Legal Pad

Ex-Boalt, Irvine Admissions Dean Now in Consulting Business

[Petra Pasternak]

Victoria Ortiz knows what stands out in a law school application. In her first year as director of admissions at Irvine School of Law, she read 2,743 of them.

Ortiz, who transplanted from Berkeley Law School to Southern California two years ago to help launch the UC system’s new school, retired from Irvine last summer. Now she is launching a new web-based business with her partner, Jennifer Elrod, that guides law school candidates through the nitty-gritty of the process. (See her talk about the transition here.)

Law School ACEs will help with one to five applications for a J.D. or reapplication after denial for $2,795. Applying after dismissal from law school costs more, with up to five applications for $3,795. That sounds like a big chunk of change -- and it is -- but some other admissions consultants apparently charge much more. Ortiz said she anticipates interest from students across the country and from international LL.M. candidates who aren’t familiar with the process in the U.S.

Champion of American Indian Issues and Berkeley Law Prof Dies at 57

[Petra Pasternak]

Berkeley Law Professor Philip Frickey, known for his expertise in public law and federal Indian law and policy, died Sunday, July 11, after a long battle with cancer. He was 57.

Frickey, who clerked with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, came to Berkeley Law in 2000 after 17 years at the University of Minnesota Law School.

In addition to his teaching and scholarly writing, Frickey volunteered his time, working with the Native American Rights Fund and National Congress of American Indian, and writing amicus briefs on their behalf in U.S. Supreme Court cases. He was very involved in the law school; He chaired the school’s faculty appointments committee and helped hire and mentor young instructors.

Santa Clara Law Prof Opens Up a Wide World for Students

[Mike McKee]

Students interested in furthering their legal education while enjoying a trip abroad ought to seek out Gerald Uelmen.

For the last five years, the professor at Santa Clara University School of Law has taken students — and not just those from his own school — to Europe for a couple of weeks to take in some court action.

This year, Uelmen took 19 students — half from Santa Clara and the rest other schools — to The Hague, the seat of government for The Netherlands, to watch a war crimes trial at the International Crime Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. 

Dean Steps Down at Trinity Law School

[Mike McKee]

Donald McConnell has stepped down as dean of Trinity Law School, a Santa Ana-based campus that teaches a “Christian theory of jurisprudence.” McConnell’s last day was Wednesday, as he advised the State Bar in a letter to the Committee of Bar Examiners. Trinity, which has 73 full-time and 68 part-time students, is accredited by the State Bar.

McConnell, who is going back to teaching, is also known as “Trinitarian Don,” a handle he uses in blog posts about mostly Christian issues. In recent posts, he's made the case that there was no death before mankind entered into sin and that Plato was wrong that spirit was associated with good and that matter was associated with evil.

On the university’s Web site, McConnell, a graduate of the University of Southern California School of Law, stated that students at Trinity would learn “how all law should be in accord with God’s law.”

Adjunct law professor Myron Steeves, a 1990 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, will act as interim dean.

Berkeley Law Prof Appointed Dean of UCLA Law

[Cynthia Foster]

Professor Rachel Moran, who teaches torts and race and law at Berkeley Law, has been appointed dean of UCLA's law school. 

According to the school, Moran is the first Latina to be appointed dean of a "top-ranked" law school.

Hastings, UCSF Join Forces to Educate in Law and Science

[Petra Pasternak]

UC Hastings College of the Law and UCSF are throwing a party tonight to formally announce their nascent collaboration in law and science. Faculty and researchers from the two campuses have been rolling out courses and swapping students, and laying plans for various research and legal service projects in the spirit of interdisciplinary education.

Hastings professor David Faigman, who has been director of the UCSF / UC Hastings Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy since January 2009, says Hastings started offering course work focused on health sciences to Hastings students last year. The school is paving the way for a full graduate-level certificate program. The size and scope of that program will depend in part on the results of a market survey on jobs due in May, Faigman said.

The consortium is also creating a medical legal clinic devoted to senior care (to help the elderly deal with issues linked with Medicare, for instance), Faigman said, and setting up externships so students can work in local hospitals and in the health care industry more generally.

Faigman said it's time to properly introduce the initiative to alumni and the legal community and - he hopes - drum up support. The party starts at 6 p.m. at the Hastings Alumni Reception Center at 200 McAllister.

Lerach Scheduled to Shape Young Minds

[Cynthia Foster]

Remember that time I told you that Bill Lerach had landed on a law school campus post-home confinement? Well, looks like he felt right at home. 

The WSJ Law Blog, via The National Law Journal (sub. req.), is reporting that University of California, Irvine is "considering having" the plaintiffs' lawyer teach an upper-level course next year. According to an interview with Lerach on Sign On San Diego, the course will be called "Regulation of Free Market Capitalism — Why Have We Failed?" Maybe he should also teach a course on how to stay entertained when one is disgraced and disbarred. 

Big Names Involved in Hastings No-Bias Policy Suit

[Cynthia Foster]

As the Hastings non-discrimination policy case makes its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, some legal heavy hitters have turned out not just to write amicus briefs, but also to represent both parties.

The Christian Legal Society, a student group at Hastings that sued the school when they were denied registered organization status because of its requirement that members sign a statement of faith that excludes lesbians and gays, is being represented by Stanford Law Professor Michael McConnell, according to the National Law Journal.

Hastings, which denies claims by CLS that its policy of not recognizing groups it views as discriminatory constitutes a violation of freedom of association, has tapped Latham & Watkins' Georgory Garre. Garre is a former U.S. solicitor general.

The case, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, has attracted 38 amicus briefs — an "unusually large number." The NLJ story includes some excerpts from various briefs written by some high profile advocacy groups and law firms.

John Yoo Not Shy About Feelings Toward Berkeley

[Cynthia Foster]

In case you didn't already see it over at WSJ's Law Blog, Berkeley Law Professor John Yoo (and the so-called "torture memoist") gave a pretty provocative interview to the LA Times about being a right-leaning professor on a decidedly leftist campus.

Some of the remarks probably won't thrill the hippies.

"It’s like looking at the panoramic displays of troglodytes sitting around the campfire with their clubs. Here, it’s tie-dye and marijuana. It’s just like the 1960s, with the Vietnam War still to protest."

Or:

Yoo seems at peace living in Berkeley, even though he disparages the community as an enclave of self-satisfied extremists intolerant of those who think outside the liberal mind-set. "But that doesn't mean I don't like it here," he says.

The profile itself is pretty interesting, particularly the section on how "vindicated" Yoo feels after the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibilities report that found he acted irresponsibly when authoring the memos, but those actions didn't constitute professional misconduct. For more on Legal Pad and Cal Law's assessment of Yoo's "vindication," check out this cartoon from last month (free reg. req.).

Law Student Gets Some Cash from Game Show

[Cynthia Foster]

Recessionary times call for innovative ways to deal with student loan debt. For Viola Smith, a Hastings College law student, that innovative way is a win on Wheel of Fortune.

Smith and her mom netted just over $100k on the program, making what producers called "logical choices" during their stint.

For more on the pair, check out the Mercury News story.