Fall 2023 Welcome Message
Welcome to the Class of 2026, transfer students and LL.M.s, and welcome back returning students, faculty and staff.
Intro Week began with a festive Welcome to King Hall Dinner where 1L and exchange students met classmates as well as staff and alumni. Many of the week’s activities highlight our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Reverend Sam Offer of the Washington Consulting Group will conduct implicit bias training for 1L students, tutors, and staff. Our faculty is participating in a three-part DEI training program headed by Professor Camille Rich of USC Gould School of Law. The community also will gather this week to discuss the dire lack of affordable housing in the United States. Organized by UC Davis Law Director of Diversity and Student Life Alexis Elston, the discussion will incorporate scholarship by Professor Chris Elmendorf and a PBS Frontline documentary.
In its fourth year, the Racial Justice Speaker Series continues to explore systemic racism and the law. Here is the tentative lineup:
September 25: Wajahat Ali ’07, Daily Beast columnist
October 15: Benjamin Weber, UC Davis Department of African American and African Studies, on his book American Purgatory: Prison Imperialism and the Rise of Mass Incarceration (forthcoming, 2023)
November 6: Jasmine E. Harris, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania
January 22, 2024: Nicole Santamaría, Executive Director, El/La Para TransLatinas
January 31: Aziza Ahmed, Professor of Law, Boston University (Bodenheimer Lecture on Family Law)
March 20: Vik Amar, UC Davis (Barrett Lecture on Constitutional Law)
On September 18, we will hold an event celebrating Professor Aaron Tang’s book Supreme Hubris: How Overconfidence is Destroying the Court -- and How We Can Fix It (Yale University Press, 2023).
The Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies, directed by Professors Raquel Aldana and Dean Kevin R. Johnson, co-sponsors the Racial Justice Speaker Series with the School of Law. The center again will offer its own full slate of Critical Race Theory programming in 2023-24, including the annual series on CRT and the first-year subjects.
We will celebrate the new Labor and Community Center of the Greater Capital Region at UC Davis Law on October 5, followed the next day by the UC Davis Law Review symposium “Exploring Contemporary Labor Struggles: Responses to Labor Law from Old School to New School and the Frontier to the Border.” With funding from the state of California, Professor Leticia Saucedo and Asian American Studies Professor Emerita Robyn Rodriguez direct the new center. The Center for Innovation, Law, and Society, launched last spring by Professor Peter Lee, will continue to offer programs on cutting-edge intellectual property topics. The California Environmental Law & Policy Center and California International Law Center will offer a full calendar of discussions as well.
California’s Third District Court of Appeal will hear oral arguments at King Hall on October 16. The session will be open to the King Hall community and public.
The Amazing Class of 2026!
With amazing credentials, the Class of 2026 is poised to transform the legal profession. Students of color make up 61% of the J.D. class, women compose 63%, and 22% of the class identifies as LGBTQ+. More than one-quarter of our 1Ls are first-generation college graduates. Thirty-nine percent of the class will receive need-based aid. The class includes six King Hall Outreach Program alumni, as well as military veterans, JusticeCorps alums, teachers, scientists, athletes and advocates for social justice.
Forty-three new Master of Laws students join the 19 continuing LL.M. students. These pioneers hail from Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uzbekistan.
Faculty News
We added three esteemed scholar-teachers to our faculty in 2023-24:
Nila Bala joins UC Davis as an acting professor of law. Formerly the director of legislative initiatives and a senior attorney at the Policing Project at New York University School of Law, Professor Bala has years of experience as a public defender, handling more than 1,000 cases. Her research focuses on children’s rights and the criminal justice system, as well as emerging technologies. She will teach Evidence and Children and the Law.
Vik Amar returns to King Hall as a distinguished professor of law after serving as dean and chaired professor of law at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign College of Law. He previously was a professor and the senior associate dean for academic affairs at UC Davis Law. An eminent scholar, he will teach Constitutional Law II: Equal Protection, Remedies and Federal Jurisdiction this year and will deliver our Barrett Lecture on Constitutional Law in March 2024.
Chimène Keitner arrives at UC Davis as a Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law. A leading authority on international law and civil litigation, she served as the 27th Counselor on International Law in the U.S. Department of State. Professor Keitner previously was a chaired professor at UC College of the Law, San Francisco. Keitner will teach Civil Procedure, International Law and International Human Rights.
In 2023/24, we will be searching for a faculty member with intellectual property expertise.
Faculty accomplishments and accolades abound. Last year’s Distinguished Teaching Award winner, Professor Courtney Joslin, co-edited the NYU Press book Social Parenthood in Comparative Perspective. Professor Thomas Joo co-edited the new edition of the Carolina Academic Press casebook Contracting Law. Dean Kevin Johnson and Professor Raquel Aldana will edit a new University of California Press book series on Critical Race Theory. Professor Aldana, ABA Rule of Law Initiative Latin America & Caribbean Council special advisor, traveled to Colombia this summer to help conduct a workshop for indigenous rural women focused on land rights and self-determination. Professor Katherine Florey was elected to the American Law Institute, bringing UC Davis Law’s total faculty in this prestigious law reform organization to 26. Professor Leticia Saucedo concluded two years as National Senior Counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund with a victory in a federal employment discrimination case.
Professor Mary Ziegler continues as the media’s premier legal expert on the future of reproductive rights. Professor Chris Elmendorf’s scholarship was cited by the dissent in the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Allen v. Milligan decision supporting Black voters in Alabama. Dean Kevin Johnson and Professor Vik Amar helped lead the national conversation on the Supreme Court’s affirmative action and elections-related decisions, respectively. Professor Jack Chin has served as the go-to media expert on the indictments of former President Donald Trump. Professor Elizabeth Joh continues her podcast What Roman Mars Can Learn About Con Law. In October, Professor Rick Frank will be honored with the California Lawyers Association Environmental Law Section’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
Student Life
More than 94% of the Class of 2022 secured legal jobs within 10 months of graduation. An amazing 80% of the Class of 2023 already have jobs. The law school had more than 120 employees participate in fall on-campus interviews. This fall, Career Services will hold Small and Midsize Firm and Public Interest and Government job fairs. In mid-September, career service counselors will begin meeting with each 1L student. The office also will present a wide array of programs this fall for 1Ls.
Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Afra Afsharipour arranged new courses for 2023-24, including: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Law; Business Law and Climate Change; Children and the Law; Comparative Corporate Governance; Comparative Judicial Process; Empirical Legal Studies; Federal Court Mediation; Gender and Name Change Practicum; Labor Law Practicum; Mental Health and the Law; Modern Topics in Business Law, and Transactional Law Research. Visiting and adjunct professors, including many judges and legal scholars, round out the 2023/24 law faculty.
Students can find out more about King Hall’s vibrant student organizations at the fair in the courtyard at noon on Wednesday, August 23.
Fund-Raising and Building Projects
As UC Davis’ Expect Greater campaign enters its final year, King Hall has raised nearly $20 million toward its $25 million goal, with more than 3,200 donors having contributed so far.
Construction on first-floor gender-inclusive restrooms will begin during winter break, with completion slated for January. As of next week, the law school will offer free menstrual products in most of its restrooms. Improvements to the patio outside King Hall will be completed this fall. New furniture will be added to the Wellness Room in September.