Los Angeles is famous for both sunshine and smog. It turns out that the two are related: Ozone pollution is caused by the interaction of sunlight and the chemicals that come out of vehicle tailpipes and factory smokestacks. But when Ann Carlson’s family moved to Southern California, nobody knew what caused smog, and there were no laws to prevent it. “I lived through the smoggiest decades of Los Angeles,” she says, “and I’m always struck by how few people understand just how bad the air was and what we’ve accomplished to clean it up.”

UCLA School of Law professor Rick Hasen has been awarded a 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship to support his work on his forthcoming book Unbent Arc: The Rise and Decline of American Democracy 1964-2024 (Princeton University Press, 2028).

Surrounded by faculty colleagues and devoted students, UCLA School of Law professor David Marcus was honored on April 8 at an event where he received the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching, the law school’s highest accolade for work in the classroom.

Seeing a satire of Oedipus Rex isn’t a typical law school assignment — especially when the production features an Elvis impersonator in the title role and sets the tragedy to the King of Rock and Roll’s greatest hits.

Hadar Harris, a longtime advocate for justice, equity, and human rights, will join The Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA as executive director of its Los Angeles location, beginning May 1. Her appointment marks a homecoming to UCLA Law, where she earned her J.D. and founded the school’s first ACLU chapter.

An expansive new program at UCLA School of Law has opened to teach people from all stages of professional life and the full array of backgrounds through intensive courses, led by UCLA Law faculty members, on the most pertinent topics in the law, business, and society today.

Connor Kraska ’28 is not your typical law student. For almost two decades, he has been a professional and competitive jump rope athlete, traveling the world for competitions and performances and teaching clinics. Now, as a first-year law student at UCLA School of Law, Kraska is applying to his legal studies the same discipline and dedication that made him a 33-time grand national champion and a two-time grand world champion.

The Behind Bars Data Project at UCLA School of Law has published the first comprehensive dataset of deaths in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody.

Working in partnership with lawyer and journalist Andrew Free, members of the project used ICE records to create a resource that offers researchers, journalists, advocates, policymakers, and the public detailed insights on the nearly 300 people who have died in ICE custody since the agency’s creation in 2003.

Distinguished UCLA School of Law alumni couple Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, B.A. ’76, J.D. ’79 and William “Bill” Wardlaw, J.D. ’72, have pledged $2 million to endow a chair in constitutional law to enhance UCLA Law’s strength in this important area of legal education. The Judge Kim McLane and Bill Wardlaw Family Chair in Constitutional Law is the school’s first endowed chair in constitutional law.

Justice Goodwin Liu of the Supreme Court of California will deliver the keynote address to the Class of 2026 at UCLA School of Law’s commencement ceremony on May 15.

Liu is among the leading lawyers, legal scholars, and jurists in the country today. Gov. Jerry Brown nominated him to the state’s high court in 2011, and he was retained by the electorate in 2014 and 2022.