Faculty Achievements: December 2020-January 2021

Faculty Achievements: December 2020-January 2021

Publications

Scott Dodson et al., “The Zooming of Federal Civil Litigation,” 104:3 Judicature 13 (fall 2020).

Veena Dubal, “An Uber Ambivalence: Employee Status, Worker Perspectives, and Regulation in the Gig Economy,” in Beyond the Algorithm: Qualitative Insights for Gig Work Regulation (Cambridge University Press 2021).

Veena Dubal, “AB5 para democracia: segurança econômica e a regulação do trabalho do bico na Califórnia,” in Trabalho de Futuro (Escola Superior do Ministério Público da União, República Federativa do Brasil 2020).

Veena Dubal, “The Time Politics of Home-Based Digital Piecework,” Center for Ethics Journal: Perspectives on Ethics, Symposium Issue “The Future of Work in the Age of Automation and AI” (2020).

Jared Ellias, “Estimating the Need for Additional Bankruptcy Judges in Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic,” 11 Harv. Bus. L. Rev. (Online Issue) 1 (2020) (with Benjamin Iverson & Mark Roe).

Robin Feldman, “The Devil in the Tiers,” in the peer reviewed Journal of Law and the Biosciences (2021).

Leo Martinez, New Appleman Insurance Law and Practice Guide (2021) (a 4-volume treatise with Marc S. Mayerson & Douglas R. Richmond).

Emily Murphy, “Evidence of memory from brain data,” in the peer reviewed Journal of Law and the Biosciences (December 2020) (with Jesse Rissman).

Dorit Reiss, “The COVID-19 Vaccine Dilemma,” Administrative Law Review (December 2020).

 

Works Accepted

Hadar Aviram, FESTER: Carceral Permeability and the California COVID-19 Prison Crisis (UC Press, forthcoming 2024) (with Chad Goerzen).

Scott Dodson, editor, The Legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Cambridge 2d ed. forthcoming 2021).

Robin Feldman, Book Review of Pharma: Greed, Lies, and the Poisoning of America by Gerald Posner, Governance (forthcoming 2021).

Dorit Reiss, “Employer-Mandated Vaccination for COVID-19,” American Journal of Public Health (forthcoming 2021) (with Mark Rotherstein and Wendy Parmet)

 

Blog Posts, Op-Eds, Magazine Columns, and Amicus Briefs

Jared Ellias’ paper, “Bankruptcy for Sale” (with Ken Ayotte), was the basis for the article “Hedge Funds Elbow Aside Creditors in Fast-Tracked Bankruptcies,” Bloomberg (December 17, 2020).

Jared Ellias led a group of bankruptcy scholars that lobbied Congress to increase the number of bankruptcy judges in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Their work resulted in the unanimous passage by both houses of Congress of the Bankruptcy Administration Improvement Act of 2020, which extends 25 temporary judgeships and which the President signed into law on January 13, 2020. Jared also advocated for allowing Chapter 11 firms to access the PPP loan program, which resulted in provisions in the stimulus bill that will provide a procedure for Chapter 11 firms to do so.

Veena Dubal, “Digital Piecework,” Dissent Magazine (Fall 2020).

Veena Dubal “Gig Workers are Employees,” New York Times (January 18, 2021) (with Juliet Schor).

Chimène Keitner submitted an amicus brief in the 9th Cir. case, WhatsApp v. NSO Group (December 23, 2020) (with Bill Dodge).

David Levine, “Revising the pardon power–let the Speaker and Congress have voices,” The Hill (January 16, 2021).

Dave Owen submitted an amicus brief, on behalf of seventy-four present and former members of Congress, in federal district court litigation challenging the Trump Administration’s attempt to narrow the geographic scope of Clean Water Act protections.

Aaron Rappaport, “Can Trump pardon himself? A UC Law SF law professor weighs in,” San Francisco Chronicle (December 31, 2020).

Dorit Reiss, “Mandating COVID-19 Testing and Vaccination in the Workplace,” The Regulatory Review (December 16, 2020).

Dorit Reiss, “COVID-19 vaccine liability–what are the legal facts and limits,” Skeptical Raptor (December 20, 2020).

Dorit Reiss, “COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation and the Anti-Vaccine Movement,” Harvard Law Bill of Heath Blog (January 20, 2021).

Dorit Reiss, “Massachusetts influenza vaccine mandate withdrawn–an analysis,” Skeptical Raptor (January 17, 2021).

Dorit Reiss, “COVID-19 vaccines employer mandates–legal basics for and against,” Skeptical Raptor (January 25, 2021).

Jodi Short, “Facile Formalism: Counting the Ways the Court’s Removal Jurisprudence Has Failed,” Yale Journal on Regulation’s Notice and Comment Blog (December 14, 2020).

 

Speaking

Ben Depoorter hosted the Artificial Intelligence in Digital Media panel (December 9, 2020), which featured experts from Microsoft, Facebook, Osborne Clark, Sidley Austin, Digital Arts Law, and the former CTO of Lucasfilm, and was attended by 134 lawyers.

Scott Dodson presented a paper titled “Article III and the Political-Question Doctrine” on an AALS panel (January 7, 2021).

Veena Dubal presented “Economic Security & the Regulation of Gig Work in California: From AB5 to Proposition 22” to the European Commission’s  European Centre of Expertise (ECE) in the field of Labour Law, Employment and Labour Market Policies at its Annual Conference: Exploring ways to improve working conditions of platform workers: the role of EU Labour law (January 25, 2021).

Veena Dubal presented “Gig Worker Organizing in the Pandemic” on the AALS Labor and Employment Section Panel (January 8, 2021).

Veena Dubal spoke on a Panel on the Consequences of Corporate Power on Working People  at Break’Em Up (featuring Bernie Sanders as Keynote) (December 15, 2020).

Jared Ellias presented “Bankruptcy Process for Sale” at the Wharton-Hastings Corporate Restructuring & Insolvency Seminar (CRIS).

Jared Ellias presented “Independent Directors in Distress” at the University of Toronto Law School Seminar on Law & Economics (January 12, 2021).

Jared Ellias presented on PG&E, wildfires, and California on the AALS panel, “Bankruptcy Law & The Problems of Democracy” (January 7, 2021).

Heather Field spoke on a panel about uncertainty in tax planning at USC’s 2021 Tax Institute.

Heather Field served as a commentator for “The Error Costs of Marriage” on AALS Tax Section’s New Voices in Taxation panel.

Chimène Keitner spoke on International Law (with Rosa Brooks) at the #NatSecGirlSquad Annual Conference (December 1, 2020).

Chimène Keitner spoke on Foreign Official Immunity: A Procedural Compass (with Bill Dodge), ASIL International Law in Domestic Courts (Virtual) Workshop (December 4, 2020).

Chimène Keitner presented Prosecuting Foreign States (forthcoming, VJIL) at Temple International Law Colloquium (January 20, 2021).

Chimène Keitner delivered the Alfred and Hanna Fromm Chairholder Lecture on Sovereignty, Humanity, and Justice: Reflections on International Law and Foreign Sovereign Immunity, UC Law SF (Jan 26, 2021).

Dave Owen presented “The Law of Groundwater Recharge” at the Water Law Works-in-Progress Symposium.

Joel Paul spoke on the political economy of the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act at the ClassCrits Workshop Series (January 22, 2021).

Sheila Purcell co-presented (with alums Howard Herman and Claudia Bernard) on “Court Alternative Dispute Resolution” to a global cohort of JAMS, International Weinstein Fellows (December 1, 2020).

Sheila Purcell co-presented (with adjunct John Dean) on “Ethics in Negotiation” to 1000 participants nationwide at the Practicing Law Institute’s daylong Negotiation training (January 6, 2020).

Jodi Short presented “Auditor Independence and Outsourcing: Aligning Incentives to Mitigate Shilling and Shirking” at the AALS Open Source Program on The Power of Supply Chains (January 5, 2021).

Jodi Short commented on “Administering Emergencies,” on AALS Administrative Law Section’s New Voices in Administrative Law panel.

 

Grants and Awards

Veena Dubal, in collaboration with colleagues from Oxford University, received a Ford Foundation grant of $139,505 for a project titled “Fairwork United States: Towards Decent Working Conditions for Gig Workers”.

Jared Ellias received a $60,000 grant from the American Bankruptcy Institute to support research projects that will study the impact of bankruptcy filings on firm performance.

Morris Ratner (project lead), Stefano Moscato, Margaret Greer, and Elizabeth McGriff received a $150,000 grant from AccessLex to analyze bar success interventions over a ten-year period, with special emphasis on interventions that improved outcomes for at-risk students.

Jessica Vapnek received an additional $25,000 from USAID (via Tetra Tech DPK) to be added to UC Law SF’ existing $25,000 subcontract to implement training-of-trainer courses (on legal clinics, the US legal system, and legislative drafting) for two law schools and the General Prosecutor’s Office in Uzbekistan.

 

Prominent Citations

Jared Ellias’ article, Regulating Bankruptcy Bonuses, was cited by Judge Robert Drain (S.D.N.Y.) to inform his analysis of a proposed bankruptcy bonus plan in the high-profile Purdue Pharma bankruptcy. Judge Drain took the extraordinary step of spelling out “E-L-L-I-A-S” on the record for the court reporter to ensure proper credit.