Your extended Boalt family would like to wish you and your loved ones a safe, happy, and rejuvenating holiday season. As the curtain drops on 2013, your law school has much to be proud of -- thanks largely to our fantastic community of alumni and friends. We hope you enjoy this video card, which shows some of the many alumni highlights from the past year.

A new fellowship program will help students in Boalt Hall's International Human Rights Law Clinic (IHRLC) gain valuable summer experience and improve their career prospects in the field. "The clinic gave me so many tools to be an effective lawyer and to make a real difference in people's lives," said Kathleen Janus '03, who made a $10,000 anchor donation with her husband Ted Janus to launch the program. "The hands-on experience and strong mentoring I received there transformed the way I approached the practice of law." 

The donation covered half of the seed funding for the fellowship, which will enable IHRLC students to work with one of the clinic's partner organizations the summer after their second year of law school. With other donations honoring the clinic's 15th anniversary, Director Laurel Fletcher hopes to fund four fellowships over the next two years.

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Berkeley Law students have launched a new legal clinic for military veterans at the San Francisco VA Medical Center to help vets fight for healthcare benefits and more. Complex cases may be referred to members of the State Bar, including alums who might be willing to work pro bono. 

The free clinic is just one of several student-led initiatives to help veterans. Another program-a first in California-helps vets at San Quentin State Prison prepare for parole hearings. Just weeks ago, one of the inmates was granted parole after 30 years behind bars. His case is now under administrative review. 

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Professor Stephen Bundy '78, who has taught at Boalt since 1984, will retire at the end of this calendar year. Acting Dean Gillian Lester called him a "superb teacher" who is "beloved by generations of students." An expert on the legal profession and dispute resolution, Bundy taught Civil Procedure and Complex Civil Litigation, among other courses. "We his colleagues have benefited enormously from Steve's unflaggingly deft judgment, his incisive intellect, his generosity as a citizen and mentor, and his gentle good humor," Lester said.

The White House Fellows Program, the nation's most prestigious nonpartisan program for leadership and public service, is taking applications for its 2014-2015 class. Fellows experience how government works by learning from public service leaders at the highest levels. They typically spend a year as full-time, paid assistants to top-ranking government officials, and take part in an education program involving discussions with top public and private sector leaders and trips to study U.S. policy in action. Learn more about the program here, and apply here. Applications will be accepted online until January 15, 2014 at 2:59 pm PST.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recently met with 11 Boalt students on the opening day of the Court's new term. The students are part of the UCDC Law Program, a semester-long externship initiative in Washington, D.C. Kennedy reportedly expressed surprise that the issue of same-sex marriage reached the Supreme Court so quickly, affirmed his support for a three-year law school curriculum, and bemoaned the lack of helpful law review articles. 

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When Dean Edley launched the Campaign for Boalt Hall, many saw its $125 million goal (10 times higher than Boalt's previous record campaign) as absurdly unrealistic. But his ambitious thinking reflected a deep faith in Boalt's potential, and in its alumni community. And as the Dean's legacy has vividly shown throughout our school-from faculty to financial aid, construction to curriculum, practicums to professional skills-that faith enabled Boalt to thrive amid declining state support. 

Health considerations have prompted Dean Edley to step down at the end of this year, and we're slightly less than $3 million short of reaching our goal. The dean has poured his energy into this campaign, and it would thrill him to him to have your support in closing it out at the end of 2013. As the year winds down we hope to show him an historic level of alumni participation, so please consider giving whatever you can. It would mean a great deal to the Dean, to the law school, and to our students. 

Sincerely, 

Robert G. Sproul
Assistant Dean for Development and
Alumni Relations

Q: When was the first woman graduate of Boalt Hall elected to the California Legislature?

--AL, Oakland 

A. For over half a century the California Legislature was an all-male club, but on January 6, 1919 the first four women took their seats in the Assembly -- three Republicans and one Democrat. The lone Democrat was Esto Broughton, Class of 1916. And she didn't take long to shake things up.

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Days before Typhoon Haiyan decimated part of her native Philippines, JeAnne Reyes '14 grappled with feelings of helplessness and despair. "I was tracking the storm online," said Reyes, co-chair of Berkeley Law's Pilipino American Law Society (PALS). "You could see how massive it was and that it was headed straight for the Philippines. I wanted to do something to help, just like a lot of other people." 

After details of the devastation emerged-more than 5,000 deaths, 11 million people displaced, and $1 billion in damages-Reyes and fellow PALS Co-Chair Alan Enriquez '14 called a group meeting. Members brainstormed about different ways to support victims of the disaster, reached out to other Filipino organizations on campus, and launched a concerted effort to support relief initiatives. 

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Sixty-one scholars from across the country signed an amicus brief, drafted largely by Boalt Hall scholars, in a pivotal U.S. Supreme Court case about racial discrimination in housing. Although a settlement deal was reached just days after filing, Township of Mount Holly, N.J. v. Mount Holly Gardens Citizens in Action highlighted the decades-old problem of residential segregation in the U.S. The case also presented what would have been a first-time question for the U.S. Supreme Court: whether the so-called "disparate impact" standard can be used to enforce the Fair Housing Act. 

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Colleen Chien '02 has been named senior advisor for intellectual property and innovation in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She is taking a leave of absence from her position as associate law professor at Santa Clara University to help coordinate science and technology policy across the executive branch. A renowned patent expert, Chien was recently named one of the 50 most influential people in intellectual property by Managing IP magazine. Before entering academia, she practiced law at Fenwick & West, provided strategic consulting at Dean and Company, and worked as a spacecraft engineer at Jet Propulsion Lab.

Tate '95 to Vice-Chair ABA Event

Eric Tate '95, co-chair of Morrison & Foerster's employment & labor practice, has been named vice-chair of the American Bar Association 2014 Labor and Employment Section Annual CLE Conference. The conference is the nation's largest gathering of employer, employee, union, and government employment lawyers. Tate has served in many ABA leadership positions. He has been recognized by San Jose magazine as one of Silicon Valley's top 300 lawyers, as a Super Lawyer by Northern California Super Lawyers magazine, and as one of the Daily Journal's "Top 20 Under 40."

Fueled by a U.S. State Department grant, the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy (BCLBE) will play a major role in a detailed survey that identifies obstacles to business and technological innovation in Russia. Partnering with the Higher School of Economics-one of Russia's largest national research universities-the center will survey Russian entrepreneurs, venture capital firms, academics, and others involved in innovation, research, and development. BCLBE will help compile and analyze their perceptions in the hopes of advancing legislative, regulatory, and administrative solutions. 

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United States Court of Appeals Judge Denny Chin has found that Google Book Search-a project to digitize millions of books from major libraries across the country-constitutes fair use under U.S. copyright law. In his decision, he cites a brief submitted by Boalt's Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic written on behalf of dozens of law and humanities scholars. 

Launched more than a decade ago, the Google project digitizes books, gives a copy of the digital versions back to libraries, and creates a fully searchable index of the book text. But authors claimed copyright infringement, ensnarling the project in litigation for years. Judge Chin's ruling in favor of Google (Authors Guild v. Google) quotes extensively from the Samuelson Clinic's 2012 brief, noting the importance of scholarly "text mining"-which allows scholars to do novel research about everything from U.S. history to the evolution of technological change in society. 

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Online Alumni Networks

All law school graduates are invited to join AlumNetwork. Just email [email protected] for your security ID, then visit AlumNetwork here to activate your profile. The online community includes: a directory of alumni, Class Notes, your own personal profile, alumni/ae profiles, events and registration, and more....  

And be sure to join our other groups: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. LinkedIn is a great resource for referrals, job listings and career development advice from Robert White, Boalt's director of alumni career services.

SAVE THE DATE!

January 20, 2014

Young Alumni at The Battery

San Francisco

More info coming soon!

Support for your career development doesn't end with graduation. The Career Development Office provides resources for alums, including access to the b-Line jobs database and individualized confidential career counseling: resume review, job search strategies, career exploration (including careers outside of law practice), and more. See the Alumni Resources page on the CDO website.

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