Happy Holidays from Boalt Hall!

During this season of giving, please consider making a year-end contribution to help Boalt Hall remain the nation's #1 public law school.  Click here to make your gift online.

• For grads and students in classes 2006-2011, gifts are matched 1:1 by some of the trustees of the UCB Foundation.
• For grads in classes ending in 0s and 5s, gifts made on or before December 31 will count toward your reunion gift campaign.
• For donors 70.5 and over, please consider a charitable IRA rollover gift for this year and through December 2011. For more information, please contact Kevin Crilly, UC Berkeley Director of Gift Planning, at 510-642-6300 or [email protected]
   

School News

UC Regents Increase Graduate Student Fees

On November 18, the UC Regents voted to raise fees for graduate students in more than 40 professional degree programs, including law. Starting in 2011-12, Boalt students will see a 12-percent increase in their registration and education fees.

The law school also plans to use new professional degree fee funds to expand its Loan Repayment Assistance Program offerings and financial aid program, fund new faculty, pay debt service on new construction and renovations to the law school complex, and expand public interest and public service career programs.

Faced with a $1 billion budget gap, the regents also approved an 8-percent tuition and fee increase for all UC undergraduates while expanding financial aid for low- and middle-income California students. The fee increases are expected to generate almost $116 million annually for the university's operating budget after a portion of the increase is dedicated to financial aid.

UC will ask the state to increase its 2011-12 budget amount by $596 million over the current fiscal year's $2.9 billion allocation. Regents said raising fees was needed to help bridge a billion-dollar UC system budget gap, especially with state funding down more than 10 percent despite steadily rising enrollment and operating costs.

Sponsorship opportunities are available for our First Year Written & Oral Advocacy Course. We are looking for 12 law firms to act as sponsors for our 12 sections of Boalt's first year spring skills course--Written & Oral Advocacy (WOA). Each firm will be paired with a government law office or public interest group to sponsor a WOA section. Each section has 23-24 first year students.

Sponsors will be asked to mentor the students as they write, and prepare to argue, their first substantial legal argument. We'll be asking each sponsoring firm to host a reception for the students, give the students a chance to practice their arguments with a mentoring attorney, and help supply attorneys to hear the oral arguments here at Boalt. The course meets from mid-January to mid-April, with oral arguments scheduled for late March - mid-April.

We ask each sponsor to donate $10,000 to Boalt to help us offset the costs of our growing professional skills program.

We hope that this will be attractive to Bay Area law firms, as an opportunity to help mentor students, to help support the growth of professional skills at Boalt, and as a chance to get to know some of our first year students outside the traditional recruitment process.

To discuss this opportunity, please contact Professor David Oppenheimer, Director of Professional Skills, at 510-643-3225 or [email protected].

For the first time, Dean Edley provided one of his periodic updates via video instead of a letter. It allowed for a more personal delivery and enabled him to include comments from faculty members involved in some of school's most exciting scholarship.

The video focuses on recent advancements in four programmatic areas: business law, international law, environmental law, and law and technology. Representing these fields are:

• Eric Talley, Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Professor of Law; Co-director, Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy
• Richard Buxbaum, Jackson H. Ralston Professor of International Law
• Steve Weissman, Lecturer in Residence; Director, Energy and Cleantech Program
• Pamela Samuelson, Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law; Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

Watch the video here: www.law.berkeley.edu/9890.htm

The Berkeley Center for Law on Energy and the Environment hosted a delegation of three officials from the Government of Japan who are researching the use of water transfers in California. The Japanese delegation was headed by Ryosuke Oka of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (MLIT), and included experts from the academic and private sector in the fields of water and irrigation engineering. The California water academics responding to their Japanese colleagues included Stanford law professor Buzz Thompson, UC Hastings law professsor Brian Gray, and Berkeley's lecturer in water resources Tony Rossmann. The delegation's week-long visit to California was coordinated by Professor Mitsuo Matsumoto of Kochi University, who is a visiting scholar at Berkeley Law.

A four-person UC Berkeley alumni team, two of whom graduated from Berkeley Law, recently won the silver medal at the American Universities Debating Tournament in Paris. Held inside the Grand Palais, the competition featured teams from alumni clubs of universities across the United States.

Kerstin Carlson '01 had a particularly memorable event. First, she won the best speaker award in the quarterfinal round, when Berkeley Law defeated a team from American University. Two nights later during the finals, she was again named best speaker--and soon after delivered her second child, a daughter named Noemie Niamh. Read more here.

Click here to nominate yourself or a fellow graduate for the Boalt Hall Alumni Association's Board of Directors. Members serve a three-year term and assist the law school with fundraising and alumni programs. Nominations are ongoing, and candidates will begin their term on July 1.

Elizabeth Cabraser '78. Larry Sonsini '66. Kathryn Werdegar '62. Jesse Choper. Mallun Yen '95.  What do these alums and faculty members have in common?  All have been recognized with honors from the Boalt Hall Alumni Association. Please consider nominating law school superstars for the annual BHAA Citation, Faculty Lifetime Achievement, and Young Alumni Awards.  Nominations can be made online here, and recipients will be recognized at the 50^th Annual Citation Award Dinner on September 30, 2011.

Berkeley Law Assistant Professor Melissa Murray is the co-winner of the 26th annual Association of American Law School (AALS) Scholarly Papers Competition. She shares this year's award with Ashira Ostrow, an associate professor at Hofstra Law School.

The competition is open nationally to law professors who have been teaching for five years or fewer. A committee of established scholars reviews the submitted papers-which reflect original research or major developments in previously reported research-with the authors' identities concealed.

Murray was honored for "Marriage as Punishment," which she will present in January at the AALS annual meeting in San Francisco. It was one of more than 100 scholarly works submitted for this year's competition. Read more here.

Boalt Hall's graduating student campaign has a long history of strong giving participation, and the program is one of the most respected in the nation. Students interested in volunteering for the campaign committee should contact Summer Staino at [email protected].

The Boalt Hall Alumni Association will host the official kickoff of the campaign at a party for students on Thursday, January 27, at the Bancroft Hotel.

As students consider their participation, please note that gifts will be matched 1:1 by some of the trustees of the UCB Foundation. Gifts can be made as one-time contributions or multi-year pledges; and among other areas, may be directed to any Boalt student organization, journal, clinic or center. Just click here to learn more and make your gift.

The Graduating Class Gift Campaign is an important tradition, and the law school hopes that students will be inspired by their education and experience and will strive for 100% giving participation.

Holly Fujie '78 will receive APALSA's Alumni of the Year Award at the dinner, which also helps endow the Dale Minami Public Interest Fellowship. The fellowship provides financial support to outstanding individuals who commit to serving the public interest, and the 2011 recipient will be honored at the event.

If you have any questions or need additional information, please e-mail [email protected] or call (703) 380-5691.

Q. Your column about Boalt Christmas carols reminded me of another old tradition. Does the law school still put on the annual Christmas Show?
- CSF, Orlando, FL

A. Alas, the traditional ChrisHanuKwanPanchaBodhiSadeh Show no longer celebrates the season when the Light of Learning vanquishes the darkening mind of the law student. But memories linger long in the Law School Archives. For the echoing sounds of that ancient holiday ritual, click here.