Dignitaries from the worlds of law and entertainment convened at UCLA School of Law on Oct. 20 to honor the incredible legacy of Judge Harry Pregerson. The event featured the in-person law school premiere of a documentary movie about Pregerson’s life and jurisprudence, 9th Circuit Cowboy: The Long, Good Fight of Judge Harry Pregerson, and a panel discussion with several of his former clerks.

To meet the growing need for pro bono legal representation to address myriad social challenges in Los Angeles, UCLA School of Law has launched the Judge Rand Schrader Pro Bono Program. The program brings all of UCLA Law’s existing pro bono opportunities under one umbrella, enhancing those offerings and creating new ones.

UCLA School of Law professor E. Tendayi Achiume has received a faculty chair appointment that recognizes her global leadership in scholarship and advocacy for human rights and the dignity of migrants and refugees around the world. She is now the inaugural holder of the Alicia Miñana Chair in Law, which was designed to support a faculty member preferably with interests at the intersection of human rights and immigration or migration law.

Thanks to the work of students and faculty of the UCLA School of Law’s Criminal Defense Clinic, two Southern California men serving life sentences in federal prison for non-violent drug convictions were granted compassionate release this year, allowing them to return home to their families.

In courthouses at opposite ends of Los Angeles County this fall, eight students in UCLA School of Law’s innovative Bail Practicum (now Pretrial Justice Clinic) stood up and advocated for four incarcerated clients who had been awaiting trial while in custody for seven weeks to 14 months. In all four cases, they earned favorable outcomes.

A year and a half after graduating from UCLA School of Law and starting her “dream job” as a public defender in Los Angeles, Delaram Kamalpour ’19 has already taken three trials through to a verdict. Shortly after one ended in a hung jury and dismissal, her client learned that it had, in fact, been her first trial. But, she recalls, that fact surprised him: “He thought it was my hundredth.”

UCLA School of Law Professor Sharon Dolovich co-wrote an article on rates of COVID-19 infection and death in U.S. prisons that has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the country’s leading medical journal.

When UCLA School of Law hosts a new tournament called the Verdict, starting on Oct. 16, it will be presenting a first-of-its kind law school jury-trial competition.

While most trial advocacy competitions ask lawyers or judges to score students on their courtroom performances as a proxy for what lay jurors would find persuasive, the Verdict includes lay jurors who submit verdicts on the merits. Like in real trials, the winning team will be the one that best persuades the juries.

Lindsay F. Wiley, an internationally renowned expert and leader in health law and policy, will join the UCLA School of Law faculty as a professor of law starting in January 2022.

A widely published author and frequent speaker in the field, Wiley comes to UCLA Law from American University Washington College of Law, where she has served on the faculty for more than a decade and directs the Health Law and Policy Program.

When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit convened over Zoom on May 4, a panel of judges heard oral arguments that were delivered by several highly skilled advocates — four of whom were UCLA School of Law students.