Highlights of upcoming alumni events. Access the full event calendar and register online, email rsvp@law.berkeley.edu or call 510.643.6673

August 5

Bay Area Alumni Exclusive - Best Practices for Applying to Law School
Offered exclusively to the family and friends of Boalt Hall graduates, Boalt's Assistant Dean of Admissions, Edward Tom, will provide best practices on applying to law school. Hosted by Peter Benvenutti '74 at his firm, Heller Ehrman.
6 to 8 pm
Heller Ehrman, San Francisco
To RSVP, email rsvp@law.berkeley.edu or register online here, or call 510.643.6673.

August 7

Los Angeles Alumni Exclusive - Best Practices for Applying to Law School
Offered exclusively to the family and friends of Boalt Hall graduates, Boalt's Assistant Dean of Admissions Edward Tom will provide best practices on applying to law school. Hosted by Matt Kline '99 at his firm, O'Melveny & Myers LLP.
6 to 8 pm
O'Melvany & Myers LLP, Los Angeles
To RSVP, email rsvp@law.berkeley.edu or register online here, or call 510.643.6673.

August 24

Denver Alumni Reception
Join fellow Boalt alumni from the Denver area for a reception during the Democratic National Convention!
5 to 7 pm
Sullivan Steak House, Denver
To RSVP, email rsvp@law.berkeley.edu or register online here, or call 510.643.6673.


September 27

California State Bar Annual Meeting Alumni Reception
Save the Date! Make plans to join us for a special alumni reception at the 2008 California State Bar Annual Meeting.
6 to 8 pm
Monterey, CA
More information coming soon!




July 2008
Dear Friend,
Summer? What summer? While many people are off enjoying summer vacations, the law school is hard at work hiring new leaders for key positions, creating a new research center or two, and preparing for Alumni Weekend. We've also been chugging away at building a spiffy new web site. Look for that to launch next month. Until then, enjoy this month's eNews.
Main News

Alumni Weekend & Reunion 2008, September 18-20
Alumni BannerAlumni Weekend is only a few short months away, so register today!  Learn more about our exciting program, "Democracy in Real Time: How the Events of 2008 Are Redefining the Political Landscape." If you graduated in a year ending in 3 or 8, reconnect with your classmates by submitting a yearbook entry. More details about the weekend can be found here.  Hope to see you in September!


Anders Yang Joins School as New Assistant Dean for Advancement and Alumni Relations
Anders Yang is the law school's new assistant dean for advancement and alumni relations, the position previously held by Louise Epstein. Yang is a graduate of Cal ('91, Phi Beta Kappa and high honors in Economics) and Harvard Law School ('94 cum laude). He comes to us from Harvard University, where he is senior regional director for capital giving for the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. Previously, he worked for Harvard Law School as an externship coordinator, admissions officer, associate director of alumni relations, and director of the Western Regional Office for fundraising and alumni relations.

He began life as an associate in the Los Angeles office of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom. He has an impressive range of experiences, a deep affection for Berkeley, and familiarity with Harvard-scale fundraising ambitious.


And There's More Leadership News ...
Annik Hirshen will be joining the school as new assistant dean of student affairs. Hirshen is a Hastings graduate who brings a wealth of experience to the position. After a brief stint in practice, she came to the Berkeley campus to work with students, first in the residential and family living area, then in undergraduate and campus life. From there she became special assistant to the vice president for student affairs at the U.C. Office of the President. For the past few years, she has been assistant dean for graduate studies at UC Davis.
 
Meanwhile, Professors Goodwin Liu and Bob Berring have agreed to serve as associate deans. Liu replaces Howard Shelanski as associate dean for the JD program and Curriculum Planning while Shelanski is on leave for a year. Berring will take on, and shape, a new portfolio as associate dean for student affairs.


New Summer LL.M program
Boalt is launching a new summer LL.M. (Master of Laws) program in May 2009. International students who already hold a professional law degree will be able to earn an LL.M. by attending two consecutive summers--for six months of condensed course work--rather than a full academic year. 
 
The accelerated program targets busy foreign executives who may find it easier to take summers off for advanced legal study. It's also a boon to students who may be turned away from the traditional nine-month academic term due to limited enrollment.

The deadline to apply for the 50 slots in the inaugural 2009-2010 summer session is September 30, 2008. Classes will begin in mid-May and end in mid-August, for a total of six months over two summers. Visit the summer LL.M web page for more information.


Partners in Leadership 2008 - There's Still Time to Get Involved
Good news!  Our program for groups of five or more Boalt graduates in a law firm or organization office has extended its closing deadline through July 31. There is still time for your group to join with the 21 others whose giving participation among Boalt graduates is 100% --  winning an invitation to Spotlight on Leadership, a reception and student meet/greet, to be held this August. Check out the program web page.


Berkeley CHEFS Joins List of Research Centers
The expansion of Berkeley Law's multi-disciplinary research centers continues with the founding of the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security (Berkeley CHEFS), the first law school center to focus exclusively on problems faced by American workers and families.
 
The center is led by three faculty co-chairs and an executive director: Professor Jacob Hacker, Political Science, who brings a deep research agenda on health care and family economic security; Professor Mary Ann Mason, School of Social Welfare, a preeminent scholar in women's inequality and work-family issues; Professor Stephen Sugarman, School of Law, whose influential work includes a range of issues from economic security for workers and families to public health and education reform; and executive director Ann O'Leary, who brings vast federal government policy experience in the executive and legislative branches and public litigation experience from her work at the San Francisco City Attorney's Office.
 
Berkeley CHEFS will conduct research to develop and advance measures that address economic insecurity faced by Americans of all ages and incomes. Its five main areas of focus are: (1) defining economic risks faced by working families; (2) increasing health security through promoting universal health coverage at the national, state and local levels; (3) developing better protections for workers who are voluntarily or involuntarily on leave from their jobs; (4) supporting working families in a flexible workplace; and (5) ensuring that seniors can be secure in their retirement years.


2008 Cal Football Tickets - Available Now!
Go to www.CalBears.com/groupwindow to purchase discounted single game tickets of $34 in stadium areas reserved for alumni. The ID is "BOALT" and password is "BOALT."  Please note: Tickets for the October 25 UCLA and November 22 Stanford games are not available through the Boalt ticket window. Go Bears!


DNC Alumni Reception in Denver - August 24
We hope you will join us at an alumni reception in Denver during the Democratic National Convention on Sunday, August 24 from 5:00-7:00 p.m. at Sullivan's Steak House, 1745 Wazee Street, Denver. Please RSVP online here, email rsvp@law.berkeley.edu, or call 510.643.6673.
 
 
Attending the RNC?
We are planning an alumni reception during the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, as well. Date and venue will be announced soon. If you are planning to attend the RNC, please let us know!  Email rsvp@law.berkeley.edu or call 510.643.6673.


Recruiting & Promoting Women - A Celebration of Women in the Law
The Boalt Hall Women's Association invites all alumni to join over one hundred employers to celebrate the accomplishments of women in the law. The event takes place on Thursday, August 27 from 5:00-7:00pm in the Steinhart Courtyard at Boalt Hall. Jayne E. Fleming '00, Pro Bono Counsel to Reed Smith and leader of the firm's human rights team, will be the keynote speaker. Meet the women of Boalt Hall and discuss the advances that women have made and the struggles they continue to face in the legal community.  For more information and to RSVP, go to http://bhwa.boalt.org/rpw/.


Calling All Former McBaine Moot Court Competitors
The James Patterson McBaine Moot Court Competition will be holding its first Alumni and Student Social this fall on Wednesday, November 5 at Boalt Hall.  Learn about what's been going on with the competition in the last few years, socialize with former competitors, current students and Dean Christopher Edley Jr., and be there for the release of this year's case.  For more information about this event or if you have any information about past competitions or competitors from your year, please email McBaine.Competition@gmail.com.


Dailard Fellowship Recipients

Monique Drew '09 and Shalini Swaroop '09 are this year's recipients of the Cynthia Boles Dailard Public Interest Summer Fellowship for their demonstrated commitment to working in the public sector and desire to pursue a public interest career. Drew is working for Legal Momentum (formerly the National Organization for Women Legal Defense and Education Fund) while Swaroop is interning at the ACLU Women's Rights Project. The Fellowship honors Dailard '90, who died at age 38 in December 2006.
 
A powerful women's rights and public health advocate, Dailard was a senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit group devoted to women's sexual and reproductive health issues. She had served as a Special Assistant to the President in the Clinton White House and as a legislative assistant and counsel to Senator Olympia Snowe. Her memorial service was attended by more than 500 mourners, including many members of her law school graduating class. The Fellowship was established with a lead gift of $25,000 from Dailard's classmate, Michael Kagnoff, a partner at DLA Piper in San Diego who has been listed in the 2005, 2006, and 2007 editions of The Best Lawyers in America.


Boalt Boot Camp
Thinking about a career in law teaching? Planning to go "on the market" this fall or the next? If you are a Berkeley Law alum interested in a teaching career--whether you're committed, or just curious--you are invited to the second annual "Boalt Boot Camp." The BBC is a free, day-long workshop on how to get a tenure-track academic job in law. It's held August 22, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Dean's Seminar Room at Boalt. The workshop includes information on how to prepare for a teaching career, what to expect at the American Association of Law Schools hiring conference and "job talk" do's and don'ts. It also includes a mock job talk and mock interview in front of Boalt faculty, who will participate in character and then offer constructive suggestions. 
 
If you are interested in attending the August BBC, please send an email to Professor Angela Harris, aharris@law.berkeley.edu. In your email, please let us know your year of graduation from Berkeley Law, your research and teaching interests, what year you plan to apply for law school teaching jobs (if you've decided), and whether you would also like to be added to the BBC email list for academic job listings, future BBC events, and more.



Law School Seeks Executive Director for New Center
The law school is seeking an executive director for a new center, the Center for Public Policy and Law. The executive director will serve as the primary manager of the center, supervising and managing activities associated with reaching, serving, and engaging external constituencies through programs, events, products, and services. Constituencies include faculty, students, alumni, government, industry, as well as the general public.  More information, including a complete job description is available on the law school web site.




Berkeley Law and International Arbitration
Berkeley law and International Arbitration

 














Ten graduates of Boalt Hall attended the Annual Workshop of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration, held in Dallas on June 19th. Professor David Caron, the chair of the institute, notes with great Boalt pride that these graduates span nearly forty years, from the class of '61 to the class of '10. They are, from left to right: James E. Castello '86 (Dewey & Leboeuf, Paris), Steven L. Smith '83 (O'Melveny & Meyers, San
Francisco), Cameron Holland '06 (U.S. Department of State), Tom
Klitgaard '61 (Dillingham Murphy, San Francisco), Rebecca Callaway '10
(Boalt Hall) , Robert Mockler '98 (Hennigan Bennett & Dorman, Los
Angeles), Sharla Draemel '06 (U.S. Department of State), Professor
Christopher Gibson '88 (Suffolk Law School), Ruth Teitelbaum LLM '02
(Freshfields Bruckhaus Derringer, New York City), and Professor David D.
Caron '83.




Have you moved to a new city or job? Do you have a baby on the way? Did you get a promotion? Keep your fellow alums up-to-date with your important life changes by submitting a Class Note. We'll publish your news on the web and/or the alumni magazine, Transcript. And if you don't have anything new to report, just browse our Class Notes page.

Rajiv Vrudhula '02 has recently joined Axiom, a new model professional services firm focused on the high-end legal market, at the firm's New York office.

Prior to joining Axiom, Vrudhula was a corporate associate with Baker & Hostetler where he represented lenders in secured loan transactions, manufacturing companies in stock and asset acquisitions, and real estate funds in joint ventures.

Lauren Sudar '02,  Jonathan Stern '02 and Brooke Eisenhart '03, all of Dreier Stein Kahan Browne Woods George LLP, were named as 2008 California Super Lawyers "Rising Stars."

Southern California Rising Stars, published annually in the July issue of Los Angeles Magazine and the Southern California Super Lawyer - Rising Stars Edition, recognizes young and promising attorneys throughout Southern California for their work in specific practices. Rising Stars are up-and-coming Southern California attorneys who are 40 or younger or have been in practice for less than ten years. Only 2.5 percent of Southern California attorneys were bestowed this honor.

Rebecca (Hardiman) O'Brien '04 is in her fourth year in the corporate department of Ropes & Gray, the Boston-based firm. She and her husband, John O'Brien, recently welcomed their first child, George Hardiman O'Brien, who was born on August 17, 2007. They live in Brookline and would be happy to reconnect with any Berkeley Law grads in the Boston area.

Michael D. Jay '02 reports: As of August, 2008, I will be an associate in the Intellectual Property Litigation group at Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale & Dorr LLP's new office in Los Angeles.

Steven Gonzales '91 shares his news: I have just been elected to another four-year term as a King County Superior Court Judge in Seattle.

Michael Kwun '98 writes: I've had a busy year. My wife Sigrid and I got married in May 2007, and our son Anders was born in April 2008. And now, in June 2008, I've left my job at Google as managing counsel, litigation to join the Electronic Frontier Foundation as a Senior Intellectual Property Staff Attorney.

Chandra Lekha Sriram '94 has recently published Peace as Governance: Power-Sharing, Armed Groups and Contemporary Peace Negotiations. This book critically analyzes one key set of negotiation incentives used in peace agreements: inclusion of armed groups in structures of power. She writes: "Though I loosely term these incentives as 'power-sharing', they are much broader than traditional power-sharing, and rely on explicit institutionalization of the state and the use of state institutions. These negotiation incentives can involve inclusion of previously excluded or outlawed groups as legitimate political parties, sharing of resources with such groups, inclusion of former combatants in reformed military or police forces, and offers of partial or complete autonomy. The book, drawing upon studies in Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Colombia, demonstrates the limitations and even dangers of using such strategies." For more information, you can visit the publisher's Web site: http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?PID=274909.
Chandra Sriram holds the Chair in Human Rights and is the director of the Centre on Human Rights in Conflict at the University of East London, School of Law.

Jennifer R. McClure '95 recently joined Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps LLP in the firm's growing real estate and environmental litigation practice group, as special counsel. McClure, who is experienced in litigating a broad range of complex civil litigation issues, specializes in the trial of eminent domain and inverse condemnation matters, including pre-condemnation delay and loss of business goodwill. In her practice, she has represented a variety of corporations, landowners and public agencies in real estate valuation law and environmental disputes. Ms. McClure was previously employed at Nossaman, Guthner, Knox and Elliot LLP.

Andrew Winer '85 reports: "For the past year I have served as Barack Obama's state director for Hawaii. In the Hawaii caucuses, Obama won with 76 percent of the vote. I will be traveling to Denver as an Obama delegate, and continuing as the state director for the general election."

Mori Rubin '80 has been selected as deputy regional attorney of the  National Labor Relations Board's Region 31 Office in Los Angeles.

Rubin had been serving as a Supervisory Field Attorney in Region 31 prior to her appointment. In her new position, she will assist Regional Director James McDermott in the administration and enforcement of the National Labor Relations Act in Los Angeles and six other counties in Southern California.

Ms. Rubin started her career with the Agency in October 1980 as a field attorney in Region 31. She became a supervisory field attorney in May 2007.

Ann Z. Cook '69, retired July 1 as an administrative law judge in Washington, DC, after 30 years of federal service. She practiced law in Marin County for five years before moving to Washington with her husband and their two sons. In 1978, she joined the enforcement division of the Commodity Futures Trading Administration. She became an ALJ with the Social Security Administration in 1984, then served successively with the Department of Transportation, Office of Occupational Health & Safety Review Commission, and the Office of Financial Institution Adjudication, hearing cases from FDIC, Federal Reserve Board, Comptroller of the Currency, and other banking agencies. In retirement, she plans to spend more time with her children (Nicholas is a manager at New York Times Digital, Benjamin is financing solar projects at SunPower Corp.) and her grandchildren and to travel extensively with her husband of 41 years.

Elbert A. "Bert" Hugill, Jr. '33 celebrated his 100th birthday with family and friends at his home in San Diego on June 7, 2008. He graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1930. Bert was the Order of the Coif at Boalt. His wife, Barbara-Lu White Hugill, was vice president of the student body at Cal in her graduation year of 1932. Bert's father, E.A. Hugill, Sr., was superintendent of buildings and grounds for the UC system. Bert was born on campus.

Bert was a VP and corporate secretary of Shell Oil from 1958 to 1968, preceded by the longest span of service by any Shell attorney in the legal department in San Francisco and New York City. He retired from Shell in 1968, having had the most fun in his career as head of Shell's Wonderful World of Golf.

Bert was honored by Roger Heyns, Chancellor of the University, in 1968 for "Distinguished Achievements and Notable Service to the University."