For more than half a century, experiential learning has been a cornerstone of the UCLA Law education. Live-client clinics, for example, provide opportunities for students to get real-world legal experience and help underserved communities. Trial advocacy competitions—mock trials—present another way for law students to get experience, essential experience for litigators and trial lawyers and enormously valuable experience for any kind of lawyer.

UCLA School of Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, the leading environmental law and policy program in the country, has received a new $5 million commitment from the Emmett Foundation. The contribution includes a matching opportunity and is the latest of several transformative gifts that the foundation, which is led by Dan and Rae Emmett, has made during nearly 15 years of dedicated engagement with UCLA Law.

Whether you're looking for good reads to add to your winter reading list, or for gifts for the most curious and discerning on your holiday list, consider these recent monographs authored by members of the UCLA Law faculty. Here, you'll find books that span the most important legal issues of our time.

Khaled M. Abou El Fadl

UCLA Law Interim Dean Russell Korobkin shared the following message with the community on November 22, 2022, stating that the law school will not participate in the U.S. News & World Report annual ranking of best law schools.

Dear UCLA Law Community,

A candidate’s messaging, charisma and likability may all factor into a voter’s decision on election day. But the rubber hits the road when those candidates get sworn into office and begin to write, pass and block legislation that affects citizens’ everyday lives. Beyond the legislation that elected officials may pass, other issues loom large in the midterms, including election integrity and the evolving role of social media.

Here, UCLA School of Law’s faculty experts share what they’re paying attention to.

In March 2021, the California Supreme Court ruled that setting bail at an amount a person cannot afford to pay is unconstitutional. Attorneys and other observers heralded the In re Humphrey ruling as a historic decision and predicted it would lead to more people being released prior to trial.

LOS ANGELES, CA – Today, undocumented student organizers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), along with professors from the Center for Immigration Law and Policy (CILP) at the UCLA School of Law and the UCLA Labor Center, launched Opportunity for All: a campaign that could remove significant barriers to important educational opportunities for thousands of undocumented students in the UC system.

“I need a translator!”

Luan Huynh (J.D. ’05) teased her friend and former UCLA Law peer Eyvin Hernandez via text on April 5. He had gone silent in their conversation about a mutual friend’s funeral, which would likely be held in Spanish. She asked if he was going to be back from vacation in time for the viewing on April 23 and the mass on April 24.

No answer.

In September, Salvador Mendoza Jr. ’97 was sworn in as a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge in Richland, Washington. Geographically, he wasn’t far from the orchards where he worked picking apples as a teen, but he was worlds away in other respects.

Mendoza brings 25 years of legal and judicial experience to this new role and joins five other UCLA Law alumni currently serving on the Ninth Circuit.