Fall 2020 Welcome Message
Welcome to the Class of 2023, transfer students, international students, and LL.M. students from around the world. Welcome back to the faculty and second- and third-year students.
As the global pandemic continues, your health is our highest priority. That is why, under campus direction, we begin the fall semester through remote instruction. We have established comprehensive safety guidelines for people using the building. COVID-19 updates can be found on these King Hall and campus pages.
As always, we are dedicated to providing an outstanding educational experience. The community forum in June was the beginning. Our acclaimed faculty spent the summer in training to hone their remote and hybrid teaching skills. A summer of preparations will allow students to safely have regular (with limits required for cleaning) access to the building, including the Mabie Law Library. The law school also continues to offer bar exam support to the Class of 2020, as well as study and testing space.
As protests over policing swept the nation, the King Hall community has responded. Our generous donors have made it possible for us to be putting the final touches on a new student scholarship named for the late George Floyd. Earlier this week, students, faculty, staff, and alumni engaged in a wonderful discussion of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, a book documenting the systemic racial injustice in the U.S. criminal justice system. To improve our student programming and support, we are adding a diversity, equity, and inclusion fellow to the Student Affairs office.
This year, UC Davis Law will virtually host a Racial Justice Speaker Series. The tentative schedule is laid out below:
- September: Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods; Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg ’84
- October: Georgetown Law Professor Robin Lenhardt (Bodenheimer Lecture); Boston University School of Law Dean Angela Onwuachi-Willig
- November: UC Davis Law Professor Irene Joe
- January 2021: Yolo County Public Defender Tracie Olson
- March 2021: Georgetown Law Professor Paul Butler (Barrett Lecture); UC Irvine School of Law Dean Song Richardson
- Invited: Chief Justice of California Tani Cantil-Sakauye ’84; California Attorney General Xavier Becerra
Expect a full array of law school, student, and community events throughout the 2020/21 academic year. And the King Hall coffee kiosk will reopen in September!
Class of 2023: Excellence, Diversity, Community
The Class of 2023 is comprised of students with off-the-charts credentials and life experiences. Students hail from Columbia, Brown, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, all the UC campuses, and many other top universities. Students of color compose 56 percent of the class; women make up a stunning 71 percent. More than one-fifth of the students are first-generation college graduates; 34 percent will receive need-based aid. Five students are alumni of the King Hall Outreach Program, which prepares students for the highly competitive law school admissions process. The extraordinary class of 2023 contains six military veterans, along with teachers, engineers, and advocates for those in need.
To assist the Class of 2023’s transition to law school, our Academic Success Program (ASP) will provide a tutor for each 1L doctrinal class. ASP also will offer workshops to introduce first-year students to briefing, outlining, and law school exams.
King Hall welcomes 43 new students in our amazing Master of Laws class. These pioneers come from Afghanistan, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Germany, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.
New Classes, Student Life and Resources
Our student leaders have ensured that first-year and returning students can participate in student groups. Check out the student-group videos. A virtual student organization fair is coming soon.
Created in the spring, the King Hall emergency relief fund has provided monies for students in immediate need of food or shelter security, or other needs due to the pandemic. Besides the student emergency relief fund, a one-time, $500 Technology Access Grant will be available to J.D. students to assist with urgent technology needs. Dr. Margaret Lee is scheduling virtual counseling appointments ( [email protected] ); counseling also is available through Student Health and Counseling Services. The UC Davis Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion has created a website with resources for coping with racial trauma.
The Career Services Office will virtually host employers from California and beyond in on-campus interviewing in January. This fall, the office will hold the Small and Midsize Firm Fair and the Public Interest and Government Job Fair online. Beginning in mid-September, career counselors will meet virtually with each first-year student. The office will present programs to all students on video interviewing and networking.
We have added cutting-edge courses to our curriculum, including but not limited to, Blockchain and the Law; Cases and Places; Coding for Lawyers; Contract Development and Drafting; Criminal Justice in the Era of Prison Downsizing; Current Controversies in Intellectual Property; Immigration Crimes; International Agreement Negotiations; International and Comparative Intellectual Property; International Investment Disputes; Managing a Small Law Firm Practice; and Sustainability Law.
Faculty News
After three years as Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Diversity, Professor Raquel Aldana has transitioned full-time to the law faculty. A criminal, human rights, and immigration law scholar, she will teach Criminal Law, Immigration Law, and Asylum and Refugee Law this year.
Two outstanding new professors, Eric Fish and Alix Rogers, will begin teaching at King Hall in spring 2021. With a J.D. and Ph.D. from Yale Law School, Professor Fish has worked as a trial attorney for the Federal Defenders of San Diego. In the spring, he will teach Professional Responsibility and Immigration Crimes. Professor Rogers is a co-fellow at Stanford Law’s Center for Law and the Biosciences and the Stanford Program in Neuroscience and Society. A graduate of Yale Law School and now completing a Ph.D. at Cambridge University, her scholarship centers on law and bioethics. Professor Rogers will teach Property in the spring.
Jennifer Elowsky joins the Legal Research and Writing Program. A partner at Wolkin Curran, LLP in San Francisco, she previously taught at Golden Gate University School of Law.
The new director of the Water Justice Clinic, Robert Mullaney ’84, previously held positions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Justice, and Golden Gate University School of Law’s Environmental Law and Justice Clinic.
In September, Chad Smith will join King Hall as the director of the Tribal Justice Project. Smith has a J.D. from the University of Tulsa. He is the former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
Professor Courtney Joslin was elected to the American Law Institute. UC Davis Law now counts 19 faculty members and emeriti in the ALI. Professor Jack Chin has been named a fellow of the American Bar Foundation. In June, Professor Ashutosh Bhagwat published Our Democratic First Amendment (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
Over the summer, Senior Associate Dean Afra Afsharipour and the Teaching and Learning Advisory Committee led trainings on virtual instruction. Professors Jack Chin, Chris Elmendorf, Darien Shanske, Leticia Saucedo and Thomas Joo presented works-in-progress during our Summer Faculty Workshops.
Fundraising Success, More Scholarships
Development had a record 2019/20 year, raising $6.3 million. Sixty-four students received privately funded scholarships totaling nearly $524,000.
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I look forward to a great year. For news and announcements, be sure to check the law school website, here on the Dean's Blog, the Faculty Blog, and the weekly King Hall newsletter. Follow King Hall on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
-- Dean Johnson