporate lawyer in London and New York, Ofer received his B.A. from Queen’s College-Cambridge University, his LL.M. from New York University School of Law, and his M.A., J.S.D., and Ph.D. from Yale.
Veronica Santarosa joins us from the University of Michigan Law School, where she worked with the Center on Finance, Law & Policy. Focused on law and economics, economic history, and law and development, she earned a B.A. from Ibmec Business School, LL.B. from the University of Sao Paulo, master’s from Universität Hamburg, and Ph.D. and LL.M. from Yale.
Ayelet Shachar joins us from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. An expert in legal theory, immigration law, equality and anti-discrimination law, and globalization, she is the lead editor of the Oxford Handbook of Citizenship. Ayelet received her B.A. and LL.B. from Tel Aviv University and her LL.M. and J.S.D. from Yale Law School.
We also have three excellent faculty who will begin their teaching career with us in the coming year:
Elena Chachko joins us from Harvard Law School, where she was its inaugural Rappaport Fellow. Focusing on international law, foreign relations, and administrative law, she has co-authored several papers with Berkeley Law Professor Katerina Linos. Elena received her LL.B. from Hebrew University and her LL.M. and J.S.D. from Harvard Law.
José Argueta Funes joins us from Columbia Law School, where he was an academic fellow. He studies American legal history with a focus on property, family law, and Anglo-American legal thought in the colonial context. José received his B.A. from the University of Virginia, an M.A. from Princeton University, and his J.D. from Yale Law School.
Diana Reddy JSP ’23 is a doctoral fellow in our Law, Economics, and Politics Center. She specializes in employment law, examining work as an institution and its relationship with law. A former labor lawyer, Diana earned a B.A. and M.A. from Stanford University, a J.D. from New York University School of Law, and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley.
High Honors
We have so much to be proud of. Here is just a sampling of recent news:
- Seven members of our Class of 2023 landed coveted Equal Justice Works fellowships, a school record. Fellows design two-year projects to address an unmet legal need for an underserved community, find a legal services organization to work for, and pursue sustainable solutions.
- Professor Jonathan D. Glater was appointed to the California Civil Rights Council.
- Professor Deirdre Mulligan, co-faculty director of our Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, was named Principal Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
- Professor Saira Mohamed was elected American Society of International Law vice president.
- Professor Christopher Tomlins was awarded the Law & Society Association’s Harry J. Kalven Jr. Prize for empirical scholarship that contributed most effectively to advancing research in the field.
- Judge Jeremy Fogel, executive director of our Berkeley Judicial Institute, received the American College of Trial Lawyers’ Samuel E. Gates Litigation Award, given to a lawyer who epitomizes ethical conduct, integrity, collegiality, and professionalism.
- Professor and bankruptcy expert Kenneth Ayotte won Berkeley Law’s annual Rutter Award for Teaching Distinction.
International Students
This summer, 125 students from 36 countries have enrolled in our LL.M. executive track programs. Nearly 90% of them speak either two or three languages, and approximately 60% are women. They come from varied work backgrounds, including academia, government, in-house, private practice, and public interest. These students have founded nonprofits and NGOs, written books, won national debate competitions, played piano in the musical tours of “Mary Poppins” and “An American in Paris,” and even won a laughing contest in high school. The wide-ranging perspectives and experiences of our LL.M. students enrich Berkeley Law in so many ways.
Alumni Reunion 2023
I am so looking forward to Alumni Reunion, where we will welcome alumni to campus on September 22 and September 23 and host events including class dinners, an affinity groups gathering, CLE sessions, a town hall, an all-alumni celebration, and a Golden Circle brunch for the classes of 1973 and earlier. Alumni from every class year are welcome, as we mark in particular those classes in years ending in 3 or 8. I hope that you will join us. Registration is now open, and the Alumni Reunion website can be found here.
It is a particularly good time for Berkeley Law on so many levels. The reality is that we could not do this without the support and engagement of our alumni. I am so grateful and feel incredibly fortunate to be the dean of this wonderful law school.
As always, please reach out to me if I can be of assistance to you or if you’d like to talk about the Law School. I can be reached at echemerinsky@law.berkeley.edu or
(510) 642-6483.
Warmly,
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