In the News - October 12, 2020

Media Highlights

Uber and Gig Companies Spend Nearly $200 Million to Knock Down an Employment Law They Don’t Like—and it Might Work
Washington Post—October 9, 2020
Veena Dubal: The gig companies are following a long history in California of powerful groups “manipulating the way the public understands propositions. They are working to trick the public … into voting in favor of this. And they’re getting traction.”

Pfizer Suit Could Be an ‘Earthquake’ for Drug Pricing
Barron’s—October 9, 2020
Robin Feldman: Tafamidis is an example of broader problems with the orphan-drug designation, which has become a “runaway train” driving drug prices higher. The designation was never intended to apply in cases where companies can generate a large profit.

Surviving the Gig Economy
India Post—October 8, 2020
Veena Dubal: “Prop. 22 is the most dangerous labor law that I’ve seen in my lifetime.”

The $185 Million Campaign to Keep Uber and Lyft Drivers as Contractors in California
CNN—October 8, 2020
Veena Dubal: “There is a strong likelihood that if [Prop 22] passes, it would create lower labor standards across the board for the delivery and logistics industry.”

Wild West Gig Economy is an Unfriendly Job Market
Tennessee Tribune—October 8, 2020
Veena Dubal: “It removes time-based employment. You are not on the clock unless you are driving a fare.”

5 Things to Know About a COVID Vaccine: It Won’t Be a ‘Magic Wand’
Kaiser Health News—October 5, 2020
Dorit Reiss: Certain employers, such as hospitals or food production plants, could require their workers to be vaccinated, but a federal mandate is highly unlikely and probably would be unconstitutional.

How Uber and Lyft Are Buying Labor Laws
The American Prospect—October 5, 2020
Veena Dubal: “It’s the biggest threat since the 1930s that America has seen to the social safety net, minimum wage, and access to secure pay.”

Digital Piecework
Dissent—Fall 2020
Veena Dubal: Homework and piece pay in the garment industry were largely abolished by the global labor struggles that preceded the New Deal. Silicon Valley capitalists have brought the model back.

What Happens if Trump Can’t Perform his Duties? UC Law SF Professor Explains
Inside CA Politics/KTLA—October 4, 2020
Rory Little: Little discusses what can happen if President Donald Trump is unable to fulfill his duties as he is treated for COVID-19.

Working Mothers on the Edge
CBS Sunday Morning—October 4, 2020
Joan Williams: “They’re doing their own job, their childcare worker’s job, and their children’s teacher’s jobs. We’ve had a 250% increase in people calling us.”

Next 7 Days Critical for President Trump’s COVID-19 Recovery, UCSF Doctor Says
ABC7—October 3, 2020
Hadar Aviram: “This could play either to his detriment with people who would be accusing him of downplaying the pandemic and then sort of learning from his own mistakes, or he could ride on a wave of sympathy from behind and recover the problems from his current campaign.”

Trump Tested Positive for COVID. If Donors at his Fundraiser Get It, Can They Sue the President?
NBC News—October 3, 2020
Shanin Specter: The tight rules that will prevent civil recoveries for most virus transmissions will also prevent the appropriate level of legal responsibility needed to compel safe behavior. That should concern us all.

Neiman Marcus: How a Creditor’s Crusade Against Private Equity Power Went Wrong
Financial Times—October 3, 2020
Jared Ellias: “There used to be a sense that private equity firms needed to take care of the lenders that funded their LBOs. Now, they don’t seem to care at all and they have no qualms about burning their lenders really badly.”

I Fought the (Anti-Vaccine) Law
Voices for Vaccines—September 28, 2020
Dorit Reiss: Reiss discusses what sorts of lawsuits are being filed, why they are being filed, and how these lawsuits are connected to harassment (both legal and petty) of pro-vaccine advocates.

College and Community Stories

UC Law SF Partners with Urban Alchemy for Safer Streets
“We wanted to do something progressive in this area. Urban Alchemy has a strong reputation and some enticing success stories.”

UC Law SF Hosts Third Annual Diversity Enrollment Event
“This is a great time to be in law school and become a lawyer. You see it every day in the headlines. We need more people to speak out about what’s right, and be advocates for equity, for so many different causes and so many different people.”

An Insider’s Take on the Supreme Court Term
UC Law SF held its annual U.S. Supreme Court review and preview, packed with analysis from Professors Radhika Rao, Jodi Short, Matt Coles and Rory Little on what was an unprecedented 2019 term and what is predicted as a riveting session that began Oct. 5.

November 2020 Ballot Measures Explained
UC Law SF faculty members have prepared these short (3-10 minutes) explanations of each of the November statewide ballot measures to help voters understand the current law and the proposed changes.

Startup Legal Garage Celebrates a Nobel for Jennifer Doudna
In 2012, Dr. Jennifer A. Doudna came to the Startup Legal Garage through QB3, UC’s hub for innovation and entrepreneurship in the life sciences. This week she became part of the first all-woman team to win a Nobel Prize.

Scholarly Leadership

Scott Dodson, “Personal Jurisdiction in Comparative Context,” American Journal of Comparative Law

Veena Dubal: Spoke at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology (BCLT)/Berkeley Technology Law Journal (BTLJ) Law & Tech Speaker Series on “Uber, Lyft, and the Future of Gig Work in California.”

Veena Dubal: Spoke about her article, Digital Piecework, in the current issue of Dissent magazine, with guest editors Katrina Forrester and Moira Weigel. Co-sponsored by Logic magazine.

Tim Greaney, “A Window into the US Healthcare System,” ABA Human Rights Magazine

Joan Williams: Spoke in conversation with Dean Malcolm Clemens Young at Grace Cathedral on “Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America,” as part of its Forum series on faith, ethics and culture.

Upcoming Events

Faculty Colloquium: Oct. 13, The 2014 Unicorns: A Postmortem
Abe Cable will present a work-in-progress tentatively titled “Time Enough for Counting: A Unicorn Retrospective.” The article tracks outcomes for the 2014 startup unicorns. Open to the public.

CREJ, UCSF/UC Law SF Consortium: Oct. 14, Racial Health Disparities: Economic Injustice as an Underlying Condition of COVID
Evelyn Rangel is among the speakers in this panel moderated by Dorit Reiss. Panelists in this program will discuss the evidence base linking economic and racial inequality to health inequity, the ways in which COVID compounds those longstanding inequities, and the role of law as both a positive and negative force in addressing them.

CNDR: Oct. 14, Lunch and Learn Series
Grande Lum, former director of CNDR, discusses his book, America’s Peacemakers, the story of a federal agency within the Department of Justice that assists and mediates in communities as they reconcile and recover from discrimination, hate crimes, and unrest based on issues like race and religion.

Alumni Office: Oct. 15, Election Security and Voter Protection Series
Barbi Appelquist ’04, UC Law SF Alumni Association Board of Governors, moderates a panel featuring Perry Grossman, Senior Staff Attorney, Voting Rights Project; Anya McMurray, Senior Director, Strategy and Policy, Immigration at Emerson Collective; and Terry Ao Minnis, Senior Director of Census and Voting Programs.

CREJ: Oct. 16, Diversity in Legal Thought and Practice Speaker Series
Adjunct Professor and Center for Racial and Economic Justice Affiliated Scholar T. Anansi Wilson will present two of their papers, “Furtive Blackness: On Blackness and Being” and “The Strict Scrutiny of Black and BlaQueer Life.” Open to the public.

Veena Dubal: Oct. 19, Precarity and the Gig Economy
Dubal in conversation with Gloria Steinem Chair Naomi Klein on the links between technology and the growing precarity of labor. Sponsored by the Institute For Women’s Leadership, Rutgers University.

Alumni Office: Oct. 22, Lunch with the Expert
Viviana Waisman ’95 founded Women’s Link Worldwide in 2001 in response to her perception that there is a need to create and disseminate new mechanisms for the application of human rights standards to advance women’s rights in court.

CNDR: Oct. 28, Lunch and Learn Series
Professor John Lande will describe how practitioners can combine supposedly inconsistent negotiation models based on the framework his new book, “Litigation Interest and Risk Assessment: Help Your Clients Make Good Litigation Decisions.”