Alumni

UC Davis Law held its community-affirming milestone reunions in November. More than 200 people attended, and our Class of 1972 marked a special reunion – 50 years! With special thanks to the Class of 1972 reunion committee: David Beatty, Steve Boutin, David Hicks, Rex Hime, Andy Holmer, Roger Masuda and William Owen. It was wonderful to see all who came out to catch up and reminisce with classmates.

In January, students, faculty, staff and alumni gathered in King Hall’s courtyard to celebrate the appointment of Associate Justice Kelli Evans ’94 to the California Supreme Court.

“I remember the first time I set foot in King Hall and saw the statue of Dr. King and knew I had come to the right place,” Evans told the audience. The Martin Luther King Jr. Service Award winner in her 3L year, Evans credits her UC Davis Law education as integral to her distinguished career in public service.

One of UC Davis’ biggest fans, Bill Mantle ’74 roots for Aggie sports teams and King Hall students with equal enthusiasm.   

To help ensure equal access to a UC Davis legal education, Mantle recently established the Mantle Family Scholarship. In 2021-22, he gave an extraordinary $900,000 to UC Davis Law, including $100,000 to further fund the scholarship. Mantle’s gift helped lift the law school’s 2021-22 fundraising total to an impressive $2.63 million. 

In November, the Solano County Bar Association recognized the extraordinary career of Ramona Garrett '80 with its inaugural Legal Trailblazers Award.  

Throughout her life, Garrett has overcome challenges. As a child, she spent time in the segregated schools of Arkansas while her family struggled to get by. Her father was in the Air Force, and the family moved around the world, from Libya to Japan. Eventually her family settled in Fairfield.  

King Hall alumni took the bench and ascended within the judicial ranks in impressive numbers in 2022 and 2023. These accomplished jurists reflect the inclusive excellence that defines the King Hall community.

The Alumni of the Month feature of the UC Davis School of Law website was established in 2015 as a way to showcase some of the outstanding alumni of King Hall. We hope you enjoy these profiles of alumni who are doing interesting and exciting things, or who have made exceptional contributions to the legal field.

By Catherine Kenny

Sister Simone Campbell ’77, jokes that she belongs to a community of troublemakers, referring to the religious community she joined when she was just 19 — the Sisters of Social Service. Her brand of “trouble” has led to a long string of successes as a religious leader, attorney, author and tireless advocate for racial and economic justice. Last July, she was recognized with the 2022 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, for her decades-long advocacy for justice.

By Carla Meyer 

Growing up in Sacramento, Tani Cantil-Sakauye ’84 did not envision she would scale the heights of California’s judicial system.  

But her mother, Mary, might have had an inkling. When Cantil-Sakauye, 63, was a teen, Mary took her to a “meet a lawyer” event organized within Sacramento’s tightknit Filipino American community.  

Jenny Ballesteros Magdaleno ’23 has received a 2023 Equal Justice Works Design-Your-Own-Fellowship.

One of 76 recipients from around the country who will spend the next two years advancing access to justice for underserved communities, Ballesteros Magdaleno will work for the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has nominated Judge Jose Castillo ’06 to serve as an associate justice of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division One.

Castillo has been a San Diego Superior Court judge since 2020. Before that, he was an assistant U.S. attorney, and a staff attorney at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A former Marine, Castillo also has served on the King Hall Alumni Association Board of Directors. His nomination requires confirmation by the Commission on Judicial Appointments.