News

Johnene Stebbins ’96 won election to the Santa Clara County Superior Court in November.

A longtime Santa Clara County deputy district attorney, Stebbins defeated Chief Assistant District Attorney Jay Boyarsky, receiving 55% of the vote to Boyarsky’s 45%.

Stebbins filled a vacancy on the court created by Judge Vincent Chiarello’s retirement.

Professor Kevin R. Johnson spoke to Sacramento Bee reporter Matthew Miranda about a potential immigration crackdown in Sacramento in the lead-up to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

University of Virginia School of Law Professor Amanda Frost references a 2021 UC Davis Law Review article co-written by Professor Gabriel “Jack” Chin in a Jan. 7 essay in The Atlantic headlined “The Coming Assault on Birthright Citizenship.”

UC Davis School of Law hosted the sixth Equality Law Scholars’ Forum Nov. 15-16. 

Professor Kevin R. Johnson will speak at the event “Mass Deportation: How History Shapes the Coming Fight” on Friday, Jan. 17 in San Francisco.

Cabinet, an art press in Brooklyn, has published Professor Brian Soucek’s Permitting Art: Visual Arts and the First Amendment on the Streets of New York as the first book in its new series “Art before the law.”

Co-director of the UC Davis Immigration Law Clinic and King Hall alumna Holly S. Cooper ’98 is a nationally recognized expert on immigration detention issues and on the immigration consequences of criminal convictions. Both clients and King Hall students benefit from her extensive litigation experience defending the rights of immigrants.

In December, Professor of Environmental Practice Rick Frank filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia on behalf of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies.

Professor Darien Shanske spoke to Bloomberg Law for a Jan. 3 story about a Maryland Tax Court order calling for a lengthy discovery process in the legal battle over the state's first-in-the-nation digital advertising tax. Apple, Google, Meta and the Peacock streaming service have challenged the tax.

On Dec. 12, UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May held a reception at the Mondavi Center honoring Distinguished Professor of Law Kevin R. Johnson’s 16+ years as dean of UC Davis School of Law.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit cited an article by Professor Chimène Keitner in U.S. v. Türkiye Halk Bankasi A.Ş. 

In his wide-ranging career in civil rights law, Paul Igasaki ’79 has been Chair and Chief Judge of the U.S. Department of Labor Administrative Review Board; Deputy CEO of Equal Justice Works, an organization that provides grants and advocacy to public interest lawyers; Executive Director of the Rights Working Group, a coalition of human and civil rights organizations; Vice Chair, Chair, and Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; Executive Director of the Asian Law Caucus; Washington D.C.

Professor of Environmental Practice and California Environmental Law & Policy Center Co-Director Rick Frank co-taught a Dec. 12-13 California Judicial Council-sponsored course in Sacramento designed to train state court judges regarding principles of California water law. 

Professors Kevin R. Johnson and Amagda Pérez appeared on ABC10 Sacramento’s To the Point with Alex Bell for an expansive Dec.

Professor Emeritus Alan Brownstein wrote an essay titled “Teaching Controversial Subjects” for the 2024 edition of the California Supreme Court Historical Society’s California Legal History journal.

The annual journal publishes scholarly articles as well as oral histories of important figures from California’s bar and judiciary.

Professor Afra Afsharipour delivered two lectures as a visiting scholar in Taiwan in early December. National Chung Hsing University in Taichung hosted Afsharipour’s visit.

On Nov. 22, Professor Lisa Ikemoto gave a presentation titled “Genome Nation”  as part of the Governing Reproduction: Exploring Law and Politics conference at the University of Ottawa. 

The interdisciplinary conference explored issues related to reproductive rights in Canada.

On Dec. 10, Professor Emeritus Ed Imwinkelried delivered a two-hour lecture on expert testimony to the Puerto Rican Bar Association.  The continuing legal education program is sponsored by the federal district court for Puerto Rico.

Several members of the UC Davis School of Law faculty are featured speakers and hold leadership positions at the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) 2025 Annual Meeting, in San Francisco, Jan. 7-11, 2025. The theme of the conference is “Courage in Action.”

Wednesday, Jan. 8:

Professor Kevin Johnson spoke to the Sacramento Bee for a Dec. 5 story and to CalMatters for a Jan.

On Nov. 22, Professor Kevin Johnson spoke as part of the workshop “Policies, Practices, and Systems to Retain and Advance Black People in SEM.”

Rithwik Gupta ’25 and Steven Li ’26 made a strong showing at the invite-only MAC Cup II: American Bar Association M&A Negotiations Competition. The pair advanced from October’s initial round of 64 teams to November’s second round of 32 teams.

Gupta and Lee skillfully negotiated a draft purchase agreement and issues list from both buyer and seller perspectives. 

Michael Taylor ’69 is a judge on the Appellate Courts of Colville Confederated Tribes in Washington State and the Tulalip Tribes and San Manuel Band of Serrano Indians in California. Previously, he has served as a judge on the Appellate Courts of Quinault Nation (Washington State); Lower Sioux (Minnesota); and Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw (Oregon).

Professor Lisa R. Pruitt’s career has stretched from early international work on cultural conflict to exploring how rurality affects people’s engagement with law and the state. She is now a leading expert on rural law and justice.

Professor  Chimène Keitner talked to BBC radio and blogged for Lawfare about the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants on Nov.