Berkeley Law's Giving Impact Report 2021-2022

Giving Impact Report

Thank You to Our Generous Community of Donors!

PHOTO BY DARIUS RILEY

Letter from the Dean

Dear Friends,

Each year it gives me great pleasure to take this opportunity to convey my gratitude — and that of the entire Berkeley Law community — for your generous support. We hope that this publication gives you a sense of how important your gifts are, and what you have accomplished with these moments of generosity.

Because each of you reading this letter is the kind of person who strives to make a difference in this world, it gives us immense pride to report back about many accomplishments.

Since I became dean of Berkeley Law five years ago, the budget for financial aid has increased from just under $15 million to $25.8 million. Your philanthropy helps make this possible even as the net amount of state support has now dipped below 6% of our operating budget.

We continue to hire at an astounding rate. For the current school year, we added six new standouts — two senior scholars, three junior faculty, and a clinical professor. The law school has made 28 faculty hires since 2017, reflecting our commitment to provide our students with extraordinary training by recruiting and retaining exceptional educators.

Our incoming 1L class has the highest credentials of any Berkeley Law class. It is also wonderfully diverse: 54% identify as students of color, including 13 Native American students; and 20% are the first in their family

to graduate from college. We know they will meet our expectations and enhance the intellectually stimulating and caring environment that Berkeley Law is known for.

In saying “farewell” to the class of 2022 last May, and to the classes of 2020 and 2021 in their heartening make-up commencement ceremony, we celebrated their record-breaking hours of pro bono work, their resilience in overcoming the pandemic’s huge obstacles to learning and thriving, and their deep engagement in the world beyond our walls. I agree with Professor Khiara M. Bridges, our faculty speaker at commencement, who said we know they will “Do Justice.”

As we begin this new semester, one that on the surface appears to be “back to normal” with in-person instruction, lunch talks, and trial competitions, we do so in the face of sobering economic, political, and public health challenges. Yet I remain optimistic knowing that the 1,367 J.D., LL.M, J.S.D., and Ph.D. candidates walking the halls with me are preparing to triumph over these obstacles. I invite you to visit the school, attend alumni events, earn your CLE hours with our incredible faculty, and continue to feel part of our special community.

Every gift is a vote of confidence in your school’s ability to carry out its central mission of excellence and public service. Your support of the many facets of a legal education, including our core needs, inspires us every day. Please enjoy this Giving Impact Report, and know that we are immensely grateful for you.

Warm Regards, Erwin Chemerinsky Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law

Fiscal Year 2022: July 1, 2021 - June 30, 2022

Donor households

School operating budget financed through gifts and endowment income

Raised through philanthropy 21%*

J.D. alumni giving participation rate

*Includes outright gifts, pledges, or pledge payments to all law funds. If a couple are both law grads, they are counted as two donors, not one.

$96,486

Academic-year 2021-22 full cost of attendance for J.D. candidates, including tuition, fees, books, health insurance, and estimated living expenses (CA resident)

$25.8 million

School invested in student support: scholarships, loan repayment assistance, and summer public interest fellowships in FY22

$7.3 million

Donors committed in FY22 to financial aid funds including endowments, operating funds, and bequests

954

Donors contributed to financial aid funds in FY22

971

J.D. students out of 1,020 received financial aid in FY22

$149,846

Average total debt load for Class of 2022 graduates

Thank you for supporting our Students

Supporting Berkeley Law helps provide summer stipends that enable committed students to do extraordinary public interest work — work that elevates their legal skills and provides much-needed help to people in need.

Tapping Into His Rural Roots

Billy Bradley ’24 is the first in his family to work towards a professional degree, and has leadership positions at five school organizations and journals this year. Former student government president at Florida State University-Panama City, he grew up in a poor rural area near the Florida-Alabama border and recalls how his “entire community really stepped up” after his mother suffered a series of strokes resulting in a disability.

“My grandparents took us in, my church gave us fellowship and financial help, my high school teachers spent countless hours going over my college applications alongside me, and my friends got together with me every weekend to fill out scholarship applications,” Bradley says.

He never forgot the charity he received from so many people.

“Every obstacle I overcame was as a direct result of the overwhelming support I received from others,” Bradley says. “I applied to intern with Legal Services Alabama so I could give back to those communities that so freely gave to me.”

Over the summer he researched statutes and case law pertaining to payday loans and other issues affecting people in poverty, and helped create scripts for a video series explaining nuanced legal concepts to Alabama residents in an understandable way.

Bradley also created a Google My Map and spreadsheet identifying the demographics of each state county to pinpoint areas most in need, assisted people who otherwise couldn’t afford to have their criminal records expunged to receive a second chance, and helped transgender Alabamians change their birth name.

“Coming from a poor rural community, I understand that it’s sometimes just not possible to expect people to drive to the nearest large town — and not everyone has the access to technology that would allow for remote assistance,” he says. “Having access to an attorney that they otherwise would not have been able to afford makes a huge difference in peoples’ lives. I’m grateful for the opportunity to help others in the same difficult situations I saw growing up.”

Every obstacle I overcame was as a direct result of the overwhelming support I received from others. I applied to intern with Legal Services Alabama so I could give back to those communities that so freely gave to me.”

— BILLY BRADLEY ’24 “

“

“These are not simulations. They are practicing as student lawyers with all the responsibility that lawyers have, but with the safety net of experienced clinical supervisors.”

Ty Alper, Clinical Professor of Law; Co-Director, Death Penalty Clinic; Co-Director, Clinical Program

Death Penalty Clinic students Max Endicott ’22, Aysha Spencer ’22, and Maddy Pilgrim ’22 (left to right) helped produce a report analyzing more than 200 Kansas cases that demonstrated the courts have failed to reduce racial discrimination by prosecutors in jury selection.

PHOTO BY BRITTANY HOSEA-SMALL

Thank you for supporting our Clinical Program

Students are drawn more than ever to Berkeley Law’s hands-on Clinical Program, which has embarked on significant growth this year. The surging program — which currently houses six in-house and eight community-based clinics — plans to add three more in-house clinics and four clinical professors over the next five years, and enrolls more than 300 students annually.

“Clinics used to be something law students would discover,” says International Human Rights Law Clinic Co-Director Roxanna Altholz ’99, who just took over leading the program as co-director with Death Penalty Clinic Co-Director Ty Alper. “Now, they’re the reason why many students come to law school. Clinics are labs of justice that are sites of innovation, and also places where students are given the building blocks for a career that has meaning — not just to them, but for their communities. There’s no better place to learn lawyering skills.”

Led by faculty members and practitioners with deep expertise in their fields, the 14 clinics offer students a complement to their traditional classroom experience with weekly seminars and casework while serving disenfranchised individuals and communities.

Students consistently contribute vital work to groundbreaking reports and legal filings, simultaneously helping the clinics advance racial, economic, and social justice while offering direct legal experience.

Last year, for example, Death Penalty Clinic students helped investigate peremptory challenges in Kansas criminal trials, East Bay Community Law Center students participated in a campaign to end civil assessments (additional fees levied if certain fines for traffic or criminal violations aren’t paid on time) in California, and Environmental Law Clinic students researched racial disparities in exposure to toxic chemicals.

Also, International Human Rights Law Clinic students worked on a criminal complaint against the Mexican attorney general’s office for illegally surveilling human rights defenders, New Business Community Law Clinic students helped a small business owner move her restaurant online during COVID-19, Policy Advocacy Clinic students supported a national campaign to abolish juvenile criminal legal system fees, and Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic students prepared a fellow student to argue in federal court for public access to surveillance record requests.

Alper, who joined Berkeley Law with Altholz in 2005, sees clinics especially appealing to students in today’s political climate: “They’re questioning whether the institutions they believed in can actually work to protect democracy and justice.”

Death Penalty Clinic

East Bay Community Law Center

Environmental Law Clinic

International Human Rights Law Clinic

New Business Community Law Clinic

Policy Advocacy Clinic

Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic

300+

Students participated in clinics last school year 8th

The Clinical Program’s national ranking by U.S. News & World Report

4

Clinical professors to be added in the next five years

3

New in-house clinics to be added in the next four years

New faculty members Andrew Baker, Stephanie Campos-Bui ’14, Sharon Jacobs, David Hausman, and Emily Rong Zhang join a wave of recent hires that has greatly bolstered Berkeley Law’s teaching ranks.

Thank you for supporting our Faculty

When making the leap into legal academia, Professor Abbye Atkinson was drawn to issues of inequality, race, and gender. But early on, some told her to avoid those topics or risk being pigeonholed.

Atkinson persisted, focusing on how debt — especially high-cost borrowing — can further impoverish already poor people. Published in top journals including the Stanford Law Review and Columbia Law Review, she links how debtor and credit laws and policies pose additional hurdles to low-income communities, often drawing wealth out of these areas.

New Hires for 2022-23

Academic Year

Assistant Professor Andrew Baker

Assistant Clinical Professor Stephanie Campos-Bui ’14

Professor Hanoch Dagan (will begin teaching next year)

Assistant Professor David Hausman

Professor Sharon Jacobs

Assistant Professor Emily Rong Zhang

In the process, she’s become a treasured teacher and a widelyrespected scholar, even testifying before the U.S. Senate Banking Committee last year. In June, she won the American Constitution Society’s first

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Scholar Award, which honors a junior academic who has demonstrated scholarly excellence that advances how society can be more just and equal.

“I love that I’ve done what was in contradiction to that advice, that I’ve focused on what is meaningful to me, and that’s it’s working,” Atkinson says.

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky calls her research “truly pathbreaking in looking at the effect of the law, and particularly consumer law, on those who are economically struggling.”

Atkinson teaches Contracts and courses deeply connected to her work, including Poverty Law and Policy and Debt, Discrimination, and Inequality. She finds it validating to be linked to Judge Ginsburg’s legacy.

“In the earlier parts of her career, she was really battling against those who probably told her, ‘Don’t go to law school, don’t be a judge, don’t write about gender’ — lots of don’ts,” Atkinson says. “And she was pushing forward with what was meaningful and important to her.”

Ted Mermin ’96, who co-caught the Consumer Law and Economic Justice Workshop with Atkinson last spring, notes that her work criticizing the use of credit as part of the social safety net is already nationally known.

“It’s cited not only by legal scholars but also academics in other disciplines,” Mermin says. “Abbye is still pre-tenure, yet she already serves as a guiding light for her colleagues around the country and, as I can personally attest, inside the law school.”

Abbye Atkinson

PHOTO BY BRITTANY HOSEA-SMALL

Thank you for supporting our Research Centers

Berkeley Law is home to 26 research centers and initiatives, and donor support plays a vital role in helping their faculty and researchers advance solutions to wide-ranging challenges facing our society. Here are just a few recent examples of the centers’ work:

Our Berkeley Center for Law & Technology hosted the inaugural Berkeley IP & Tech Month in April, which offered 30 virtual sessions led by top scholars and tech industry experts. All sessions were eligible for CLE credit, which the center has bundled with many others onto a new platform so practitioners can access them — and snag their CLE credits — anytime.

Our Center for Law, Energy & the Environment produced detailed reports with strategies for promoting the equitable and affordable adoption of heat pump retrofits in existing buildings, creating equity in California’s electric vehicle transition, and proposing ways to better remove debris and residual material from forested areas to mitigate the state’s wildfires.

Our Berkeley Center for Law and Business helped form an international partnership that enabled 100 Ukrainian lawyers to take our executive education program’s Corporate Finance Fundamentals course, which normally costs $1,000, for free. The center also hosted a packed, innovative symposium at SFMOMA that examined the intersection of art, law, and finance.

Our Statewide Database played the lead role in California’s 2021 redistricting. To minimize the division of cities, counties, neighborhoods, and communities of interest, it created an online mapping tool and a redistricting plugin that allowed users to access other helpful mapping tools. These tools were translated into over a dozen languages.

Our Human Rights Center worked with counterparts at San Jose State and UC Berkeley’s Afghan Students Association to launch an ambitious program that is bringing threatened Afghan scholars to the Bay Area for fellowships. The center also provided summer fellowships for 21 students who contributed their energy and expertise to help human rights organizations worldwide.

Our newly-created Center for Law and Work hosted an event on the future of universal family and medical leave. It also proposed language for California’s Fast Food Accountability and Standards Recovery Act that would align the bill’s provisions with its intent to address pervasive labor abuses in the fast food industry — and ensure meaningful remedies for workers whose rights are violated.

Thank you for supporting Scholars at Risk

UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center, in partnership with San Jose State’s Human Rights Institute and the UC Berkeley Afghan Student Association, created the Afghanistan “Scholars at Risk Fund” on behalf of our campuses to respond to the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and the urgent need to help journalists, lawyers, and other academics — especially women — flee the country.

Through the generosity of hundreds of donors, we have raised $351,087 — the most successful crowdfunding campaign in UC Berkeley history. All of these funds will support 6 at-risk Afghan scholars and 18 family members to come to UC Berkeley and San Jose State. Funds support legal and visa fees, travel, and modest stipends.

Afghan migrants take part in a rally outside the U.S. Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan on Aug. 19, 2021, requesting Kyrgyz citizenship or resettlement to the U.S. or Canada.

AP PHOTO/VLADIMIR VORONIN

Participating Organizations Fiscal Year 2022

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Amazon.com, Inc

Arnold & Porter

Baker Botts LLP

Bartko Zankel Bunzel & Miller

Boies Schiller Flexner LLP

Cooley LLP

Cox Castle & Nicholson LLP

Crowell & Moring LLP

Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP

Dentons US LLP

Durie Tangri LLP

Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

Farella Braun + Martel LLP

Fenwick & West LLP

Fish & Richardson P.C.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP

Google LLC

Greenberg Traurig LLP

Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian LLP

Hanson Bridgett LLP

Hogan Lovells

Intel Corporation

Jenner & Block LLP

Jones Day

K&L Gates LLP

King & Spalding LLP

Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Lane Powell PC

Latham & Watkins LLP

Littler Mendelson P.C.

Lyft Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP

McDermott Will & Emery Meta Platforms, Inc

Microsoft Corporation Milbank LLP

Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP

O’Melveny & Myers LLP

Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

Perkins Coie LLP

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

Proskauer Rose LLP

PWC

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP

Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP

Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP

Sidley Austin LLP

Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP

Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

Uber Venable LLP

Vinson & Elkins LLP

Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger

White & Case LLP

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Thank you to our Alumni Workplace Challenge Volunteers

Berkeley Law’s annual workplace giving program owes its success to the 85 Alumni Workplace Challenge captains — at 61 law firms and companies — who ran a successful 2022 campaign that yielded $890,875 from 577 donors. We are grateful for their advocacy and that of the program’s cochairs, Berkeley Law Alumni Association Fundraising Chair Michael L. Charlson ’85 (Vinson & Elkins LLP), Monique Liburd ’08 (Google LLC), Anna Remis ’07 (Sidley Austin LLP), and David Zapolsky ’88 (Amazon.com, Inc).

We are delighted to recognize the alumni captains and organizations who placed at the top of their mod in the 2022 campaign.

Mod A | 41+ alumni

O’Melveny & Myers: Anna Pletcher ’05 and Katie Sinclair ’20

Mod B | 30-40 alumni

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman: Rachel Horsch ’99 and Theresa Lee ’03

Mod C | 20-29 alumni

Davis Wright Tremaine: Kenneth Payson ’96 Farella Braun + Martel LLP: Janice Reicher ’12 and Nathan Anderson ’16

Mod D | 15-19 alumni

Cox Castle & Nicholson: Scott Birkey ’00 and Andrea Rifenbark ’03 Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger: Osa Wolff ’97 and Caitlin Brown ’17

Mod E | 10-14 alumni

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld: Deb Festa ’99 and Alissa Miller ’01

Jenner & Block: Sarah F. Weiss ’10 Vinson & Elkins LLP: Michael L. Charlson ’85 and Robert Landicho ’13

Mod F | 7-9 alumni

Baker Botts: Sam Dibble ’98 and Karina Smith ’12 Uber: Jen Zhao ’13

Mod G | 2-6 alumni

Bartko Zankel Bunzel & Miller: Ben Riley ’83 Lane Powell PC: Cozette T. Tran-Caffee ’12 Polsinelli: Richard K. Rifenbark ’01 Walkup, Melodia, Kelly & Schoenberger: Spencer J. Pahlke ’07

$25.8

more than twice

Year

$10.5 million

Berkeley Law Alumni Association 2021-2022

Thank you to our Board of Directors

Carly Alameda ’06, President

Karen Boyd ’96, Past President

Michael Charlson ’85, Chair, Fundraising Committee

Paul Clark ’80

Jami Floyd ’89

Hon. Terry Friedman ’76

Ricardo García ’95

Joanna Goldenstein ’97, Co-Vice President

Lillian Hardy ’06

Jeffrey Harleston ’88

Yury Kapgan ’01, Chair, REACh Committee

Erika Kelton ’87

John Kuo ’88

David Larwood ’86

Monique Liburd ’08

José Luis López ’09

Tam Ma ’11

Heather Mewes ’99

Nicole Ozer ’03 Spencer Pahlke ’07

Jay Purcell ’11, Secretary and Chair, Outreach Committee

Smita Rajmohan ’14, Chair, Mentorship Committee

Jennifer Romano ’97

Cara Sandberg ’12, Co-Vice President

Quyen Ta ’03

Kim Thompson ’90

Karin Wang ’95

David Zapolsky ’88

Naomi Spoelman ’22, Student Representative

Jonathan Simon ’87, Faculty Representative

Thank you to our Alumni Volunteers

Volunteers are one of Berkeley Law’s great assets. Their reach is far and wide, from student recruitment to alumni networking events around the globe. Thanks to all of our graduates and friends who devoted time and energy to Berkeley Law during this last year.

• Admitted Students Recruitment

• Advisory Boards for Many of the Law School’s Research Centers

• Alumni Guide Program

• Alumni Workplace Challenge Fundraising Campaign Captains

• Berkeley Law Alumni Association Board of Directors

• Career Mentoring

• Distinguished Speakers

• Journal and Student Organization Alumni Volunteers

• Regional Alumni Engagement Chapters (REACh) Leadership

• Reunion Class Campaign Volunteers

Managing Editors

Jennifer Friedman

Holly Johnson

Creative Direction, Design & Layout

Laurie Frasier

Contributing Writers

Andrew Cohen

Sarah Weld

Financial Analyst

David Whiteneck

Ways to Give

Make a Gift Online law.berkeley.edu/giving

Make a Gift by Phone

You may call the University Donor Gift Services (DGS) Team with your credit card information at 510.643.9789.

The DGS Team can also answer general inquiries including taxpayer identification from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday-Friday.

Make a Gift by Mail

Download our giving form to mail in with your cash or check: tinyurl.com/give-to-law

Make check payable to the “UC Berkeley Foundation”. Mail checks and form to: Berkeley Law c/o UC Berkeley Gift Services 1995 University Avenue, Suite 400 Berkeley, CA 94704-1070

Make Gifts of Stock or Securities

Please contact Tracy Miller at givesecurities@berkeley.edu or 510.642.6791.

For any questions about making a gift, please call Holly Johnson in the Berkeley Law Development and Alumni Relations Office: 510.642.9045 or email Gifts4Law@law.berkeley.edu.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY SCHOOL OF LAW DEVELOPMENT & ALUMNI RELATIONS 224 LAW BUILDING BERKELEY, CA 94720-7200

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID University of California, Berkeley

On the cover: From left to right, Pream Akkas ’23, Yara Slaton ’23, Grace Li ’25, Kendrick Peterson ’24, Ximena Velázquez-Arenas ’23, Sewit Beraki ’24

PHOTO BY DARIUS RILEY