Back on Campus: 2021 UCLA Law Magazine
Read how the UCLA Law community kept moving forward 2021, never slowing in our drive make a difference in the world. Plus, a look at our experiential program and its half century of innovation.
It was a remarkable year at UCLA Law, and you will find in the pages of this year’s magazine remarkable stories that chronicle the incredible impact of our faculty, students, and alumni.
- Our faculty members published extensively, and many received awards for their scholarship and teaching. Four testified before the U.S. House of Representatives, and one argued at the U.S. Supreme Court. The leaders of our Critical Race Studies program showed why they are celebrated as trailblazers, and other professors steered the national conversation on a wide range of issues, from qualified immunity for police to COVID-19 in prisons to tax policy. Meanwhile, our outstanding students took the A. Barry Cappello Trial Team to its second-straight No. 1 national ranking, earned many of the country’s most prestigious public interest fellowships, and won major cases in federal appeals courts.
- This year’s cover story explores our pioneering experiential education program, now 51-years strong. We have added 25 live-client clinics in the past five years, along with incredible simulations, practicums, and externship opportunities. Our students have a dizzying number of ways to develop the concrete skills of lawyering while making a profound difference in our community.
- Stories of our amazing alumni also abound. We catch up with Janai Nelson ’96, who will be taking over as president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational fund, a role first held by Thurgood Marshall. Alumna Whitney A. Brown ’17 is now clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. And Jeff Silberman ’82 and his wife, Karen Foster Silberman, talk about the new Achievement Fellowship scholarship that they have created for top law students who have overcome significant obstacles to get to law school.
- A signature of UCLA Law is our robust and growing set of centers and institutes. This year saw our new Center for Immigration Law and Policy take off in a big way, and next year will see the launch of the new Center for Reproductive Health, Law and Policy. You can read about both.