Join UC Law SF’s Innovators at AALS 2020

Director of Academic Support Laurie Zimet

Numerous UC Law SF professors are presenting this week at the Association of American Law Schools’ (AALS) annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on panels addressing some of the most innovative techniques in legal education and cutting-edge policy issues.

The participants:

Dorit Reiss, Professor and James Edgar Hervey ’50 Chair of Litigation, is speaking Jan. 2 on the Arc of Career panel on academics and social media.  Is a social media presence necessary for the legal academic? Should social media presence factor in promotion and tenure decisions? Is social media involvement helpful to teaching? What do journalists look for in an academic’s social media presence, when seeking commentary on current events? Reiss tweets at @doritmi on legal issues around the failure to vaccinate children and as such is a veteran of numerous social media showdowns. She writes about school mandate, policy responses to non-vaccinating, tort issues, and administrative issues related to vaccines.

Heather M. Field, Professor and Eucalyptus Foundation Chair, is speaking Jan. 3 on the implications of the late 2017 tax legislation, including the roles of different government players; the process for promulgating regulations; questions that remain unresolved; how the administration of the new law affected taxpayers; obstacles faced during the first filing season; opportunities for improving the new law’s administration; and what to expect moving forward. Field is a former Associate Academic Dean at UC Law SF and leads the school’s top-rated tax concentration program. Her recent paper was one of the popular downloads by tax scholars.

Manoj Viswanathan, Associate Professor, will speak Jan. 3 on a panel on works-in-progress in the field of taxation. He co-teaches the UC Law SF Business Tax Practicum for Social Enterprises. His research focuses on tax policy, economic development, and the regulation of tax-exempt organizations. In addition to past scholarship, he has two law review articles pending publication, “Lower Income Tax Planning,” forthcoming from the University of Illinois Law Review, and “The Qualified Small Business Stock Exclusion: How Startup Shareholders Get $10 Million (or more) Tax-Free,” forthcoming from Columbia Law Review.

Laurie Zimet, Director of Academic Support, will accept an award from the Academic Support section of AALS on Jan. 3 for her career-long contributions to legal education innovation.

Alice Armitage, Professor and Director of Applied Innovation, who oversees LexLab and the Startup Legal Garage, is speaking at the Jan. 4 Co-Plenary Session. She was the first female Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal and is a former entrepreneur. She recently published “Design Thinking: An Answer to the Impasse between Innovation and Regulation” in the Georgetown Technology Law Review.

Veena Dubal, Associate Professor, is speaking Jan. 4 on Labor Relations and Employment Law about the rise of alt-labor groups at Uber, Lyft, and Google plus the gig economy and proposals for state and locally based employment, labor, and discrimination law reforms. Her research focuses on the intersection of law, technology, and precarious work. She is widely quoted as a leading voice on the rights of workers in the gig economy.

Leo Martinez, Emeritus Albert Abramson Professor of Law, will attend the Jan. 4 meeting of the American Association of Law School’s House of Representatives meeting as parliamentarian. He is a past president of the AALS and served as UC Law SF’ Academic Dean for 12 years.

A full lineup of AALS speakers is available here. Follow the meeting on Twitter at #AALS2020.