T h e M a g a z i n e o f S a n ta C l a r a U n i v e r s i t y S c h o o l o f L aw
Law Santa Clara
Lessons From Haiti On their journey to learn more about the Raboteau Massacre, Santa Clara Law students Caitlin Robinett and Daniel Zazueta found out how complicated social justice can be.
6 A Tradition of Inspiring
Lawyers Who Serve
16 Private Practice,
Pro Community
20 Celebration of Leadership and Achievement
S P RING 2 0 1 0 Vo l u m e 1 6 N u m b e r 2
dea n ’s message
Dear Friends of Santa Clara Law:
I
C H ARLES BARRY
am pleased to introduce this issue of Santa Clara Law, the law school’s magazine for its graduates and friends. This issue is the third in a series highlighting the key curricular and programmatic areas of emphasis at the law school. Past issues have described the law school’s considerable programs, faculty, and curriculum in the areas of intellectual property and technology law and international and comparative law (visit law.scu.edu/sclaw for online archives). This issue describes the law school’s substantial commitment—in faculty resources, courses, and programs—to the area of public interest law and social justice. The articles here describe the law school’s many excellent programs that introduce law students to the important work that lawyers do to serve the public and to improve the quality of life and the availability of justice to the poor and marginalized in our communities. It is also appropriate that this issue, with its emphasis on the law school’s many contributions to addressing community problems and the need for more public service, announces plans for the law school’s centennial anniversary celebration in 2011. As Santa Clara Law and other Jesuit university law schools celebrate a century of education and service, it is helpful to briefly reflect on that tradition, as described in the mission of Jesuit higher education, of educating “leaders with the potential for influencing and transforming society.” Infused with the education mission of the Society of Jesus, the law school has a long, distinguished history of educating “the whole person” for ethical concern and competence, a deep commitment to justice, and service to an increasingly global society. I hope that you agree with me that the articles and commentary in this issue present a thoughtful and compelling look at the law school’s legacy of service and educational mission. I recently formed a special committee, chaired by Associate Dean Mary Emery ’63 and Ted Biagini ’63, to plan for the law school’s centennial celebration activities and I look forward to informing our graduates and friends on the plans for the law school centennial. Moreover, I look forward to welcoming many of you back to the law school during our celebration of a century of service and pursuit of our mission. Sincerely,
JULIA YAFFEE, M.A. ’87, M.A. ’97 Senior Assistant Dean for External Affairs Elizabeth Kelley Gillogly b.a. ’93 Editor LARRY SOKOLOFF ’92 Assistant Editor Michelle Waters Web Editor carole vendrick Copy Editor Amy Kremer Gomersall b.a. ’88 Art in Motion Art Director, Designer Charles Barry Santa Clara University Photographer Santa Clara Law, founded in 1911 on the site of Santa Clara University, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution, is dedicated to educating lawyers who lead, with a commitment to excellence, ethics, and social justice. One of the nation’s most diverse law schools, Santa Clara Law offers its 975 students an academically rigorous program, including graduate degrees in international law and intellectual property law; a combined J.D./MBA degree; a combined J.D./MSIS degree; and certificates in intellectual property law, international law, and public interest and social justice law. Santa Clara Law is located in the world-class business center of Silicon Valley, and is distinguished nationally for its top-ranked program in intellectual property. For more information, see law.scu.edu. If you have any questions or comments, please contact the Law Alumni Office by phone at 408-551-1748; fax 408-554-5201; e-mail lawalumni@lawmail.scu. edu, or visit law.scu.edu/sclaw. Or write Law Alumni Office, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053. The diverse opinions expressed in Santa Clara Law do not necessarily represent the views of the editor or the official policy of Santa Clara University. Copyright 2010 by Santa Clara University. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Donald J. Polden
Dean
Cert no. XXX-XXX-000
AIM 03/10 10,000
Santa Clara Law is printed on paper and at a printing facility certified by Scientific Certification Systems to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards. From forest management to paper production to printing, FSC certification represents the highest social and environmental standards. The paper contains 10 percent post-consumer recovered fiber.
contents
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18 5 A Leader in Estate Planning
By Asa Pi t t man ’ 0 9 a n d Mich ael Wallace Santa Clara
Law’s annual Kasner Symposum, one of the largest estate planning symposiums in Northern California, honors the late Jerry Kasner, a mentor and professor at the law school for 37 years.
6 A Tradition of Inspiring Lawyers Who Serve
By S usan Vo gel With dedicated professors and unique,
hands-on clinical opportunities, Santa Clara Law has a long history of educating lawyers who serve as agents of change in their communities.
14 ADA Advocate
By S usan Vo geL Cynthia Waddell ’94 has spent her legal career
fighting for justice and access for those with disabilities.
16 Private Practice, Pro Community
By S usan Vo gel Many alumni in private practice spend
20 law alumni events 22 class action 29 Closing Arguments CA P TION
Above left, Kirsten Love Boscia ’08, who serves as staff attorney for Bay Area Legal Aid, is an example of the many Santa Clara Law graduates who serve others. Visit law.scu.edu/sclaw for her profile. Right, on their research trip to Haiti, Santa Clara Law students Daniel Zazueta and Caitlin Robinett (back, center) met with victims in Raboteau to hear personal accounts of the Raboteau Massacre.
significant time helping those in need.
18 Lessons From Haiti
By D aniel Zaz ue ta ’ 1 0 an d Cai t li n Rob i ne t t ’10 On a journey to dig deeper into one part of Haiti’s history, two Santa
Clara Law students discovered how complicated social justice can be.
27 Competing in IP
By Asa Pi t t man ’ 0 9 An experienced attorney in China,
2 Law Briefs
Alex Zhang ’06 earned his LL.M. to help him compete in China’s emerging IP market.
cover photo by charles barry
On the Web Visit us online for links to more photos and Caitlin's blog from Haiti, a blog by law students who traveled to New Orleans for Alternative Spring Break, and alumni profiles of Kirsten Love Boscia ’08 (above left), and Paul Grossman ’97, who works in biotech. Also online we have extensive news about recent faculty publications and accomplishments.
spring 2010 santa clara law 1
law b riefs
High Tech Career Fair
S
ROB BABCOCK
anta Clara Law, consistently ranked as one of the most prominent Intellectual Property law schools in the country, welcomed more than two dozen firms for the 2010 High Tech Law Career Fair in February. More than 175 students attended the popular career networking event.
Two Recent Graduates Join Santa Clara Law
V
iva Harris ’04 is the assistant director of academic development. She oversees the first year Academic Success Program, teaches skills workshops, and provides individual counseling to students at all levels. Harris teaches Lawyering Skills to first year spring semester ASP students and Advanced Legal Writing: Analysis to second year students in the fall. Prior to joining Santa Clara Law, Harris litigated in the areas of land use, real estate, and construction law and also performed transactional work involving real estate law. She was an editor for the Daily Case Report, where she produced analyses of federal and state appellate court opinions. Jennifer Cullen Babcock ’06 is the new assistant director of Law Career Services. She has practiced in both large and small law firms in the Bay Area, including a few years with Heller Ehrman doing compensation and tax law and a year at a small law firm doing estate planning. She works with 3Ls and recent graduates in all aspects of the job search.
2 santa clara law spring 2010
Viva Harris ’04
READ ONLINE | “I remember my first week of law school vividly. I remember doing my first briefs, stressed out I wasn’t ‘doing it right,’ taking hours to read just a few pages, and other fun stuff like that. To contrast, I can’t remember being stressed at all during my first week back, other than feeling strangely relaxed about this whole law school thing.” —Alex Ross, 1L
excerpts from Santa Clara Law bloggers
“...just realized that you know you’re a 1L when you celebrate the fact that you get to spend six hours doing homework.” — Sa nta Clara L aw st u de nt M arti n K o p p i n h is 1 L blog F r o m H e r e t o At t o r n e y. R ead m o r e fr om th e se a n d oth er 1 L s o n l i n e at law.sc u . ed u /fr o m - h e r e -t o - att or ney/
Recent Alums Help Document Khmer Rouge Survivors
T
wo recent law school graduates, Audrey Redmond ’09 and Nhi Le-Tran ’08, have been volunteering their time on the Cambodian Diaspora Victims’ Participation Project (CDVPP), a collaborative effort by the Applied Social Research Institute of Cambodia, and the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University. The project works on documenting survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime. The project has met with over 150 Cambodian-Americans who survived Khmer Rouge atrocities and who wish to file testimony with the court in Cambodia. Redmond has been working on this project close to full time. She has helped survivors fill out the required court documentation and is currently helping compile all of these testimonies to submit to the court. Nhi has also helped with this project at the CDVPP workshops in San Jose. Nhi Le-Tran got involved with the project after she spent 3 months interning for United Nations Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Office of the Co-Prosecutors.
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spring 2010 santa clara law 3
law b riefs
Faculty Spotlight
L
aw Professor Cynthia Mertens was named a 2010 Woman of Influence by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. The honor is given to exceptional Silicon Valley women who make a difference in the community and are leaders in the private, public, or not-for-profit sectors. Professor Gerald Uelmen’s client in a medical marijuana case prevailed at the California Supreme Court, in a January decision that made national headlines. Uelmen represented Patrick Kelly in seeking to overturn legislative limits on how much marijuana a patient can possess. The state high court upheld a lower court ruling that tossed out the conviction of Kelly, who was arrested for possession of 12 ounces of dried marijuana and seven plants. A 2003 state law had allowed for a maximum of eight ounces.
Cynthia Mertens
Margaret Russell
Professor Margaret Russell has been appointed to the U.S. Magistrate Selection Committee by Chief Judge Vaughn Walker of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. This work involves reviewing U.S. magistrates whose terms are up for renewal, as well as filling new vacancies in the Northern District. Russell continues to serve on Senator Barbara Boxer’s Judicial Nomination Advisory Committee, which makes recommendations for federal district judges and the U.S. attorney for the Northern District. For more news on faculty activities, check the faculty spotlight page: law.scu.edu/faculty/faculty-spotlight.cfm.
Conferences and Symposiums QQ
On April 16, Santa Clara Law hosted the second Women and Law Stories Conference, which focused on women’s stories which led to legal changes, and what they can teach about law and social change.
On March 12 and 13, the Santa Clara Journal of International Law and the Center for Global Law and Policy sponsored Corporations and International Law, a symposium which focused on the implications of both American and international law for regulating, protecting, and holding corporations accountable for their operations around the world.
conference. Speakers included San Jose Congressman Mike Honda, Jane Kim of the San Francisco Board of Education, and Justice Nathan Mihara of the California Court of Appeal. Angelo Ancheta and Anna Han were among the speakers from Santa Clara Law. QQ
QQ QQ
Members of eight Northern California law schools gathered at Santa Clara Law on Jan. 31 for the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association’s 10th annual
4 santa clara law spring 2010
A symposium, “The Clean Technology Revolution: Developing Solutions for Tomorrow’s Legal Challenges,” was sponsored by Santa Clara Law's Computer and High Tech Law Journal at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View on Jan. 29. On Jan. 22, the Santa Clara Law Review sponsored a symposium that examined policy, policing, and incorporation after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the right to bear arms in D.C. v. Heller.
Patricia Mahan ’80, the current mayor of Santa Clara, spoke to law students in February during a Law Career Services event. She discussed careers in government and reflected on her own work in city government.
For links to more information on these events, see law.scu.edu/sclaw.
A Leader in Estate Planning Law Professor Jerry Kasner was a brilliant teacher, mentor, and professional. Santa Clara Law honors his legacy through the annual Kasner Symposium, which has become one of Northern California’s largest estate planning symposiums. by Asa Pi t t man ’ 0 9 a n d M ich ael Wallace
J
erry Kasner, who taught at Santa Clara Law 1961-1998, was the professional’s professional—a man whose influence extended far beyond the classroom. In addition to receiving a wide range of honors for his work in the estate-planning field, he served as a mentor to many of Santa Clara County’s estate planners and attorneys and shared his passion and expertise at countless seminars. “He was a staunch advocate of estate planning practice and a consummate networker before networking was even a concept,” says Charles Packer J.D./MBA ’80, a shareholder in the firm Hopkins & Carley. Retired law Professor Paul Goda, S.J., says, “Jerry’s collegiality exceeded his brilliance as a teacher.” One of Kasner’s last public appearances before his death in 2004 at the age of 71, was at the first Allied Professionals Seminar, organized by Packer and Frank Doyle, founder of the WealthPLAN family wealth preservation law firm. Suggested by Kasner himself and sponsored in part by Santa Clara Law and the University’s Planned Giving Advisory Board, it was conceived as a small-scale event, and in its first two years attracted about 50 mostly local professionals in the estate planning field. After Kasner’s passing, the event was renamed the Kasner Symposium in his honor, and Santa Clara Law, under newly appointed Dean Donald Polden, took on a greater role in sponsoring the event. “The backing of the law school lent credibility to the event and completely changed the scope of what we were doing,” says Doyle. It helped attract sponsorship from large financial institutions, and attendance grew to 400 in 2009, an eightfold increase from the original numbers just a few years earlier. It is now believed to be Northern California’s largest estate planning and wealth management seminar. An additional benefit of the symposium is that all net proceeds are earmarked to furthering the legacy of Jerry Kasner. To date over $330,000 has been raised for the Jerry A. Kasner Endowed Professorship at Santa Clara Law. The purpose of the fund is to enhance educational opportunities for future estate planning professionals. Enthusiastic sponsorship has enabled the symposium to grow while keeping costs low. Last year’s symposium was attended by attorneys, accountants, insurance executives, certified financial planners, and other estate planning professionals. They received seven hours of continuing education credit for
attending workshops and presentations offered by the nation’s top estate planning practitioners. “Over the years we have had friends and colleagues of Professor Kasner from all over the country speak,” said Packer. Past lecturers, he said, have included Professor Stanley Johanson of the University of Texas at Austin School Jerry Kasner (1933-2004) of Law; husband and served as a professor at wife estate and family Santa Clara Law for 37 years wealth planning experts, and was a widely respected Dr. Eileen Gallo and Jon estate planning professional. Gallo, Esq.; as well as Hon. David Laro, a senior judge of the United States Tax Court. Packer and Doyle, along with the Santa Clara Law Alumni Office, are now organizing this year’s event. Speakers and topics are not yet fixed, but they promise there will be updates on estate planning in California, insurance planning, and a program on current and anticipated changes in the federal estate tax. “2010 will be an uncertain year in estate planning,” Doyle says, adding that at least one workshop will be dedicated to guiding attendees through new IRS compliance procedures. With the upheaval and uncertainty surrounding the field, they’re predicting record attendance. “We’re expecting to top 400 people this year,” says Doyle. The growing popularity of the symposium, the organizers say, is driven by the spirit of camaraderie and cooperation that Professor Kasner generated in those he touched. “We do this,” Doyle says, “to honor his life efforts.”
SAVE THE DATE The 2010 symposium will be held Sept. 29 at the DoubleTree Hotel in San Jose. For more information, contact the Santa Clara Law Alumni Office at (408) 551-1748 or visit law.scu.edu/alumni/kasner-symposium.cfm spring 2010 santa clara law 5
By S usan Vo gel
A Tradition of Inspiring Lawyers who Serve Santa Clara Law has a long history of educating lawyers who serve as leaders in their communities.
K ATE BUR GE SS
Deepening Knowledge of the Death Penalty Professor Ellen Kreitzberg, left, chairs Santa Clara Law's annual Death Penalty College, an intensive training program limited to defense attorneys who represent persons charged in capital cases. Participants learn how to investigate, prepare, and present the penalty phase of a capital case pursuant to ABA guidelines. 6 santa clara law spring 2010
As a child growing up in Aptos, Edison Jensen ’89 saw strawberry pickers in the rich fields of the Pajaro Valley and wondered about their lives. He knew they were Latino and, of course, knew that he was Latino, but in his Anglo-American neighborhood he didn’t make much of a connection. During college, however, while walking across a parking lot at San Diego State, he heard someone yell in his direction, “Hey you f***ing lettuce picker, go home!” “I looked around to see who this guy could be talking about,” says Jensen. “He was talking about me.” He felt the sting of racism and began exploring his heritage. Jensen chose law school because he wanted the tools to fight for justice and the ability to “drag people into court to account for their actions.” He saw in farm workers a hardworking, honest group of people who worked backbreaking hours to put food on everyone’s table. They needed an advocate. He chose Santa Clara Law for its rich history in the pursuit of justice, and upon graduation, opened his own law firm with a goal of building a practice that would allow him to pursue bringing justice and a voice to these workers. For the past 20 years, Jensen, whose downtown Santa Cruz practice focuses on personal injury, wrongful death, business, and health care law, has used his legal training and his business acumen to help increase Latino involvement in public service positions and to build a system of medical clinics to help the poorest residents of Santa Cruz County (see page 17). Jensen is one of many alumni and students who credit Santa Clara Law with inspiring and training them to do work they consider the most important a lawyer can do: contribute to public interest law, social justice law, and community service.
Dedicated to a more just society For 500 years, Jesuit education has aspired to develop competent, compassionate, and committed individuals who will lead meaningful lives of leadership and service with the capacity of creating a more just global society. In doing so, it integrates academic excellence with social responsibility, including bringing justice to those living “on the edges of society.” A Jesuit education, says Santa Clara Law Dean Donald J. Polden, “produces competent leaders of conscience and character who go beyond simply helping to changing the structures that lead to injustice.” A Jesuit law school provides an ideal training ground for those in pursuit of justice for all. The Jesuits began establishing law schools in the early 1900s to provide opportunities to immigrants who were shut out of most law schools, says Julia Yaffee, Senior Assistant Dean for External Affairs. Santa Clara’s law school, established in 1911, began as a night school for immigrants who worked during the day. Jesuit law schools were among the first to admit women and people of color, according to Yaffee. Nearly one hundred years later, Santa Clara Law’s mission of educating lawyers to serve their clients with a high degree of professional competence, an enduring commitment to social justice, and a deep devotion to public service remains unchanged. “Santa Clara Law graduates,” says Polden, “whether working in private firms, the public sector, not-for-profit organizations, or devoting themselves to community service and volunteer work, are some of the community’s most powerful agents of change.”
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An attitude toward life
CHA R LE S BA R RY
In 1997, Santa Clara Law established the Center for Social Justice and Public Service with the mission of promoting and enabling a commitment to social justice through law. Professors Nancy Wright and Eric Wright served as the founding directors and, consistent with Jesuit ideals, sought to encourage the use of the law to improve the lives of marginalized, subordinated, or underrepresented clients and causes. Santa Clara Law professor and Center director Stephanie M. Wildman, a Stanford Law School graduate who established the Boalt Hall Center for Social Justice in 1999, says that the Center is more than a place, it’s “an attitude towards life.” When Wildman was asked to build the Center at Santa Clara Law, she found it natural. “Here, social justice permeates the roots of the institution.” Wildman describes the Center as a place that brings to all law students the numerous resources “scattered throughout the school that are dedicated to ethics, public service, social justice, and community service.” These opportunities include diversity lectures, social justice workshops on cutting edge legal issues, internships, practical skills clinics, Public Interest Law Career Services, and the school’s Public Interest and Social Justice Law Certificate. Deborah Moss-West, assistant director of the Center, says that the Center helps “infuse a sense of social justice throughout the law school for everyone, not just those who enter law thinking about social justice.”
Serving Community Needs Under the direction of experienced attorneys, Santa Clara Law students serve about 1,000 individuals a year at the Katharine and George Alexander Community Law Center through a combination of legal representation in cases, advice clinics, and educational workshops on the law. 8 santa clara law spring 2010
Dean Polden characterizes the Center as “helping develop good lawyers who do good, regardless of what role they play in the legal profession.” For students who come to Santa Clara Law to pursue a career in public interest law or social justice, the Center immerses them in the nuts and bolts of practicing in these areas and also provides them education in gender, race, and social issues, along with plenty of mentoring and peer support. Rachel Leff-Kich ’10 arrived at Santa Clara Law already committed to social justice lawyering. Growing up in a “liberal feminist Jewish family in Berkeley, I felt I had a responsibility to make the world a more beautiful place,” she says. Leff-Kich says she knew Santa Clara Law was a match from the moment she visited. “Stephanie Wildman is the reason I am here. In her office I saw books about race and feminist jurisprudence, and she told me about the school’s commitment to training public interest lawyers.” Leff-Kich is now co-chair of the Public Interest and Social Justice Coalition (PISJC or the Coalition), the student branch of the Center. Other students come to Santa Clara Law curious about exploring public interest law. Jennifer Tse ’08 graduated from UCLA in communications and business, but after three years as a Hollywood agent-in-training, she was not feeling fulfilled in her career. Her undergraduate experience had planted a seed of interest in social justice, and she wanted to allow it to grow. She chose Santa Clara Law for its social justice program and its diversity. “I had been to a huge
N AN C Y M ARTI N
The Santa Clara Law Center for Social Justice and Public Service is more than a place, it’s “an attitude towards life,” says professor and Center director Stephanie M. Wildman, a Stanford Law School graduate. “Here, social justice permeates the roots of the institution.”
and diverse public university,” says Tse. “I wanted to study civil rights. It made sense to study it in a diverse school.” Tse, now an attorney in Atlanta for the Immigrant Justice Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, is assisting in a 500-plaintiff human trafficking class action brought by skilled pipe-fitters and welders from India who paid recruiters tens of thousands of dollars for jobs in Mississippi and Texas post-Hurricane Katrina, and then found themselves forced to live in overcrowded trailers in secured, remote labor camps and denied the green cards they had been promised and for which they had paid exorbitant fees. Supriya Bhat ’04 who teaches Santa Clara Law’s Criminal Defense Externship on Expungement, says, “I was committed to doing social justice work prior to Santa Clara Law, but the [Center] provided an anchor amidst the uncharted waters of the first year curriculum. The events sponsored by the Center allowed me to meet other students and practitioners dedicated to public interest law. Dean Polden’s continued support of such programs immeasurably assists students who want to specialize in social justice lawyering.” Bhat graduated with a Certificate in Public Interest and Social Justice Law with an emphasis in Criminal Justice, one of five optional emphases: Consumer Law, Criminal Justice, Critical Race Jurisprudence, Health Law, or Immigration and Refugee Law. Twenty-seven students earned the certificate last year, including four who chose optional emphases in Criminal Justice, one in Critical Race Jurisprudence, and two in Immigration and Refugee Law. All students, not just those pursuing a certificate, are invited to events sponsored by the Center. These include Social Justice Thursday, at which speakers address issues such as voting rights, LGBT rights, and employment rights, as well as discussing opportunities in public service and social justice. Most Center events are open to members of the community. Each semester, a nationally known outside speaker delivers the Diversity Lecture, a free event that provides lawyers in the community MCLE credits. Semesterlong Social Justice Workshops, with lectures open to the
public, involve high profile scholars addressing issues such as political empowerment and election reform or how to run not-for-profit organizations. (For more information on events, visit law.scu.edu/socialjustice/events.cfm.) Participation in these events and even simply studying on a campus with a public service spirit inspires many law graduates to incorporate public service and pro bono work into their lives and their law practices. As with U.S. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren ’75, and CIA Director Leon Panetta B.A. ’60, J.D. ’63, Santa Clara values inspired Patricia Mahan ’80, mayor of Santa Clara, to pursue public service. “SCU has a tradition of teaching values along with substance,” she says. “I was a product of Catholic elementary and high schools and so was already fairly well imbued with a sense of what’s right, of helping others, of acting from faith, and focus on others rather than self. SCU reinforced my sense of compassion and caring.” Graduates going into private practice, such as Matthew Rafat ’02, David Tsai ’06, and Edison Jensen ’89 (see page 16), chose firms with a demonstrated commitment to pro bono work or tailored their own practices to permit community service.
Clinic Work Changes Lives Tse says that the experience that affected her most at Santa Clara Law was her work at the Katharine and George Alexander Community Law Center (KGACLC), where she represented a transsexual from Mexico seeking asylum. “Most significant to my being able to translate my law education to my career was my work in the immigration clinic with Lynette Parker,” she says. “By far it gave me the most educational value in law school because I got a genuine taste of doing immigration law. The clinic was the one thing that solidified my commitment to working with immigrants.” The clinical programs are an important part of Santa Clara Law’s practical skills training and core to the Center’s program. They are open to all law students, not just those pursuing public service or social justice careers. spring 2010 santa clara law 9
Community Law Center Students can choose between the civil law clinic; the KGACLC, which provides direct free legal services to low income clients in the areas of consumer law, immigration law, and workers’ rights; and the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP), in which they learn about criminal law and work to exonerate the wrongfully convicted. Founded by the law school’s La Raza students under the guidance of Professors Nancy Wright and Eric Wright and other volunteer lawyers in order to help day laborers, the East San Jose Community Law Center took on the name of George Alexander, dean emeritus of the Law School, and his wife, former attorney Katharine Alexander, after their generous contribution in 2004. Under the direction of experienced attorneys, students serve about 1,000 individuals a year at the KGACLC through a combination of legal representation in cases, advice clinics, and educational workshops on the law. Students are trained for their clinic work through mandatory courses in litigation skills, interviewing and counseling, as well as in the substantive law. Santa Clara Law professor Angelo Ancheta, who was previously on the faculty of Harvard Law School and legal director of its Civil Rights Project, says that over the past few years, students have successfully represented clients in a class action to extricate them from oppressive financing contracts signed under pressure from door-to-door computer salespeople; have helped untangle immigration messes caused by “notarios,” notaries or paralegals preying on immigrants from countries where notaries are licensed to practice law; and have collected back wages for workers whose employers refused to pay them and threatened to have them deported if they complained. With the Bay Area’s economic downswing, the KGACLC is seeing more illegal debt collectors and predatory practices by finance companies. It may expand its practice areas into other areas of consumer law, as well as problems involving bankruptcy and foreclosures.
In the fall of 2009, the KGACLC and other community agencies shared in a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to assist victims of human trafficking in the South Bay. Unlike the case Tse is working on, most trafficking, says Ancheta, “is largely under the radar. A typical case involves a woman who has been taken into domestic service and becomes a house servant or slave to someone who is affluent. It’s hard to monitor, but when you find the victims, they need a lot of services.” The grant, for which the KGACLC is the lead agency, funds an array of these services provided by community organizations throughout the Valley, from counseling to shelters to legal assistance. The KGACLC receives approximately $60,000 of the grant, which it uses to assist the victims with immigration issues. The benefits of the clinics reach far beyond the individual clients they serve. As a Santa Clara Law student, Dori Rose Inda ’00, a former social worker, worked in the KGACLC (then the East San Jose Community Law Center), assisting victims of fraud in the Watsonville area. After graduation and working at California Rural Legal Assistance, she established, in 2002, the Watsonville Law Center, which provides free legal services in the areas of workers’ rights, consumer protection, and barriers to employment. Ancheta is not surprised when he learns that students are inspired by their work at the KGACLC to become community leaders changing the structures of society to remedy injustice. “I don’t think there is any question that students coming through the program see the world in a different light. Most develop a stronger empathy with low-income people and immigrants.”
The Northern California Innocence Project The Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP) is a training ground not only for future criminal defense attorneys but also for future prosecutors seeking professional and ethical grounding for their work. For many students, the experience is pivotal in making career choices.
Alumni Leaders Who Serve in the Judiciary As an essential part of the justice system, well trained and ethical judges provide an important community service. There are numerous Santa Clara Law alumni who are members and former members of the judiciary, including retired California Supreme Court Justice Edward A. Panelli ’53 B.S., ’55 J.D. (left) and Oregon Supreme Court Associate Justice Robert D. Durham ’72. To see a complete list, visit law.scu.edu/sclaw. 10 santa clara law spring 2010
Bhat says that clerking at the NCIP “was one of the most valuable experiences at Santa Clara Law. Working with vigilant advocates like Linda Starr, Cookie Ridolfi, and Jill Kent demonstrated the importance of leaving no stone unturned in the pursuit of justice. The exonerees, from John Stoll to Delbert Tibbs, are testaments to the strength of the human spirit and their cases epitomize the need for systemic reform.” In 1997, a Modesto landlord, George Souliotes, served an eviction notice on his tenant, a woman with two children. At her request, he agreed to let them stay over the holidays. Later, he was arrested for burning down his property with the family inside. He was charged with arson and murder. The motive, according to the prosecutors who sought the death penalty: insurance money. Souliotes’ first trial resulted in a hung jury. At his second trial, the defense attorney called no defense witnesses even though 17 were prepared to testify. Souliotes was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Armed with new technology for analyzing arson cases, NCIP Legal Director Linda Starr and NCIP students have been involved for eight years in an attempt to prove the innocence of Souliotes, a Greek immigrant with no criminal history. On February 12, Randy Luskey, managing associate in the San Francisco litigation group at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, argued the case before the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals as part of the firm’s pro bono work on the case. This case is one of 1,046 cases the NCIP has pending. Each case takes “years and years,” says Starr. Not every student working with the NCIP gets to see a client walk out of prison (Starr says prison officials usually release them “in secret ways”), but they visit their clients in prison, interview witnesses in prison, and track down witnesses in the community. The NCIP is gearing up for a massive increase in its caseload. In October 2009, it received a grant of $2.5 million from the federal government to fund reviews of convictions of thousands of inmates in California. The Obama administration released millions of dollars earmarked for DNA exonerations that the Bush administration had essentially held hostage, according to Santa Clara Law Professor Kathleen “Cookie” Ridolfi. Santa Clara Law and California Western School of Law have received the largest grant in the nation to investigate potential wrongful convictions of every inmate in California convicted of non-negligent homicide or forcible rape in which identification is an issue and biological material is available for DNA testing. “Potentially thousands of inmates will have their cases reviewed,” says Ridolfi. The grant is on a fast track—the project has 18 months of funding. The NCIP has hired Cathy Dreyfuss, a former criminal defense attorney, to direct the project. Law students will assist in reviewing cases. spring 2010 santa clara law 11
C H A R L E S B A R RY
Teaching Lawyers to Fight For Justice Santa Clara Law Professor Kathleen “Cookie” Ridolfi founded the Northern California Innocence Project at Santa Clara Law in 2001 and in 2004 co-founded the Innocence Network, a collaboration of 49 innocence projects in the United States and in four other countries.
The classes required to work at the NCIP are full and often have a long wait list because students are anxious to get practical experience. “Getting this experience here is very valuable in getting a job,” says Starr. “Employers want students with real skills. They get a wide range of work experience. They know how to pick up the phone and make calls, draft professional e-mails, write letters,” Starr says. The NCIP’s training also extends to the community. In July, criminal defense lawyers from 15 states attended the law school’s 17th annual Death Penalty College, chaired by Professor Ellen Kreitzberg, on how to investigate, prepare, and present the penalty phase of a capital case pursuant to ABA guidelines. The experiences of working with the NCIP also have long-term effects: Ben Galloway, an assistant federal defender in the Federal Defender’s Felony Trial Unit in Sacramento, says, “Clinics and classes with Professors Kreitzberg, Ridolfi, and Uelmen, and others who’ve long been involved in criminal justice and civil rights issues were essential in solidifying my commitment to social justice work. On occasions when I’ve tired of work in the trenches and considered something more lucrative and less exhausting, I’ve thought of these great teachers and their commitment to social justice, and that has helped to keep me going.”
Committed faculty Leff-Kich observes that Santa Clara Law faculty “teach with a focus on, or an awareness of public policy and social justice issues.” Matthew Rafat ’02 says that “Santa Clara Law professors would analyze “a law’s impact on society and behavior rather than just interpreting the law itself.” Tsai saw that “Santa Clara Law’s professors—no matter the class—often included a social justice aspect to the area of law being taught. I never forgot the importance of social justice and the need to do pro bono work when I began my practice of the law.” Even in courses in which public interest and social justice “are not taught didactically,” says Yaffee, “it is part of the essence of the place. Everyone is affected by it.” Santa Clara Law Professor Philip Jimenez says that teaching social responsibility is a natural and important part of teaching the law. In his International Business Transactions course, for example, he discusses socially responsible investing and the remedies against companies that violate the civil rights of workers. Faculty not only teach social responsibility, many embody it. Santa Clara Law faculty have a remarkable record for walking the walk as well as talking the talk. They inspire 12 santa clara law spring 2010
students through their own service to the community as well as through their scholarship and teaching. (For a link to the Center’s annual report, including faculty profiles, visit law. scu.edu/sclaw.)
Internships foster service Tse was surprised when she was offered the job at the Southern Poverty Law Center upon graduation. “I had thought, why not apply? It’s such a long shot, I probably won’t get it. It would be a dream job.” But she shouldn’t have been surprised. Upon graduation her resumé included experience working for Amnesty International in Australia, the KGALC, and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York (where trafficking cases included Chinese acrobats and domestic workers as victims). Santa Clara Law’s summer grant programs give students valuable practical skills and work experience, allow them to explore what areas of practice interest them, and build their confidence in practicing law. For Stephanie Grogan ’04 the summer internships allowed her “to experience different areas of the law and find my niche.” Grogan received the John Paul Stevens Fellowship, Public Interest and Social Justice Law Summer Grant, and loan repayment assistance. “Each grant allowed me to explore the area of criminal law. I was able to work at Justice Now in Oakland advocating for women in prison, Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta working against the death penalty, and after graduation, at the Alameda County Public Defender Office. Without the grant money, I would not be able to volunteer at these organizations.” Grogan chose criminal defense work. She is now a deputy public defender at the Solano County Public Defender’s office. Leff-Kich, whose Justice John Paul Stevens Fellowship funded her summer work at the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, AIDS Legal Services, says that the internship not only demonstrated to others her commitment to social justice work, but showed her that “I really can do it.” Without the financial support, she says, she would not have been able to afford an unpaid summer position. Summer internships provide crucial practical experience for students, but they come at a cost, literally. Many jobs are nonpaying and those that pay may barely cover the cost of living in San Francisco, Boston, or Washington, D.C. To enable social justice students to accept these valuable internships, the Santa Clara Law Public Interest and Social Justice Law board offers numerous grants, including the Justice John Paul Stevens Fellowships, founded by Santa Clara Law
“I felt I had a responsibility to make the world a more beautiful place,” says Rachel Leff-Kich ’10, and she knew Santa Clara Law was a match from the moment she visited. “Stephanie Wildman is the reason I am here,” she says. “She told me about the school’s commitment to training public interest lawyers.” Leff-Kich is now co-chair of the Public Interest and Social Justice Coalition.
alum Skip Paul ’75, and Father Paul Goda Summer Grants. Through these grants, law students last summer received more than $110,000 to work jobs and internships at locations ranging from the Alliance for Affordable Energy in New Orleans, to the Children’s Law Center of L.A., to UNESCO in Paris. The board also provided $17,000 in income supplement grants to alumni working in social justice; it is hoping that increased contributions will permit it to provide more. The LGBT Legal Issues Summer Grants, established by Santa Clara Law and Skip Paul, are awarded to students who have shown “a demonstrated commitment to and interest in the rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender individuals, and people living with HIV, regardless of their sexual orientation.” A unique leadership grant, the Youth Law grant trains students to engage in advocacy to improve the quality of care for children and families involved with the juvenile justice and child welfare systems. Funded by the John and Marcia Goldman Foundation, it starts with leadership training in May, involves a summer at the San Francisco-based Youth Law Center, and continues with research throughout the next academic year.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
The Coalition and Public Interest Law Career Services
• • •
Students entering law school today come with a lifetime of community service behind them. “This generation is more service-oriented than ever,” says Dean Yaffee. “Since junior high they have been focused on the community. They are already attuned to the community service message—it resonates with them.” So it was not a surprise that Santa Clara Law’s Student Bar Association began requiring that all student organizations do community service. The Coalition provides peer support for students pursuing social justice, including a mentor program that pairs 1Ls with 2 and 3Ls. It holds an annual fundraiser, the Benefit for Justice, to raise funds for the Public Interest and Social
Alumni Leadership Council The new Public Interest and Social Justice Alumni Leadership Council leads and participates in activities designed to keep public interest and social justice programs at Santa Clara Law strong by • Supporting fundraising efforts of the Center for Social Justice and Public Service: reaching out to alumni and individual contacts during the yearly fundraising campaign to fund student summer grants for public interest work and other student efforts. • Supporting current students: serving as alumni ambassadors at public interest and social justice events such as the Benefit for Justice (fall),Voices for Justice (winter, to include a public interest and social justice Alumni Leadership Council kick-off reception) and the fall and spring diversity lectures. • Strengthening the public interest and social justice network for alumni and the legal community.
Sponsor a Summer Internship Fund a student summer internship (or contribute a portion of a student’s summer work or make it a class gift). Sponsor and mentor a summer student on an internship. Fund an internship at your favorite non-profit.
Volunteer Many local bar associations provide training opportunities for lawyers who want to get more involved. Contact your Santa Clara Law classmates and see what pro bono work they are doing.
Get Involved For more information on getting involved, please contact Deborah Moss-West, 408-554-2766, or email dmosswest@scu.edu. spring 2010 santa clara law 13
C H A R L E S B A R RY
Learning While Serving 3L student Michelle Forrest (right) confers with Attorney Lynette Parker during an immigration clinic this fall. At the Community Law Center, students serve the community while learning the law.
Justice Law Board summer grants, and for the past three years it has sponsored a week-long fundraiser, “Donate a Day,” soliciting students with paying summer jobs to donate a day’s salary to the Social Justice Endowment. The student-led Public Interest Law Career Services (PILCS) holds public interest law fairs twice yearly and trains students in resumé writing and interviewing. It holds sessions on debt management and reduction, and public interest career opportunities. The PILCS encourages students and graduates to do pro bono work, and works with law firms and partners on the Pro Bono Opportunity Program, which matches students with attorney mentors, giving them the opportunity to do pro bono work, as well as to gain experience working with law firm attorneys. Last year, 72 law students contributed 50 hours or more of pro bono service, representing a total of 12,000 hours of service in the community. Student who contribute 50 or more pro bono hours in a year are eligible for the Pro Bono Recognition Award. Between 75 and 90 students each year receive this award. 14 santa clara law spring 2010
In the words of Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney Rolanda Pierre-Dixon ’80, “Santa Clara lights a fire that never goes out.” Lighting the Fire With the offerings of the Center, a social justice theme running through classroom teaching, and simply being in a place “infused with a sense of justice,” Santa Clara Law students often graduate with a commitment to incorporate social justice into their work and lives. The experience of studying on a campus with giving to others a vital part of its mission can have a profound impact on law students. Yaffee recalls a student saying, “I expected law school to change the way I thought, but I didn’t expect it to change who I am.” This student will be changed for life. In the words of Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney Rolanda Pierre-Dixon ’80, “Santa Clara lights a fire that never goes out.”
By S U S AN VO G E L
ADA Advocate Cynthia Waddell ’94 has spent her legal career fighting for justice and access for those with disabilities. missioner for the City of San Jose filed a complaint saying she could not access the city’s website. Fittingly, the first accessible website standard was for the City of San Jose, and its author was Waddell. Referred to as “curbcuts in cyberspace,” the 1995 standard was recognized as a best practice by the federal government. And this was prior to the World Wide Web Consortium Web Accessibility Initiative. Waddell went on to influence legislation on Capitol Hill concerning Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act by calling for accessible design in mainstream technology and later in the drafting of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In May 2008 the treaty entered into legal force. It seeks to address the rights of an estimated 650 million people with disabilities around the world. Waddell is executive director and law, policy, and technology consultant for the International Center for Disability Resources on the Internet (ICDRI), which seeks “to increase opportunities for people with disabilities by identifying barriers to participation in society and promoting best practices and universal design for the global community.” This past year she served as the invited accessibility expert for the Department of State delegation for the World Telecommunication Policy Forum in Lisbon, Portugal, and was a keynote speaker at the Houses of Parliament in London. She is a frequent writer and speaker and her clients include governments, UN agencies, businesses, and universities. Waddell, who has an easygoing manner and a light laugh, is creator of the friendly “Cynthia Says” automated tool that will assess your website for accessibility at no charge and uses her likeness for the avatar. Yaffee, who was director of admission when Waddell was a student, says Waddell “is straightforward and a problem solver.” Her “educational approach to disability issues makes her a good advocate,” she says. For more, visit Waddell’s website at www.icdri.org or follow her United Nations Blog at www.g3ict.com/zones/ government_services. courtesy of Cynthia Waddell
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n the early 1990s Santa Clara University may have learned as much from Cynthia Waddell as Waddell learned from her years at Santa Clara Law. Waddell began law school in 1990, just after Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA). She thought she would practice tax and estate planning and do pro bono work in her area of passion, disability rights. As a person with a life-long hearing loss who wears hearing aids and lip-reads, she became interested in the ADA not only in theory but in practice: How would it affect the lives of those with all kinds of disabilities? It was this question that would eventually lead her to hold city, county, state, national, and international appointments involving disability rights issues. As a law student Waddell had difficulty hearing classroom discussions. “I couldn’t see which mouth was speaking,” she said. As Waddell faced barriers to her education, she spoke out and the law school responded, putting into place accommodations that exist to this day. “The University provided CART (computer assisted real time captioning) as well as assistive listening systems so that the class discussions could be broadcast directly to my hearing aids,” she said. “The law school also upgraded the wall telephones by installing volume control and lowering them so they could be used by persons using wheelchairs.” As a Dan Bradley Fellow summer intern with the Employment Law Center in San Francisco, Waddell became amazed at the power of the class action lawsuit. Though she had been a complex litigation paralegal for eight years before law school, this Santa Clara Law summer experience got her thinking about “systemic impact and change,” she says. Upon graduation as a Public Interest Scholar in Disability Rights, SCU President Paul Locatelli, S.J., retained Waddell as an ADA consultant. She set up and managed a stakeholders’ task force comprised of students with disabilities, faculty, administration, and staff. Today’s ramps and elevators could have a plaque with Waddell’s name on them. “The University was my training ground,” says Waddell. Waddell became the first full time ADA compliance officer for the City of San Jose. Her expansion from the “built” environment to the high tech one began when a blind com-
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By S usan Vo gel
Private Practice, Pro Community Alumni in private practice are dedicated to community service.
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work. As lawyers, I think we have a commitment to provide equal access to legal assistance, particularly for indigent individuals. My pro bono work has been primarily focused on helping indigent lesbian, gay, David Tsai ’06 volunteered many hours bisexual, and as a law student and continues to do transgender individ- so while working at a big IP firm. uals in civil rights and immigration cases. To help a transgender HIV+ Mexican woman stay in this country in order to avoid persecution and to receive the proper medical care is simply the right thing to do.” When Matthew Rafat ’02 went solo, he set up his practice so he could do pro bono and low fee work. Rafat was born in Iran. The 1979 revolution occurred when his family was living in Scotland, where his father was attending graduate school. They were unable to go back to Iran and landed in Texas and then the Bay Area. “Iranian culture emphasizes education, so it is considered problematic if your offspring do not become doctors, scientists, or engineers. More recently, becoming a lawyer has been added to the list of culturally acceptable professions,” says Rafat. Rafat chose Santa Clara Law because of “the Jesuits’ excellent reputation when it comes to education,” and his presumption that “Santa Clara University's emphasis on ethics and social justice would impact the law school.” Rafat’s early years of practice gave him a good degree of humility and lessons that have, years later, enabled him to balance a solo legal practice with a good amount of proC ourtesy of David T sai
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lumni, says Deborah Moss-West, contribute to social justice in a wide variety of ways. “People sometimes don’t recognize that it’s not an all-or-nothing situation, that there are many ways they can contribute,” she says. It can be five hours a week or five hours a year—you put them all together and it’s a huge contribution.” David Tsai ’06 was in the Silicon Valley technology industry before he began his studies at Santa Clara Law. After earning an undergraduate degree in biochemical sciences at Harvard, he conducted undergraduate honors and graduate research at Harvard Medical School and Stanford University, respectively, on stem cell and viral gene therapy tools for the treatment of neurological diseases and cancer. He enrolled at Santa Clara Law with the hope that eventually he would practice law in the area of social justice. At Santa Clara Law, Tsai volunteered at the KGACLA, the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley (AIDS Legal Services), and at East Palo Alto Community Legal Services. Upon graduation, he joined Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP, the San Francisco-based IP law firm, where he practices trade secret misappropriation and patent litigation in the areas of pharmaceuticals, software/Internet, medical devices, biotechnologies, and semiconductors. Tsai was named a “rising star” in intellectual property litigation by Super Lawyers in 2009. Tsai fulfills his commitment to the community and improving access to justice through service on his firm’s Diversity Committee, representation of pro bono clients at settlement conferences through the Northern District Court Assisted Settlement Conference Program, and assistance on civil rights and immigration pro bono matters with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and the Asian Law Caucus. He also recently helped lead Townsend's efforts to file an amicus brief on behalf of clergy and their congregations in support of the petitioners to the California Supreme Court against Proposition 8. “Even with the demands of being an intellectual property litigator,” says Tsai, “I make the time to do pro bono
N AN C Y M ARTI N
Edison Jensen ’89, a scholarship recipient at Santa Clara Law, says “Because of the commitment that SCU made to me, I was able to substantively commit to my community and make a difference.”
Edison Jenson ’89
bono and “low-bono” work. He graduated just after the dot-com bubble burst and his first two law jobs ended when the firms’ work dwindled. “Although I was living with my parents,” he says, “tuition was still expensive, so I had a significant amount of student loans. Other than gas and carrelated expenses, I probably spent less than seven dollars a day during those two years.” When Rafat opened his own firm in 2004, specializing in plaintiffs’ employment matters and small business representation, he did so with a business model that to this day gives him job satisfaction and flexibility. “I knew two things acutely well: one, don’t take bad cases, because you will regret waking up in the morning and will hate your job; and two, keep the overhead low so you can choose good cases. I have always despised debt, because from an early age, I understood that debt limited my options.” Rafat’s low overhead allows him to take pro bono cases and “low-bono” cases, cases in which clients pay something “so as to have some ‘skin’ in the game” he says, but not more than they can afford to pay. This business model has allowed him to volunteer for the KGACLC and the Santa Clara County Pro Bono Project. At Santa Clara Law, where he was president of La Raza Student Association (he is now president of La Raza Lawyers of Santa Cruz County) Edison Jensen learned about “political empowerment through the legal process.” He began to assist in political campaigns to increase Latinos’ political strength in the Pajaro Valley. Through his service on the board of Planned Parenthood, Jensen began to learn of the disproportionate health problems facing the area’s poor Latinos. This placed him on the social justice path he has taken for the past 20 years—rallying to bring health care to the county’s poor. In 1998 Jensen was asked to join the board of Salud Para La Gente, a small clinic with the mission of serving underserved patients in Pajaro Valley and Santa Cruz County. As a federally qualified health center, it is required to have a majority of its board members be patients of the
clinic. The first day he visited to meet with the board, “All I heard was screaming and fighting.” Fifty-one percent of its board members are farmworkers. He decided to be on the board and a few months later became its chair. During the 13 years he has chaired the board, Salud’s first clinic has grown into a primary health care network with 12 locations in Watsonville and Santa Cruz, including seven school-based clinics in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, the adult day health center called Elderday in Santa Cruz, and services including dental, vision, and mental health care. It is now the biggest clinic in the county providing more than 113,000 patient encounters a year on a budget of 17 million. When a non-profit hospital in Watsonville was to be sold to a for-profit corporation, Jensen mobilized a communitybased group to force the profits of the sale to be put back into the community. They were successful. The Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust was born. Jensen became founding chairman of the board of a $20 million trust that will serve the Latino community. Jensen says, “None of this would have been possible without Professor Phil Jimenez and Dean Jerry Uelmen taking a chance on me. Now, I feel as though I can really serve others and make a difference in their lives.” Jensen entered Santa Clara Law through the CLEO program, which helps “low-income, minority, and otherwise disadvantaged students become competitive law school applicants,” and he received scholarships from SCU. “Because of the commitment that SCU made to me,” says Jensen, “I was able to substantively commit to my community and make a difference.” Jensen says he now “practices law so I can help others in these ventures. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, ‘Life’s most persistent and urgent question is—what are you doing for others?’ and the hallmark of a Santa Clara Law education is making a difference in people’s lives.”
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Lessons from Haiti Santa Clara Law students travel to Haiti to tell a story of community and transitional justice.
By D a n iel Zaz ueta ’ 1 0 a n d C ai t li n Ro bine t t ’10
M
P HOT O COURTE S Y OF D A NIE L ZA Z UETA ’1 0
arch 8th has become a monumental day for us. It was March 8, 2009, when Santa Clara Law presented Mario Joseph with the Katharine and George Alexander Law Prize in recognition of his work as a human rights lawyer and his relentless pursuit to improve the justice system in Haiti. Earlier that day, Professor Cynthia Mertens invited law students to meet with Mr. Joseph and Brian Concannon, an American lawyer who worked with Mr. Joseph to represent victims of human rights violations in Haiti. Mr. Joseph and Mr. Concannon recounted the history of the 1994 Raboteau Massacre, where approximately 40 people were murdered in a slum outside of Gonaives, Haiti. The paramilitary group FRAPH (Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti) sought to suppress any demonstrations calling for the return of Jean Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president. Aristide won a landslide victory in 1990, and within seven months a military coup
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removed him from power. The victims of the massacre, however, were mostly innocent men and women who were shot trying to escape into the sea, not anti-military activists. Mr. Joseph told us the remarkable story of Marie Jeanne Jean—a woman whose husband was murdered during the Raboteau Massacre. After an internationally acclaimed trial in Haiti in 2000, where many of the military officers responsible for the massacre were tried and convicted, Marie Jeanne served as the lead plaintiff in a subsequent lawsuit filed in the United States against one of the officers, Col. Carl Dorelien. Dorelien fled to the United States in 1997 to escape prosecution and subsequently won $3 million in the Florida state lottery. The Center of Justice and Accountability, an international human rights organization, filed suit against Dorelien under the Alien Tort Claims Act. A Florida court ultimately awarded Marie Jeanne with $430,000. Instead of keeping the money for herself, Marie Jeanne spread the settlement award among the victims in her community. We went to Haiti to learn more about this moving story of community so we could share it with the wider world. Professor Mertens helped us secure funding to travel to Haiti through a grant from the Bannan Institute at Santa Clara. We left Christmas night and spent two weeks in Haiti, conducting interviews with victims of the Raboteau Massacre and lawyers involved in the trials. The stories that unfolded in our interviews were heartbreaking, frustrating, and incredibly inspiring. It was the overall story of Haiti, however, that took over our quest to chronicle a true account of community, the rule of law, and transitional justice in Haiti. We found more than a story of community and justice. We were exposed to a country plagued with an unstable government, massive debt, rampant environmental degradation, an unsound infrastructure, and devastating natural disasters. What is the meaning of justice with a backdrop of chaos? We felt as if we were the ones being interviewed. We found ourselves examining what future roles we could take as lawyers in a place where ideas of retribution
“It is not impossible for the poorest to find justice as long as there are lawyers committed to work and fight for justice.”
and fairness are seldom realized, especially when essential human needs are rarely met. Haiti changed us. While we may have envisioned the role of a lawyer as one who gives a voice to the poorest, weakest, and most desperate among us, we may not have known quite how desperately that voice is needed. While we may have thought we understood the importance of social justice, we may not have known how complicated that concept can be. In Haiti, we saw a nation hanging by a thread. Four days after our return to the United States, we saw the thread break as the 7.0 magnitude earthquake caused more devastation than any of us could ever imagine. After the earthquake, we never made a decision to go back to Haiti. We just knew that we would go back. We owe Haiti more than we can ever bring in used clothing and supplies, but we will carry as much as we can to give something back. It’s difficult for us to find perspective in our daily lives at Santa Clara while our new friends are trying to keep others alive. But for both of us, our experiences in Haiti affirm our commitment to service work and social justice. There is just too much working against equality and fairness for us to dedicate our time working for anything else. There is nothing that could ever be as important as spending our lives improving the lives of others. Progression is not a natural phenomenon. The status quo must be questioned and solutions must be proposed. Justice is not simply realized, but fought for by people like Mario Joseph. So we will go back to Haiti for our 2010 spring break, and return to California on March 8, 2010, one full year after Mario Joseph received the Alexander Law Prize. But our journey will not be complete. We will continue to invest time, money, and energy into helping Haiti help itself. Maintaining its tradition of advocacy for social justice, we hope the Santa Clara community will do the same. Left: Daniel Zazueta plays with one of the children at an orphanage for disabled children. Above: More children at the orphanage. Right: Caitlin Robinett and Marie Jeanne walking to the site of the Raboteau Massacre.
P H O T O C O U RT E S Y O F D A N I E L Z A Z U E TA ’ 1 0
PH OTO C OU RTESY OF C AI TLI N ROBI N ETT ’10
—Mario Joseph, managing attorney of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux in Port-au-Prince, HaitI
IN MEMORIAM The earthquake in Haiti claimed the life of Santa Clara Law alumna Ericka Chambers Norman ’98, who was known at SCU for her commitment to social justice, her devotion to her Christian faith, and a relentlessly upbeat approach to life. Norman, 42, was living those values in Haiti, where she worked for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Board of Inquiry office. Visit law.scu.edu/sclaw for more about Ericka.
HOW YOU CAN HELP Register with the Lawyers Earthquake Response Network on the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) website: www.ijdh.org. FOR MORE INFORMATION Visit law.scu.edu/sclaw for photos from the trip, Caitlin’s blog from their first and second trips to Haiti, and more information on Mario Joseph and the Santa Clara Law Alexander Prize. spring 2010 santa clara law 19
L AW A LU MN I
Meet old friends and celebrate your Santa Clara Law experience at these events.
Celebration of Leadership and Achievement
By Asa Pittman ’09 and Michael Wallace
T hursday, A pril 2 9 Hyatt Regency Hotel, Santa Clara Convention Center
Join us in recognizing and celebrating the achievements of these special leaders in the legal profession who have made significant contributions to their communities and Santa Clara Law.
12th Annual Justice Edward Panelli Golf Classic Monday, June 21 10:30 a.m. – 7:15 p.m. San Jose Country Club
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onoring retired State Supreme Court Justice Edward Panelli ’55, this annual golf classic raises funds for law scholarships and offers a day of fun, networking, and gourmet food with more than 100 golfers. The tournament is a scramble format with the Panelli Cup awarded to the foursome with the lowest score. The importance of the tournament can best be shared by Jessica Jackson, one of last year’s student scholarship recipients. “As a single mother and full-time law student, I would have been forced to take out enormous loans if not for the Panelli scholarship,” she says. “Not having those huge loans allows me the freedom to pursue a career in public interest law.”
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Alumni Special Achievement Awards
Marjorie Cohn ’75 is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego and immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent, and her forthcoming anthology, The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration and Abuse. She is on the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and is the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists. A criminal defense attorney, Cohn publishes extensively and provides commentary about criminal justice, U.S. foreign policy, and human rights, for, among others, BBC, CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. She says her interest in international human rights law began when she took a course at Santa Clara Law in which she wrote a paper on Chile’s nationalization of the copper mining industry. “I’ve tried to use my legal skills, teaching, and writing to achieve social justice and oppose U.S. involvement in illegal wars,” she says. “I find myself consistently siding with the underdog.” Phil Sims ’71 is a principal at Sims and Layton, a San Jose business law firm specializing in employment law representing management and nonprofits. He was a founding member of the Santa Clara County and California State Bar Labor Law Sections, and was chair of the Nonprofit Committee of the State Bar. He is a past chair of the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce; past president of the Santa Clara County Bar, Rotary Club of San Jose, and the Santa Clara Law Alumni Association; and has served as a Superior Court judge pro tem. In recent years his interest in settling disputes out of court has led to increased work in arbitration and mediation, both as an advocate and arbitrator/mediator. “My class at Santa Clara Law was comparatively small,” he says, “and many of the courses were taught by judges and trial lawyers, so it was a practical experience —why it is done this way, as opposed to abstract theory. For me, it was a tremendous opportunity, and very personal: You got to know the faculty and they took a personal interest in you.”
Edwin J. Owens Lawyer of the Year Award
Gordon Yamate ’80 served as vice president and general counsel for Knight Ridder when it was the second-largest newspaper company in the U.S. Prior to that, he was vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary of Liberate Technologies, a firm that developed software for accessing the internet through television boxes and other internet appliances, and before that was a partner in the Silicon Valley offices of McCutchen, Doyle, Brown & Enersen, specializing in corporate securities and intellectual property law. Since Knight Ridder’s sale to McClatchy in 2006, he has focused more extensively on philanthropic endeavors, including service as past chair of Silicon Valley FACES, chair-elect of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, and board member of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. He is an adjunct lecturer at Santa Clara Law, where he teaches a corporate governance seminar; he also co-chaired the 2009 Santa Clara Law Strategic Planning Committee. He continues to chair the In-House Committee of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association. “Santa Clara Law’s focus on high tech and public service has helped distinguish it,” he says, “and while I didn’t consciously think about it in law school, I realize that the school’s emphasis on ethical thinking guided me in my corporate career and in the nonprofit work I’m doing now.” Santa Clara Law Amicus Award
The Honorable Ronald M. Whyte was appointed to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California by President George H. W. Bush in 1992. Before that he was a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge, and prior to that a partner in the San Jose firm Hoge, Fenton, Jones & Appel, specializing in civil litigation. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the University of Southern California School of Law, and served in the U.S. Naval Reserve’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps 1968-71. He has served Santa Clara Law in a variety of ways, including teaching a judicial externship class, judging moot court competitions, and participating in programs sponsored by the school. He has served for a number of years on the Board of Visitors and High Tech Advisory Council. “Santa Clara is a first class law school with strong programs in high tech,” he says. “I’ve hired several graduates as law clerks, and they’ve performed very well. What comes to mind most when I think of Santa Clara is what it’s done for me. When I started as a federal judge, I had no experience in patent law, but was able to audit a course at Santa Clara Law that gave a good background and foundation in the subject.” Judge Whyte now enjoys a national reputation for his expertise in patent law.
For information and reservations for any of these events, contact Marjorie Short, (408) 551-1748 or MJShort@scu. edu. Or visit law.scu.edu/alumni/events.cfm
Rolanda Pierre-Dixon, co-chair 1980 Reunion Committee
Law Reunion Weekend September 10-12 “The most unexpected part [of reunion work],” says Rolanda Pierre-Dixon ’80 “is talking to classmates I haven’t spoken to since law school and hearing in their voices the same persons they were 30 years ago.” Pierre-Dixon, an assistant district attorney for Santa Clara County, is one of several members of her class working to make this year’s reunion a special and memorable occasion. Fellow committee chair Kathy Sure ’80, an administrative law judge, says that in addition to giving back to the University, reunion committee work “is an easy way to reconnect with people with whom you spent quality time and have something in common.” Gordon Yamate ’80, who is the 2010 Santa Clara Law Owens Lawyer of the Year (see above), joins PierreDixon and Sure as co-chair of the 1980 Reunion. This year’s Law Reunion Weekend will honor alumni who graduated in years ending in “0” or “5” between 1960 and 2005. A full schedule is planned, including golf, CLE presentation, class receptions and dinners, Sunday liturgy, and more. Volunteers are still needed to help plan and promote Reunion Weekend programs. If you graduated from Santa Clara Law in one of the years mentioned above and would like to be a part of your class’ reunion leadership, contact Susan Moore at SAMoore@scu.edu, (408) 551-1763 or visit law.scu.edu/ alumni/reunion-weekend-home.cfm
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ALU MN I
59 Ronald Motta lives in Santa
Rosa, after living 15 years in Arnold in Calaveras County. He is enjoying nine grandchildren, fishing, skiing, and traveling with his wife. 50 - Y E A R
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Sept. 10-12, 2010
62 Hon. Lawrence Terry B.S. ’57, retired judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court, and his wife, Anna Marie, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in August 2009 with a special Mass followed by a dinner with family, friends, and classmates at the Adobe Lodge. 64 Terry Fleischer has lived in three exciting and challenging cities in the past 14 years: Montreal, Chicago, and now Cape Town, South Africa. He is deputy director of the Bioethics Centre at the University of Cape Town, associate director of International Research Ethics Network for Southern Africa, and senior lecturer in bioethics and law. His wife, Karen, is a church musician and member of the choir at St. George’s Cathedral, where Terry is an ordained vocational deacon. Gary Giannini has practiced law for 45 years, in the fields of probate, trust administration, real estate, estate planning, and unlawful detainers. Hon. Noel Edwin Manoukian is a senior judge for Nevada, and also serves as an arbitrator and mediator. He is writing a non-fiction book about his legal experiences. He served on the Nevada Supreme Court from 1977 to 1985. Greg Morris is executive director of LEAnet, a national network of local education agencies, and also has a small consulting company. He 22 santa clara law spring 2010
has been working on a novel for 17 years. His memories from law school include meeting Earl Warren at commencement. Polly Welsh McGilvray has been in private law practice since 1971, and previously worked for the state of California. She writes that her best memory of law school was “sitting in class working crossword puzzles.” 4 5 - Y EAR
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Sept. 10-12, 2010
69 Robert Barengo is chairman of the Nevada Tax Commission. He is former speaker of the Nevada State Assembly, and is an attorney in Reno. He has served on the Tax Commission since 2003. He also previously served as a member of the Nevada Insurance Commission, was in the State Assembly from 1972 to 1982, and was a member of the Reno Financial Advisory Board. Edward Randall Bernett retired from practicing law in 2006, and stays busy operating Katy’s Place, a restaurant in Carmel, which he has owned since 1989. His law practice included founding the local Family Law Committee, which crafted the custodial mediation system that became the state standard. He also assisted the Czech government in establishing business partnerships with American firms after the fall of communism. He was one of the founders of Cal State University Monterey Bay, and was its first legal counsel. Richard Dolwig does family law mediation and collaborative law in Santa Barbara, where he has lived since 1996 with his wife, Linda. His daughter, Wendy Dolwig ’07, practices law in Santa Clara County, and his son is a chiropractor. Ann Jensen is happily retired from the California Attorney General’s Office, where she spent most
of her career in the criminal appellate division. She lives in Tucson, Ariz., and travels extensively. She writes, “Watching a sunrise or sunset without regard to preparing for an oral argument or writing a legal brief the next day is heaven!” Dan Kelly is doing mediations and arbitrations, and playing and watching golf with Bob Pasquinelli. Bob Lanzone is semiretired from the San Carlos law firm of Aaronson, Dickerson, Cohn and Lanzone. He is on the board of directors of Provident Credit Union. 40-YEAR
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72 F. David LaRiviere is on the International Trademark Association Project Team that is preparing for its annual meeting in San Francisco in May 2011. He also works on the INTA Roundtable Committee. He founded LaRiviere, Grubman & Payne in Monterey in 1993. 74 Dan Altemus is a labor arbitrator, a history docent at the Oakland Museum of California, and is on the board of directors for Children’s Fairyland in Oakland. He is founder and director of the East Africa Foundation, which built and supports a vocational school for young adults in western Kenya and supports other community projects in East Africa. He was an adjunct professor at Santa Clara Law from 2002 to 2004, and practiced labor law for 24 years. Jeffrey Barnett is in private practice in real estate and construction. Henry Bunsow is the Northern California managing partner for Howrey, where he tries patent infringement cases. Bill Burlington is a hearing officer in North Carolina’s state court, where
he conducts hearings on guardianships, estate administration, civil procedure, real estate, and adoptions. He previously worked for the U.S. Department of Justice as agency counsel to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Hon. Paul Cole retired in 2009 after serving 20 years as a judge in Santa Clara County. Previously, he worked 13 years in the District Attorney’s Office. Robert Dryden retired in 2008 from Fluor Corporation as managing general counsel. During his 30 years there, he and his wife, Janet, and their two children lived in South Africa, Holland, South Carolina, and London, before settling in Newport Beach. Javed Ellahie is a partner at the San Jose law firm of Ellahie & Farooqui, which emphasizes bankruptcy, estate planning, and corporation set-ups. John Fukasawa practices family law, and is active in Kiwanis. He will be lieutenant governor of that group during 2010-2011. Hon. Nancy Hoffman retired as a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge in 2000. She travels frequently with her husband, Jacques. Luke McCarthy practices business law while managing a real estate investment and development company based in Pasadena. William McHugh has practiced law with his wife, Cammie, at McHugh & Chen, in San Jose for 18 years. He handles plaintiff ’s employment and personal injury, business litigation, and insurance bad faith work. Charles Naylor teaches admiralty and maritime law at Chapman University School of Law. He is the managing member of the Naylor Law Group, which specializes in maritime personal injury and Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act claims. Hon. Knoel Owen retired from the Sonoma County bench after 23 years, and now serves as a visiting judge.
James Schiavenza has worked in the State Attorney General’s Office for 34 years, and is currently senior assistant attorney general for the tort and condemnation section. Susan Tanenbaum runs a consulting firm that advises businesses in human resources issues, teaches employment law, and enjoys her grandchildren. 3 5 - Y EAR
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Sept. 10-12, 2010
75 James J. Egan is chief operating officer for Sucampo Pharmaceuticals. He has more than 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Previously, he was chief business officer for ESBA Tech AG, a privately-held biotech company in Zurich, Switzerland, and was CEO of Neuronz Limited based in Auckland, New Zealand, and senior director of global licensing, business development, and mergers and acquisitions at G.D. Searle & Co. 78 Howard Peters and his wife, Sally, who are both chemists, received the Harry and Carol Mosher Award from the Santa Clara Valley chapter of the American Chemical Society. He is a member of the Board of Visitors of Santa Clara Law. 79 Bill Abrams is a partner with Bingham McCutchen, and is managing partner of the Silicon Valley office, and co-chair of the IP practice. He is also a consulting professor at Stanford, where he teaches courses in technology law, children and the law, the death penalty, and policy. Kathryn Black is a partner in a private law firm of 35 attorneys in Alaska. Peter Brewer has his own firm of five lawyers in Palo Alto, which handles real estate law,
including defending real estate brokers, brokerages, agents, appraisers, and mortgage brokers. Leslie Burton directs an LL.M. program at Golden Gate University School of Law, and is a professor of legal writing. Previously, she was a prosecutor, a clerk to the chief judge of the bankruptcy court, and practiced law for almost 15 years. Valli Freeman is taking care of her mother in Oregon. Previously, she had her own creditor’s bankruptcy practice for 18 years. Sue Cohen Goldstein has worked as attorney for the Washington state legislature in the Code Reviser’s Office since 1982. Hon. Linda Marino Gemello recently retired from California’s First District Court of Appeal. She served as a judge there for six years. Previously, she was a Superior Court judge, and an attorney in San Mateo County. Ronald J. Gomes is an internet administrator for the United States Air Force Warfare Center in Las Vegas. He transitioned into the information technology field after 20
Send Us Your News!
S
anta Clara Law is proud of all its graduates, and we want to celebrate your personal and professional milestones. Send us a class note—it is a great way to keep in touch with the law school and your fellow alumni. Please be sure to include your class year, and don’t forget to update your contact information if needed. Email your news to mjshort@scu.edu, fax it to 408-554-5201, or send it to Law Alumni Office, Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053.
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years of law practice. Carl Lindstrom, Jr., is in private law practice in San Jose. Mike McFerran teaches eighth grade U.S. history at Chaboya Middle School in San Jose. He previously was in private law practice and spent 17 years as a sales rep in the electronics industry. Sue McKinney has lived in Vietnam for the past 15 years, and has several businesses there, including Red Door Deco, an art gallery, furniture, and decorative arts shop in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). She moved to Vietnam after practicing law and working for the California Secretary of State’s Office as an Asian business liaison. “Although still licensed to practice law in California, my only formal legal function is limited to acting as in-house counsel for some of my projects, or occasionally teaching a CEB course on investment or treaties associated with U.S.-Vietnam bilateral relations,” she writes. Chuck Packer is a shareholder at Hopkins & Carley in San Jose, focusing on estate planning. Keith Pershall spent most of his career working in large law firms, but currently is a solo practitioner in Sacramento and San Francisco. He also teaches international law courses at McGeorge School of Law. His practice focuses on income tax and international matters. Cynthia Rice is a director of litigation at California Rural Legal Assistance, where she specializes in low wage worker rights and educational access. She is on the board of the California Employment Lawyers Association, and Centro de Los Derochos del Migrantes in Zacatecas, Mexico, which provides legal assistance to immigrants. Paula Smith retired from the FBI, where she was the assistant special agent in charge in San Francisco. She supervised numerous cybercrime and terrorism cases, and earlier worked 24 santa clara law spring 2010
as a field agent on cases involving bank robberies, organized crime, and white collar crime. She also worked for the agency in Washington, D.C., Richmond, Va., New Orleans, and Detroit. Sandy Smith Hauserman is a broker associate with Coldwell Banker in Tahoe City. She also works as a substitute teacher and a volunteer at local schools. She worked in Campbell for 10 years as the general counsel for a foreclosure company, and then moved to Tahoe City, married her husband, Tim, and has raised two daughters. Sally Suchil is director of corporate and legal affairs for the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. She has also worked for the California Endowment, Spelling Entertainment Group, MetroGoldwyn-Mayer, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Hon. Lynn Williams is an administrative law judge for the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board in San Jose. 3 0 - Y EAR
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Sept. 10-12, 2010
82 Vincent Galvin, Jr. B.A. ’79, was named one of the Irish Legal 100 by Irish Voice. He is managing partner of Bowman and Brooke in San Jose. He is a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Products Liability Advisory Council. Karen Reinhold is of counsel at Hopkins & Carley in San Jose. She focuses on employment-related litigation and advice, including trade secret, harassment, wage and hour, and discrimination matters. She previously was associate general counsel for Loral Space and Communications. Jesus Valencia was appointed a judge on the Santa Clara County Superior Court by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He previously
served as a court commissioner, and was in private practice.
83 Nancy Ayers was appointed a judge on the Ventura County Superior Court by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Previously, she worked for the Fresno County and Ventura County District Attorney’s Offices, and was an associate for Kahn, Soares and Conway. Jodi Rafkin is a program attorney with the National Stalking Resource Center of the National Center for Victims of Crime in Washington, D.C. Marshal Scarr is on the Building Resource Council of the San Diego County Building Industry Association. He continues to practice real estate, business, probate, and estate administration law as a shareholder at Peterson & Price in San Diego. 84 William Casey is managing partner of the San Francisco office of Clyde & Co., an international law firm based in London. He has been in the private practice of law for 25 years. He lives in San Mateo with his wife, Pam. They have two daughters. Jo Craycraft is retired, and is busy raising a 13-year-old son and also raising a puppy for Canine Companions for Independence. Jeffrey Gorder is the Shasta County Public Defender, managing an office of 14 other lawyers, four investigators, and six support staff. Kathryn Meier is a shareholder at Hoge Fenton Jones & Appel, where she focuses on employment law. Claude Perasso is a real estate investor, and is a trustee and consultant for closely-held real estate holding companies. Greg Prow is consulting on tax and legal issues for corporations and investing. Jerry Reiton is a partner at Berliner Cohen, practicing in the areas of tax and busi-
ness. Sandra Rupp McIntosh works for Trepel Law Offices in San Jose doing business litigation. Liz Smith is regional vice president of EMEA Sales for a Silicon Valley startup, SugarCRM. Stacey Gurian-Sherman is director of community and family partnerships for the Maryland State Department of Juvenile Services. She directs youth development projects. She lives in Takoma Park, Md., with her husband, who works with the Union of Concerned Scientists. They have a college-age daughter. Monica Smyth is director of family resources at Abilis, a non-profit in Greenwich, Conn. She is a member of the Connecticut Council on Developmental Disabilities. Jo Lee Wickes lives in Reno, Nev. with her husband and three sons. She is the chief deputy district attorney for the juvenile division of the Washoe County District Attorney’s Office. 25 - Y E A R
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Sept. 10-12, 2010
85 Christopher Beeman is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He is a partner in the Pleasanton office of Clapp, Moroney, Bellagamba, Vucinich, Beeman & Schley, and leads the products liability, personal injury, and business litigation law groups.
89 Peter Ackerman is president and
CEO of Innovation Asset Group in Wilsonville, Ore., which provides software for the management of intellectual property assets. He previously worked for Intel, and then as a deputy district attorney for Multnomah County. Later, while in private practice, he served as a municipal judge for the city of Beaverton. John Clark practices law in Morgan Hill, and is raising three children with his wife,
Leslie. Michael Lamphere is a solo practitioner in Larkspur, with an emphasis on personal injury, medical malpractice, eminent domain, general real estate litigation, and insurance disputes. Judy Yuriko Lee is a partner with the trusts and estates group at Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel in Honolulu. She is a director of the Hawaii Estate Planning Council and the Hawaii Baptist Foundation. She and her husband, Michael, have two children, ages 20 and 17. 2 0 - Y EAR
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94 Rhonda Andrew is a litigation
paralegal in San Francisco. Nicole Bartow is now in her 13th year of teaching at Park View High School in Virginia, where she teaches Advanced Placement Government and Advanced Placement Psychology. She is also junior class sponsor, and plans prom every year. Janice Lee Fitzsimmons is enjoying her children and teaching kung fu in Alamo and San Ramon. Cynthia Waddell, see page 15. Zachary Zaharek J.D./MBA, B.S. ’91 led an informal Q & A with former President Bill Clinton at a fundraiser hosted by the Southern California chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel. He is senior corporate counsel for First American CoreLogic. 1 5 - Y EAR
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Sept. 10-12, 2010
95 Anne M. Hayes published her
first book, Sexless: How Feminism is Failing Women, a critique of modern feminism. She lives in Sacramento with her husband and four children. Daniel Nishigaya was appointed a judge on
the Santa Clara County Superior Court by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. He previously worked in the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.
96 Timothy Branson is a partner at Gordon & Rees in San Diego. He focuses on complex business litigation, securities law, professional and corporate liability, and product liability. 97 Mark Howitson is deputy gen-
eral counsel for Facebook, where he is responsible for worldwide litigation, labor and employment, and the company’s patent portfolio. James Markwith is of counsel in the intellectual property and technology practice group of Greenberg Taurig. He focuses on IP transactions with an emphasis on software and hardware development, open source, open standards, and information technology. Previously, he was with Microsoft as a senior attorney, and was corporate counsel of worldwide products and marketing for Adobe Systems.
99 Audrey Beaman works as a deputy county counsel for Alameda County, handling public contracting, eminent domain, and land use issues. She is raising Ava, 5, and Riley, 2, with husband Ryan Eagan ’00. Amy Cella is vice president/regional counsel for the East Bay region of Sutter Health. Jennifer Mello is a certified family law specialist and partner at Mello & Pickering in San Jose. She and her husband, Kevin, have three children under the age of five. Lisa Buccino Monroe is in-house litigation counsel for SAP AG in Palo Alto. She is the mother of two daughters. Michelle Montez and her husband, Ian Fisher ’98, announce the birth of their third child, Sterling James, on Aug. 28, 2009. He joins brother Sebastian, 5,
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and sister Sydney Rose, 2. Joanne Pasternack-Bardin and her husband, Robert Bardin MBA ’01, announce the arrival of a son, Reid Oliver, on Nov. 17, 2009. He joins sister Kira, 2, at home in Sunnyvale. Joanne is the community relations director for the San Francisco 49ers. 10- Y E A R
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Sept. 10-12, 2010
00 Jason Anderson is a partner at
Howrey in East Palo Alto. He specializes in intellectual property litigation, including patent, trade secret, and copyright issues. He has litigated in such areas as database, airline reservation, and Web-conferencing software. Michelle Corvi B.S. ’97 is a partner with McManis Faulkner, where she co-leads the family law team. She is an active member of the Santa Clara County Bar Association.
01 Kirsten Fish is a partner at Needham, Kepner, Fish & Jones in San Jose, where she practices personal injury law. She also teaches legal research and writing at Lincoln Law School in San Jose. Garrett Murai is partner at Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean in Oakland. He focuses on construction and business-related disputes, including shareholder derivative actions, partnership litigation, easement disputes, adverse possession, and landslide subsidence. Previously, he was with Aiken, Kramer & Cummings. He was named a Northern California Rising Star by Super Lawyers in 2009. Adrian Percer is of counsel at Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Karen K. Wong is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto. She serves as intellectual property counsel to venture-backed companies, primarily in life sciences and clean technology fields.
Alumni 2010 Calendar of Events Tuesday, April 20 Santa Barbara Law Alumni Evening Reception Hosted by Rick Lee ’77 at Reicker, Pfau, Pyle & McRoy, Santa Barbara Friday, April 23 American Red Cross Symposium Forced Migration and Refugees/ Internally Displaced Persons, Santa Clara University Thursday, April 29 Celebration of Leadership and Achievement Banquet held by Santa Clara Law and the Law Alumni Association, Hyatt Regency, Santa Clara Saturday, May 22 Commencement Ceremony and Reception in Mission Gardens, Santa Clara University
26 santa clara law spring 2010
Monday, June 21 12th Annual Justice Edward Panelli Golf Classic San Jose Country Club, San Jose September 10-12 Law Reunion Weekend Celebrating milestone years for the Classes of 60, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 2000, 2005, Santa Clara University Thursday, September 16 Sports Law Symposium Santa Clara University Wednesday, September 29 Sixth Annual Jerry A. Kasner Estate Planning Symposium DoubleTree Hotel, San Jose For more information on events, visit law.scu.edu/alumni or call (408) 551-1748.
02 Krista Carter is a partner at Howrey in East Palo Alto. She focuses on intellectual property litigation and strategic counseling. She represents biotechnology and information technology clients in trial, appellate, and International Trade Commission proceedings. She has assisted in reexamination proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Mark Gullotta J.D./MBA, BSC ’95 and his wife, Tina Misthos, BSC ’95 announce the birth of their second child, Aristotle Haralambos, on Jan. 23, 2009. He joins brother Andonis, 4, in the family’s San Bruno home. 04 Dale Andrade is a sole practi-
tioner who is helping to found a religious non-profit, and is working on a master’s in philosophy. Trevor Caudle is enjoying being self-employed, in a civil litigation and corporate/transactional practice. Rita Chan practices environmental and land use law in the legal department of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. Previously she worked in the San Francisco office of Pillsbury. Stephanie Grogan is a deputy public defender at the Solano County Public Defender’s Office, where she represents defendants in major crimes. Viva Harris, see page 2. MinGhee Lee practices immigration and intellectual property law in Cerritos. The firm has three attorneys and one patent agent. Aila Malik is an executive for Fresh Lifelines for Youth, a community-based organization. Traci Mason has a small firm specializing in criminal defense. She is the mother of a young son and daughter. Jacquelyn (Mankins) McLaughlin works for a workers compensation and labor law firm in San Francisco. She is the mother of two sons, ages 1 and 2. Andrei Popovici is a patent attorney in San Jose. Wynn Silberman works in
sports management, and teaches Sports Law at Santa Clara Law. Jon Swenson is a patent litigation attorney. Tasha Timbadia works for the state Attorney General’s Office handling criminal appeals. 5- Y E A R
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Competing in IP An experienced attorney in China, Alex Zhang ’06 earned his LL.M. to help him compete in China’s emerging IP market.
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Sept. 10-12, 2010
05 Kathleen Sherman is a busi-
ness litigation associate at Berliner Cohen in San Jose. She previously was a research attorney for San Mateo County Superior Court. Carmella Woll started her own law practice in Santa Cruz, and practices general civil litigation. She is on the board of Senior Citizens Legal Services and is a court-appointed special advocate for abused and neglected children. She also teaches and performs hip hop dance and bellydance.
07 Gregory Bertram Lemmons has
started his own law practice based in San Francisco. He focuses on business, non-patent intellectual property, and entertainment law.
08 Kevin Albanese B.S.’96 is vice president and chief operating officer of Joseph J. Albanese, the family construction business. He was on the “40 Under 40” list released by the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. Sara Dabkowski is a deputy district attorney for Mendocino County, in the traffic court in Ukiah. Rosanna Moreno is an associate with the San Jose office of Ericksen Arbuthnot. Jennifer Tse is a fellow for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Atlanta. She is working on a classaction human trafficking case. (See page 8.)
By A sa Pit t ma n ’ 0 9
B
efore relocating to the United States, Alex Zhang ’06 was a professional in his home country of China with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, a master’s degree in computer science, and a law certificate. He realized that despite his many accomplishments, he needed something more to compete in China’s emerging intellectual property market—an LL.M. from Santa Clara Law. “There were no intellectual property lawyers in China before 1985. IP was a hot topic in China, so I tried to figure out how I could use my background to become a part of the field,” says Zhang. Alex Zhang ’06 During his 10 years as a patent and trademark attorney in China, Zhang had become familiar with Santa Clara Law’s reputation as a leading producer of IP lawyers, which convinced him to enroll. Although he had traveled to New York and other major American cities for business, Zhang had never studied in the United States prior to attending Santa Clara Law. His experience at the school, he said, exceeded his expectations: “Santa Clara Law gave me a lot of help. They had great professors and the students really helped each other.” A partner at King & Wood, one of the largest law firms in China, since 2001, Zhang attended Santa Clara Law while managing the firm’s Silicon Valley office. Today, Zhang remains a partner at King & Wood, where he specializes in patent preparation, prosecution, and counseling. His duties require him to travel between his downtown San Jose office and China approximately six times a year. Despite his frequent travels, however, Zhang keeps close contact with his alma mater. By collaborating with Santa Clara Law’s Center for Global Law and Policy, Zhang helped create summer internships for Santa Clara students at the King & Wood offices in Beijing and Hong Kong. The internships, he said, not only provide a unique way for students to learn IP law, but also express his gratitude to the school that made his entry into IP practice possible: “I think connections are very important in every area of life. It’s good to stay in touch with your school, and maybe even give something back.”
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72 Timothy B. Murphy B.A. ’69,
OB IT UA R I E S
67 Jay Lipman, April 28, 2009. A
graduate of Long Island University, he worked in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office for 40 years. He was the longest serving deputy in the District Attorney’s office. He helped launch the office’s Welfare Fraud Division in 1994. He is survived by his wife, Annette Peterfy, and two children.
Charles Reiton, Sept. 28, 2009. A native of North Dakota, he moved as a child to the Bay Area. He was a graduate of San Jose State University. He spent much of his career working for defense contractors, including Varian, UTC, Eaton Electronics, and Northrop Grumman. He retired to Lincoln. Survivors include two sons, three stepchildren, and 10 grandchildren.
70 Charles Findlay, Dec. 3, 2009.
Born in upstate New York, he served in the U.S. Air Force. He left law behind in the late 1970s and bought a catering business. He is survived by five children, and nine grandchildren.
Sept. 24, 2009. Born in Palo Alto, he graduated from Bellarmine High School and Santa Clara University. He worked at the San Francisco City Attorney’s office after earning his law degree, and later became city attorney of Daly City. He also worked for the law firm of MacMorris and Carbone. He loved to travel, was a sports fan and avid golfer, and was famous for his chocolate chip cookies. He is survived by his wife, Geri, three sons, a daughter-in-law, two grandchildren, and two siblings.
73 William M. Hilton, Nov. 20, 2009. 74 Carolyn Gallaghan, Nov. 19,
2009. Born in La Plata, Md., she spent her high school years in Santa Cruz County, before attending San Jose State University and Santa Clara Law. She practiced bankruptcy law in Santa Cruz for over 20 years. She loved to travel, and often went to watch opera in San Francisco and New York. She is survived by two daughters, one granddaughter, a sister, and two brothers.
Legacy
Christopher Pablo B.S.C. ’72, Dec. 9, 2009. He was born in Honolulu, and grew up in Manoa. He earned a degree in accounting from SCU before attending Santa Clara Law. He was a special assistant to U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye, director of government affairs for Hawaii Medical Services Association, and director of public affairs for Kaiser Permanente. In 2007, he joined the law firm of Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel, concentrating on government relations and health policy law. He was active in campaigns for health care legislation, and in organizing community bone marrow drives. He is survived by his wife, Sandra, and three children.
84 Sharon Ann Fierro, Dec. 4, 2008. A lifelong San Jose resident, she is survived by two children, two grandchildren, and her mother. 98 Ericka Chambers Norman, see page 19.
Build Your
One of the first bequests at Santa Clara University came from Thomas I. Bergin, who in 1857 was Santa Clara College’s first graduate. Bergin’s generous gift of $100,000 helped to finance the construction of the School of Law.
When you choose to include Santa Clara Law in your will, living trust, or estate plan, you can: • Honor the law school as it approaches its centennial in 2011. • Have a powerful impact on tomorrow’s law students and the communities they will serve. • Make a significant gift without affecting your current income. • Provide a charitable tax deduction for your estate. • Receive recognition of your gift designation during your lifetime. For more information please contact Larry Donatoni, Assistant Dean, ldonatoni@scu.edu, (408) 554-2722.
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CLO S ING A RG U M ENTS
What does it mean to be a Jesuit law school? By Julia Yaffee, Senior Assistant Dean, External Affairs, Santa Clara Law
started work as an admissions counselor at Santa Clara Law in 1984. My chief responsibility was to recruit new law students. I had just returned from three years with my family on the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, where I taught at the international school. It was nice to be back in civilization, but learning about law students was uncharted territory. Since my office was next door to Associate Dean George Strong’s office, I asked: “What should I say when prospective students ask why they should enroll here?” “Well, our buildings are inadequate, the library needs to be remodeled, and the classrooms are old fashioned, certainly much worse than our competitor law schools,” he said. I was turning for the door when he said dryly, “But what really matters is the people, and Santa Clara has the best.” Over the years I came to understand fully what he meant. This law school is exceptional because of the community—our faculty, students, staff, alumni, and the value-driven purpose that we share. (Of course, our facilities have been upgraded since then.) I’ve often pondered how being a part of a Jesuit university has affected the law school both in terms of our collegial atmosphere, and our commitment to service—and the highest levels of scholarship and academic rigor. When Santa Clara Law was established in 1911, it was the eighth of what are now 14 Jesuit law schools. We were part of a concerted effort to make legal education accessible to more people by offering classes at night and on weekends. These Jesuit law schools were among the first to provide access to women and people
of color, and they also embraced the idea of community service that was built on the Jesuit tradition of engagement. Jesuit law schools now educate almost one in every 10 law students. But what impact has being on a Catholic Jesuit campus had on students and future lawyers? Several years ago we interviewed students and faculty asking what it meant to them to be at a Jesuit law school. Catholics said they embraced the University’s mission and enjoyed the familiarity of the Mission Church. Non-Catholics praised the openness the school has to all ideas and beliefs. But most commonly, people valued our shared commitment to serving the community, working toward justice, and doing “good.”
This law school is exceptional because of the community— our faculty, students, staff, alumni, and the value-driven purpose that we share. In the 16th century, Jesuit universities were known for stressing the importance of learning with the goal of better serving society. By the turn of the last century, this idea of service came to include the idea that engaging with society was essential. At the Second Vatican Council in 1960, this theme expanded to foster the idea of sodality and brought together faith and justice. Santa Clara University often expresses this ideal in terms of educating people of conscience, competence, and compassion. Our students take this charge seriously. The year after hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, our student
leaders came up with the idea of an “alternative spring break.” They convinced Professors Armstrong, Starr, and Abriel to be Julia Yaffee their advisers and recruited their peers to help Katrina victims in lieu of their usual spring snow or beach trips. They even convinced the dean to match the funds they raised. The students have sponsored similar trips ever since. This same desire to embrace the community is what led students to rally for the creation of our community law center years ago, and it is what compelled two current students to travel to Haiti (see page 18). Santa Clara grads are serving the community in so many ways: as public officials, judges, private attorneys doing pro bono work, nonprofit board members, legal advisers to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and innovators, and as leaders in all walks of life. Our graduates have had a significant impact on our Valley and beyond. I take personal pleasure in watching the students I’ve recruited over the years—I celebrate the many professional accomplishments and the multitude of ways they serve others. As we are about to enter our second century, it makes me proud to know that each new generation of Santa Clara lawyers will be influenced by our Jesuit tradition. They too will have the opportunity to embrace academic rigor, promote justice, and serve the community. C H ARLES BARRY
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Who was your favorite law professor? Do you have a favorite moment with your professor? As we look toward our centennial, we want to hear your stories of law school. Visit our centennial site and email us your memories, reflections, and photos.
Santa Clara Law Professor and then-Dean George Alexander in his office with students. Photo by William C. Wymann, 1971.
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