Thinkers & Doers: August 2016

Faculty Buzz

Media outlets sought out Professor Veena Dubal (@veenadubal) for commentary on stories about Uber.

  • “Any purported concerns about the violation of driver privacy in the unionization effort are scare tactics to keep workers from organizing. The truth is that in an industry like Uber’s, workers have little privacy, little control and little choice,” she remarked for a blurb in Politico’s “Morning Tech” column on the Seattle Uber-Lyft union ordinance. http://politi.co/2aP6kKr
  • In another Politico “Morning Tech” column, she discusses Uber’s new retirement benefit. politi.co/2bQ8rcP 
  • “The monetary terms were minuscule as opposed to what [the drivers] could have gotten at trial, and it was leaving the drivers’ employment status undecided,” she said in a Wall Street Journal article about a federal judge’s recent decision rejecting Uber’s proposed $100 million settlement with drivers. on.wsj.com/2bmvMl7 

Professor Dorit Rubinstein Reiss (@doritmi) spoke to the media about vaccines.

  • She’s quoted in an Associated Press story about a federal judge’s recent decision not to block California’s strict child vaccination law.
  • She also spoke to EdSource for a story that was published prior to the court’s decision. http://bit.ly/2bvsi2t
  • She was quoted in an NPR story about opt-outs and the HPV vaccine. n.pr/2bnRQvO 

Professors Carol Izumi, Jodi Short, Karen Musalo and Frank H. Wu (@frankhwu) were four of 90 professors nationwide who signed a letter supporting the U.S. Department of Education’s recommendations on how universities should handle sexual assault cases. The Huffington Post wrote about the initiative. http://huff.to/2bc4IVL

Looking for an example of irony in the tax code? In an article for Pro Publica, Professor John Leshy, former solicitor the U.S. Department of the Interior, discusses the availability of tax breaks for draining groundwater in parts of the drought-stricken western U.S. bit.ly/2bxu9lT

“If the person was just deluded, that’s not intent,” said Professor Geoffrey Hazard in an Associated Press story about a California prosecutor who’s created a perjury investigations unit to stem the frequency of witnesses lying under oath.

During jury deliberations in the PG&E San Bruno fire case, prosecutors slashed the company’s potential criminal penalties from $562 million to $6 million. Professor David Levine discussed the move in a San Francisco Chronicle story. “The timing is odd. When prosecutors reduce the punishment they have sought in a case, they usually demand something in return, like guilty pleas to some of the charges.” http://bit.ly/2bi34X2

Harvard Kennedy School’s Journalist Resource cited a 2015 article by Professor Naomi Roht-Arriaza (@roht_naomi), “After Amnesties are Gone: Latin American National Courts and the Contours of the Fight Against Impunity,” in an article about amnesty laws in El Salvador. hvrd.me/tdfn3032AeP.

Professor Joan Williams (@JoanCWilliams) in the news:

  • “Women lawyers in their 50s are really upset about compensation. They have the sense that men and women are not treated fairly,” she remarked in an ABA Journal story debunking the myth that only younger women lawyers are abandoning BigLaw in droves. http://bit.ly/2aJvTMu
  • In a Quartz article about the potential threat to work-life balance that lurk when working from home, the author quotes comments Williams made in an Atlantic story last year. bit.ly/2bgyvML
  • She was cited for her scholarship in a Washington Center for Equitable Growth article about gender separation in the workplace. http://bit.ly/2c2Qjw4

Professor Rory Little (@rorylittle) recently presented his annual review of the criminal cases during Supreme Court’s last term at the ABA annual meeting in San Francisco. shar.es/1ZY3qd

Distinguished Professor Frank H. Wu (@frankhwu) in the news and behind the podium:

  • The UC Berkeley School of Law’s Asian American Law Journal published the transcript of “Are Asian Americans Now White?”, a speech Wu gave at a recent symposium.
  • “Yellowface has almost always been derogatory and demeaning, usually intentionally,” he noted in a Wired story about Snapchat’s controversial use of a yellowface filter. http://bit.ly/2b5sUJP
  • He penned an essay, “Keanu, Tiger, Bruce and Salma: How We See ‘Race,’” for the Huffington Post, which argues that racial categories are social constructs. http://huff.to/2bznhrW
  • He served as moderator at the Commonwealth Club in a talk with BBC correspondent Bill Hayton about who owns the South China Sea. http://bit.ly/2avffPq  For the podcast: http://bit.ly/2bXrHaP
  • He will be a featured speaker at the inaugural United Chinese American Convention in Washington, D.C. on September 8-10.
  • On September 15, he will present Princeton’s Constitution Day Lecture: “Who Belongs? The Limits of American Citizenship.” http://bit.ly/2bMb5nE

“Lawyers have a monopoly on their services and so we must offer them to those who can’t afford to pay. Jimmy Carter once said that 90 percent of the lawyers work for 10 percent of the people. Unfortunately, it’s still true,” remarked Professor Richard Zitrin in an article about pro bono in San Francisco Attorney. http://bit.ly/2aj4xal

Professor Robin Feldman (@RobinCFeldman) made the media rounds and authored a new study.

  • She wrote “Regulatory Property: the New IP,” which explains How TPP can generate more of Martin Shkreli bit.ly/2b32Z4Z
  • The LA Times quoted her in an article about the verdict in a trade secrets case in which the owner of InfoSpan accused a Middle East bank of stealing its technology. http://lat.ms/2bzdFNQ
  • She spoke to an NPR reporter about drug pricing and pharma games to keep generics off the market.
  • “Even a weak patent (case) can have power if you launch it at a company right before an IPO. Patent lawsuits are easy to file and very expensive to defend against,” she noted in a San Francisco Chronicle story about the patent infringement and trade secret lawsuits between Fitbit and Jawbone. http://bit.ly/2bEY6Up

Professor Feldman and Jill Bronfman (@privacytechlaw) spoke at the recent 16th annual Intellectual Property Scholars Conference at Stanford Law School. http://stanford.io/2aOE2OU

Professor Bronfman also has several ongoing and upcoming speaking engagements.

  • She has started teaching Media Ethics to graduate level students at San Francisco State. Guest speakers will include a PhD fellow at the Hoover Institution, the VP of Communications for the Giants, and KQED counsel.
  • She will be speaking on privacy and security at the California State Bar conference on October 2. http://bit.ly/2bM701b
  • She will also discuss privacy and security at the California Public Utility Counsel Conference on October 18, joining a panel with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Dentons law firm.
  • She will present a paper on Chinese privacy at the Asian Privacy Scholars Network 5th International Conference at the University of Auckland in New Zealand in early December.

Professor Hadar Aviram (@aviramh) discussed criminal law issues with a couple of different outlets.

  • She joined the Life of the Law podcast to discuss the consequences of life sentences for teenagers. bit.ly/2bGzKsw
  • She spoke to CBS This Morning about the continuing controversy surrounding the judge’s sentencing in the Brock Turner sexual assault case. http://cbsn.ws/2bXwnh1

Professor Emeritus Joseph Grodin was quoted in a Northern California Record article about the California Supreme Court’s refusal to revisit a lawsuit on public school teacher tenure. http://bit.ly/2bLe3ng

Professor Leo Martinez described legal education through the looking glass via LegalEDweb. bit.ly/2aLGLG9

News Deeply has named eleven experts to watch on California water rights and three of them have connections to UC Law SF. Professors Brian Gray and Dave Owen made the list, as did alumnus Doug Obegi ‘06, who’s a senior attorney at the National Resources Defense Council. http://bit.ly/2aPhBYv

“Cities and towns have traditionally treated stormwater as an annoyance. A lot of the water that floods out of our cities, especially during heavy rainstorms, is a problem when we send it off as stormwater, but it could be really useful if we could somehow hold onto it and make use of it,” said Professor Owen in a KQED story about the efforts of Bay Area cities to refile water pollution lawsuits against Monsanto. bit.ly/2bH3iaz

“Extending a copyright this far along is questionable because at this late stage, it doesn’t have to do with incentives; it doesn’t serve the interests of creativity….Research suggests that access is better served by works entering the public domain. More people will be reading it and become educated about the important issues reflected in The Diary of Anne Frank,” remarked Professor Ben Depoorter in an ABA Journal story about a recent move to extend the copyright of the famous Holocaust memoir. http://bit.ly/2bbaWGn

Professor Scott Dodson (@ProfDodson) talks subject-matter jurisdiction in a forthcoming article, “Jurisdiction and its Effects,” to be published in the Georgetown Law Journal in 2017. http://bit.ly/2cm5zZi

“He’s engineered more change for LGBT people over four decades than any other advocate I know”…Adjunct Professor Matthew Coles, who recently retired from his role as deputy legal director and director of the ACLU’s Center for Equality, was the subject of a heartfelt tribute by James Esseks, the ACLU’s director the organization’s LGBT & HIV Project. http://bit.ly/2bM3PGN

Adjunct Professor James Wagstaffe has signed a deal with LexisNexis to create content in the area of civil procedure for the company. http://bit.ly/2aHE5rb

In July’s Thinkers & Doers column, we learned that multitalented Gabriel Bellman, associate director for graduate class advising, founded a film festival. Apparently, he’s a playwright, too. “Polling Place,” a short pay about the 2016 election, made its debut at San Francisco’s Pint-Sized Play Festival this month. http://bit.ly/2aWCGjo. Check out his interview about the play here: http://bit.ly/2c9aMCG.

Marie Curie Global Fellow Andrea Lollini was interviewed on the UC Law SF campus by Italian TV station Rai 3 for a segment about the election season from the perspective of Italians living in the U.S.

For those of you looking for some practical career advice, check out the “Career Corner” podcast series:

  • “Introduction to Judicial Clerkships” with Fairuz Abdullah, associate director for public interest and clerkship programs. http://bit.ly/2bQUxZ1
  • “Alumni Mentor Program” with Louise Francis, director of the program. http://bit.ly/2bvqExU
  • “Speed Networking Event” with Annabrooke Temple, associate director for career development. http://bit.ly/2bMcFkY

UC Law SF ranks 21st on Brian Leiter’s list of law schools with the highest percentage of “most-cited” tenured faculty between 2010-2014. http://bit.ly/2bMfYsm

Alumni in the News

A shout-out in Cosmopolitan, a couple of new judges, lawyers who write more than legal briefs and a couple of rising stars in their fields…here are this month’s alumni in the news:

  • Cosmopolitan has included Kamala Harris ’89 in a list of 19 women who will make history if elected to Congress in November. If she prevails in her bid, she’ll be the second black woman in Congress and the first Indian American in the Senate. bit.ly/2bsGZVO
  • Jennifer Winn ‘96, currently serving as the first deputy prosecuting attorney for the Kauai Office of the Prosecuting Attorney in Hawaii, has been nominated for a judgeship.
  • Lainey Feingold ‘81 has written a book, “Structured Negotiation: A Winning Alternative to Lawsuits,” which will be published by the ABA next month. http://bit.ly/21ffEWK
  • April Allen ‘09 wrote an op-ed piece for The Christian Post about her experience attending the Democratic National Convention. http://bit.ly/2aWR5fs
  • The SEC has appointed Kristin Snyder ‘96 the co-national associate director of the investment advisor/investment company exam program. http://bit.ly/2aOWc2R
  • Congratulations to Vijay Toke ’01, a partner at Cobalt LLP and a member of the UC Law SF’ Board of Governors, who has been named to the WTR 1000 for the second year in a row. bit.
  • In joining the bench of the San Francisco Superior Court, Roger Chan ‘98 has broken down an important barrier: he’s the first gay Asian judge to serve on the local court. http://bit.ly/2bww4tZ
  • Kudos to Michele Haydel Gehrke ’01, who has made Benchmark Litigation’s “Under 40 Hot List.”
  • Mariko Yoshihara ’08, policy director & legislative counsel for the California Employment Lawyers Association, wrote an op-ed for the Sacramento Bee advocating for guaranteed leave for new parents.” bit.ly/2bXGK1D
  • Carol Bisharat ’88, an immigrant justice attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, was profiled by the Bar Association of San Francisco for her work on behalf of immigrants. bit.ly/2bYN4qE
  • Jeff Adachi ’81, public defender of San Francisco, has been elected to the National Criminal Defense Bar Association’s Board of Directors.
  • “Make sure everything you publish is worth the reader/listener’s time,” advises Danny Leroux ’10, a columnist for RealGM, in a piece about his path as a sportswriter.
  • Mary Izadi ‘03 joins the Orange County Sheriff’s Department as its first constitutional policing advisor. http://bit.ly/2bykJFi

The UC Law SF community extends its heartfelt condolences to the family of Manuel “Manny” Aranda ’64, who passed away on July 30. He was a longtime board member of the San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District and a stalwart champion of raising awareness surrounding water issues. http://bit.ly/2bin5fa

Our Neighborhood in the News

Feeling stressed and overworked? If so, a remedy may be closer than you think. Randy Shaw ‘81, director of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, was quoted in an article about the upcoming opening of a holistic health spa in the district. http://bit.ly/2baubDA

ACADEMIC FREEDOM AT UC HASTINGS

The Faculty Executive Committee adopted this policy in 2011 after consultation with individual faculty members.

UC Law SF is committed to the principle that the pursuit of knowledge and the free expression of ideas is at the heart of the academic mission, whether in the classroom, in the selection of clinical projects and clients, and in research, scholarship, public presentations, and contributions to public fora. This is especially true when the ideas or subjects are unpopular or controversial in society, as orthodox ideas need no protection. No person or organization outside the academic community should be permitted to determine which ideas or projects may be explored, expressed, supported or endorsed.