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JANAI NELSON ’96 DELIVERS STIRRING COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS
by UCLA Law
Janai Nelson ’96, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, was selected as UCLA Law’s 71st Commencement keynote speaker—and she delivered on every level: heartfelt congratulations to the graduates and their families, a sober assessment of today’s issues, and hopeful reminders of the challenges and opportunities for this new generation of lawyers and leaders.
Nelson recalled her own sense of “exhilaration and trepidation” when she graduated in 1996, “knowing that your daily life at UCLA Law is about to come to an end, but the future you worked so hard to obtain is just about to begin.” She spoke of a sit-in she had participated in to protest Proposition 209—which banned race-based affirmative action— adding, “Little did we know then that 25 years later we’d still be fighting…in the Supreme Court to defend affirmative action…under the misnomer of critical race theory… Prop 209 was a harbinger of the future that you are now inheriting.”
She alluded to other current concerns—including the pandemic, climate change, and war—but focused her speech on the fact that “our own democracy is in turmoil.”
But she was also hopeful, saying, “You will lead a future that hangs in the balance, but also one that has the promise to become one of the country’s greatest moments of transformation…. There is a future where the United States is a vibrant, thriving, inclusive democracy, but we have to choose to take that path and to continually do the work to preserve and perfect it.
“Democracy is an action, not an inevitability.”
Although Nelson acknowledged that “not one generation could or should be asked to solve problems centuries in the making,” she said that “we as lawyers all have a special assignment to see both the full threat and the full opportunity before us.”
She continued, “You are entering the legal profession at a pivotal moment in our democracy, and there is a privilege in the power that you hold. Each of you enters this exclusive profession with the tools, the skills, the acumen, and the status that less than one percent of this country’s population possesses.”
“Democracy is an action, not an inevitability.” —JANAI NELSON ’96 Nelson also provided some practical guidance on putting that privilege to work, encouraging the graduates “not to lament about the state of our democracy from the sidelines…instead use your power to help lead the charge.” She recommended several possibilities: “Get involved in local elections, not only as voters but as poll workers, as volunteer lawyers on Election Day…represent indigent clients pro bono, serve on a bar association to uphold the ethics of the profession.” In addition, Nelson encouraged the graduates to commit to lifelong learning—“not only to hone your craft as a lawyer but also to better understand the dynamic world.” Despite the reality of what she called “an existential moment in the American experience,” Nelson said that she was hopeful about the future: “When I look out at you, the class of 2022 and the promise that you hold, you give me renewed energy.…Find a way to do justice from your perch in the world.” The conferring of degrees took place after Nelson’s stirring speech, and the cheers and ovations continued for more than an hour while more than 600 names were called and diplomas awarded.
Students at 2022 Commencement
TEACHING LAW AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: THE LMI-SANDLER PRIZE
For the past six years, the Lowell Milken Institute for Business Law and Policy has fostered entrepreneurship through the Lowell Milken Institute–Sandler Prize for New Entrepreneurs, a business plan competition exclusively for teams of UCLA students, each of which must include one student from the law school. On April 18, 2022, in an event somewhat reminiscent of Shark Tank at the law school, the final round of six presentations were made in front of a live audience and via Zoom.
The institute’s executive director, Joel Feuer, began the event by introducing the three judges for the 2022 awards: Jenny Leung MBA ’18, program director at Techstars Los Angeles and a member of the winning team for the 2018 LMI-Sandler Prize; Moujan Kazerani ’00, founding partner and general counsel at Bryant Stibel; and Richard Sandler ’73, executive vice president of the Milken Family Foundation and a partner at the law firm Maron & Sandler. After Feuer outlined the basic rules—each team had 10 minutes to present and 8 minutes to answer questions from the judges—the evening got underway.
The team Lost Abroad, which is creating an immersive languagelearning experience, went first. Next up was Vesty, a digital incubator designed to facilitate the growth and development of social media influencers’ brands and enable others to invest in the socialmedia marketing arena. The third presenter was OraFay, which is developing a novel microarray drug delivery system, called Sal-patch, for treating gum disease. The fourth team was Vite.st, another medical device startup, which is creating a reusable COVID-19 sensor that is as easy to use as a breathalyzer and delivers test results in five minutes. SportSwap, the fifth team to present, is creating a more transparent and community-oriented approach to online sports betting. The final team, Kommu, is building a home/apartment sharing network to enable people to travel less expensively.
Each team, ranging from four to six people, used slide decks to make their presentation, with individual team members speaking about the overall vision, competitive differentiation, key metrics (“total addressable market” was obviously important), funding strategies and timelines and potential legal challenges. The level of thought and rigor was impressive, and the presenters were quite professional, even polished; only an occasional nervous jitter reminded the audience that these were young graduate students rather than seasoned entrepreneurs.
Particularly evident was that each team told an effective story, not just about the “what” of their ideas but also the “why” and “how.” It was clear also that these students took the challenge of entrepreneurship seriously.
After a short break for the judges to deliberate, Feuer announced the winners, acknowledging that the decisions were especially difficult this year because “the quality of the presentations—and the ideas for new businesses—were so great”: • SportSwap received the New Venture Prize for a startup that has not previously won any awards; this was a new award category for the 2022 competition. Daniel Del Giorno JD MBA ’22, Melis
Kilic JD MBA ’22, Keaton Lipson MBA ’22 and Justin Moorad
MBA ’23 each received $2,500. • The LMI-Sandler 2nd place prize went to Lost Abroad. Receiving prizes of $2,000 each were team members Jackson Browning
MBA ’22, Siyi Chen MBA ’22, Jack Du MBA ’22, Brent Oberlin
MBA ’22, Zi Ye ’22 and Beineng Zhang ’23. • The 1st place prize went to Kommu: Bo Abrams MBA ’22,
Darren Douglas MBA ’22, Branden Nikka ’23, Katie Schiff
MBA ’22, Gus Woythaler MBA ’22 and Devin Yaeger ’23, each of whom received $4,000.
The LMI-Sandler competition originated with Lowell Milken ’73 and Richard Sandler ’73 and their desire to provide more opportunities for law students to explore entrepreneurship, venture creation, investment and business development. More than 200 law students have participated in the competition since it began in 2016.
“This year’s finalists exhibited the wide range of creative ventures that have become a hallmark of this competition,” said Sandler, who has served as a final-round judge every year since the competition began. “Each year, participating law students tell me how much they have learned from the competition and express their excitement at working with students from the other professional schools and graduate programs on ventures that have the potential to create change. It is powerful for law students to see the bigger picture of how the skills that they are learning at UCLA Law translate into the world of entrepreneurship.” (continued on page 24)
Diana Yen ’22, of team Vite.st, pitches for the judges
Amber Dean ’23 and Monica Gibbons ’22 are the winners of the 2022 Skye Donald Spirit of Community Award, the highest recognition for student service to UCLA Law. Their award was announced by Bayrex Martí, the assistant dean of student affairs, in a message to the community.
This is the fifth year the law school has presented this award, which recognizes one or more students who demonstrate integrity, generosity, and a focus on the well-being of the law school community. Recipients embody Skye Donald’s values of service and compassion and enhance the UCLA Law experience for the entire community.
Both of the 2022 honorees received many glowing nominations from a broad cross-section of the community, reflecting the sheer number of activities and commitments in which each is engaged.
Dean recently served as a co-chair for the Black Law Students Association, for which she played a leadership role in producing the organization’s annual gala. She is also a member of the school’s top-ranked A. Barry Cappello Trial Team and has competed in numerous high-profile tournaments. In addition to her academic load and extracurricular commitments, Dean externed at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Hearings Unit. She is a past recipient of the Erika J. Glazer Endowed Scholarship at UCLA Law, which supports first-year law students who are dedicated to achieving equity for the Black communities of Los Angeles. In nominating Dean for the Skye Donald award, her peers noted her public activism as well as her attention to the needs of others. Nominators credited her work with BLSA to ensuring that the organization’s membership was “uplifted, resourced, and happy.” Dean was also held up as an example of a student who inspires and supports others in spite of taking on a multitude of extracurricular activities; her involvement with trial advocacy was cited in this regard.
“I am so thankful for the people who have come before me,” says Dean. “Their hard work and dedication has given me the opportunity to pursue my dreams. I am forever grateful for them because they have inspired me to do whatever is in my power to help others realize their dreams.”
Gibbons recently graduated with a focus in public interest law and Critical Race Studies. She was a discourse editor for Volume 69 of the UCLA Law Review and a staff editor for Volume 68; she was also a research assistant for Professor Jerry Kang. She participated in El Centro Legal’s Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and U-Visa clinic, as well as its Labor and Economic Justice Clinic, working on unemployment insurance at the beginning of the pandemic.
Gibbons’s commitment to the social aspect of law school, as well as her rigorous academic pursuits, led one nominator to say, “Monica allows people to trust her and feel secure in her presence.” Throughout the pandemic, Gibbons gained a reputation as someone who would take the time to check in on classmates and to help new students—whether 1Ls, transfers, LL.Ms or M.L.S. students—feel welcomed to the UCLA Law community.
Gibbons thinks she’s the one who should be thankful. “My classmates at UCLA created such a warm and supportive community,” she says. “I came into law school expecting to learn a few things and leave; I did not expect that UCLA Law would feel like home. I am really proud of the collaborative community we built together, where we were able to share our wins and losses together and support each other through it. I hope UCLA continues to be a special place for the law students, while also hoping the law school will find ways to better support students in times of crisis.”
Since graduating, Gibbons began clerking for Judge Salvador Mendoza Jr. ’97. Last spring, Judge Mendoza was nominated by President Joseph Biden and confirmed to serve on the 9th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals where Gibbons will continue to clerk for him.
“Every year, it is a pleasure to read the nominations for this award,” says Assistant Dean Martí. “We have so many amazing students do so many amazing things for our community. It speaks to how exceptional Amber and Monica are that they could stand out in that collection of amazing nominees. I congratulate them and all who were nominated, and I thank all who submitted nominations.”
The Skye Donald Spirit of Community Award honors the memory of UCLA Law lecturer Skye Donald, a teacher and lawyer who was admired for bringing out the best in her students and colleagues before she died from cancer in 2016, at age 43. The award and the associated Skye Donald Memorial Fund foster collegiality, compassion and service to enhance the UCLA Law experience for award recipients and the entire community.
Amber Dean ’23 and Monica Gibbons ’22, winners of the 2022 Skye Donald Awards
REPAST IS TAKING FOOD LAW DISCUSSIONS INTO THE FUTURE
Food is an intimate topic set against an international backdrop. Inflation and supply chain disruption affect daily meal planning, while climate change threatens the stability of the entire ecosystem, creating a multinational problem as well as the ultimate “kitchen-table issue.” That may explain why Repast, a new podcast from UCLA Law’s Resnick Center for Food Law & Policy, is engaging a variety of listeners.
Planning for Repast began in late 2020, and the first episode aired Feb. 9, 2021. Co-hosts Michael Roberts, professor from practice and executive director of the Resnick Center, and Diana Winters, the center’s deputy director, wanted to build a pyramid of communication tools to disseminate important research. They’d already created a blog, On Food Law, as well as Twitter and Instagram accounts. Winters, a big fan of podcasts, knew the medium had potential as a teaching tool. Roberts and Winters began reaching out to their colleagues, looking for people who were launching projects or publishing new data.
The Resnick Center is well-positioned to lead discussion in this area, given California’s status as a food producer and a leader in health and environmental policy, and UCLA Law’s rich tradition of collaboration between programs and institutes.
Winters realized the podcast was connecting with audiences beyond academia when a staff member at the Department of Agriculture asked if the hosts would like to have Dr. Sara Bleich as a guest on the show. Bleich is the first person to serve as director of nutrition security and health equity for the department’s Food and Nutrition Service and is leading its work to counter food insecurity and injustice in the United States.
Repast episodes vary from discussions of high-level policy to considerations of on-the-ground impact, such as an episode that featured an interview with Jamiah Hargins, the founder of Crop Swap L.A. and the Asante Microfarm. His young organization is transforming urban front yards and unused spaces into healthy food sources for the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Upcoming installments will address equity and supply chain resiliency, including Roberts’s latest research, co-authored with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, on global challenges involving food authenticity and “economically motivated adulteration,” commonly known as food fraud.
Winters says the podcast’s toughest episode covered a groundbreaking lawsuit linking toxic baby foods to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder. The guests, Michael L. Baum ’85 and Pedram Esfandiary—both of Baum Hedlund Aristei & Goldman— painted a deeply unsettling picture of regulatory dysfunction and corporate malfeasance but recommended action steps for reform to students and the public.
Achieving balance is an ongoing goal, as Winters and Roberts experiment to find the right combination of guest, subject matter, and audience. They use the easygoing conversational style characteristic of podcasting, occasionally contributing bits of personal knowledge about a guest. Winters’s 13-year-old child, Orchid, composed the theme music. The whole approach is designed to make food law more accessible and to connect with audiences through multiple channels.
“We’ve had several potential students tell us they found the Resnick Center through our blog and want to apply to UCLA Law as a result,” Winters says. “It feels like we’ve reached people who may change their career.”
Although it’s a challenge to juggle podcast production in addition to teaching, research, writing, and supervising students, Winters and Roberts believe in the importance of the subject matter and the multiplatform approach.
“For food law and policy to be successful, it has to be interdisciplinary,” Roberts says. “It provides a framework by which we can use different specializations or different points of law to address problems that are seemingly intractable.
“We provide scholarship that helps create a foundation for problem solving,” he adds. “The podcast is a forum where we can articulate and think about these problems and the role of law in addressing them. So it’s not just scholarship for scholarship’s sake. It’s scholarship that can lead to transformative action.”
Left to right: Diana Winters, the center’s deputy director; Michael Roberts, professor from practice and executive director of the Resnick Center
