Four UCLA School of Law professors, including leading scholars in election law, critical race studies, Native American law, and U.S.-China relations, have received appointments to endowed faculty chairs.
Faculty chairs acknowledge the distinction of the law school’s outstanding professors and are made possible by the generosity of UCLA Law’s alumni and friends. UCLA Law has 70 full-time faculty members and 39 endowed chairs.
An amicus brief that UCLA School of Law’s Sunita Patel and Jeanne Nishimoto prepared and submitted to the Supreme Court was quoted by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her opinion in City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, a pivotal homelessness decision that the Court delivered in June.
UCLA School of Law professor Cheryl Harris, one of the nation’s most eminent scholars and leaders in civil rights law and critical race studies, has received the Faculty Award for Career Commitment to Diversity, as part of the UCLA Academic Senate’s 2024 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Awards.
UCLA School of Law’s Criminal Justice Program has published a report that sheds light on the federal, state and local laws and regulations that encourage collaboration between local law enforcement agencies and Los Angeles County’s child protective services agency, the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).
A historic one-million dollar gift from Alicia Miñana de Lovelace (J.D. ’87; co-chair of the UCLA Second Century Council) celebrated, along with a symposium and reception, the remarkable career and recent retirement of CRS co-founder Laura E. Gómez, UCLA’s Rachel F.
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J.D. Critical Race Studies
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LL.M. Program
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Master of Legal Studies
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S.J.D Program
For seven students in UCLA School of Law’s first-year Legal Research and Writing course, the rewards for their achievements in the classroom far exceeded the invaluable education that they received in the ins and outs of crafting legal briefs and other fundamental documents.
In April, the students were celebrated at a ceremony that the law school hosted with Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB) for their outstanding work during the 2023-24 year.
Dozens of the world’s top thought leaders and advocates in international law, human rights, racial justice and ecological crises convened in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from May 27 to 29, for a conference marking the launch of UCLA School of Law’s the Promise Institute Europe.
“The conversations I had with other activists and scholars about ecocide and indigenous sovereignty were incredibly thought-provoking and inspiring. These connections are ones that I will continue to cherish and will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on my legal career.”
Conference panels included “Conflict, Environmental Harm and International Criminal Law,” “Climate Change, Justice and the Future of the Law of the Sea,” “Environmental Rights and Climate Justice,” and “Evidence, State Responsibility and the Voices of the Most Vulnerable.”
“The conversations I had with other activists and scholars about ecocide and indigenous sovereignty were incredibly thought-provoking and inspiring,” says UCLA Law student Julia Nguyen ’25. “These connections are ones that I will continue to cherish and will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on my legal career.”
In his keynote address, Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed support for classifying ecocide as a new international crime. In another keynote presentation, Nazhat Shameem Khan, a deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, said, “We know that unchecked environmental degradation poses an existential threat to the world as we know it. The international legal system, including the ICC, stands at a crucial juncture where we must remain relevant and respond to this crisis before it is too late.”
Cheryl Bazard, the ambassador of the Bahamas to Belgium and the European Union, also addressed the topic in a stirring speech. “Devastating storms, rising sea-levels, unpredictable weather patterns and other adverse effects of climate change threaten the very existence of our islands and the livelihoods and identities of our people,” she said. “The obligations of states in respect of climate change are not an abstract legal exercise, but a matter of survival.”
In addition, the Promise Europe hosted a high-level consultation for the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, regarding his forthcoming policy paper on environmental crimes. This allowed him and Kevin Jon Heller, a scholar of international law and special advisor to the ICC, to hear from a broad array of viewpoints, including from environmental activists and attorneys on the frontlines of the climate emergency. The conversation stemmed from a project in which Mackintosh had supervised a group of UCLA Law students who analyzed responses to a public call for inputs on this policy.
The Promise Europe came away from the conference rich with projects that participants formulated or made stronger through their collaboration at the event. These include work with, and legal assistance for, youth climate activists across Africa; a collaboration with academic partners on a new evidence resource for climate litigation; and continued support to the ICC prosecutor on environmental crimes.
“At the conference, we worked with practitioners and activists to ask what story we need to tell, whose story we need to tell and how we need to tell it to make the most compelling case for climate and environmental justice,” Mackintosh says. “Crucially, we are foregrounding the voices and analyses of people on the frontlines of the ecological crisis, as without these inputs we will never find comprehensive and lasting solutions. It is time to unlock the potential of international law to confront this crisis and move us towards a new era of multi-species care, kinship and justice.”
UCLA Professor of Law Anna Spain Bradley was appointed by President Joseph R. Biden as one of four U.S.
UCLA School of Law’s A. Barry Cappello Trial Team had another year for the ages. The team won 11 competitions, finished the year at No. 1 in every national ranking and won the National Trial Competition for a record fourth consecutive year.
“UCLA Law’s dominance in the trial competition community is crystal clear”
UCLA Law thus ended the year once again at the top of all three national trial competition rankings:
- Gavel Rankings, run by Hofstra School of Law, awarded UCLA Law 141 points for the 2023-24 season. (The next highest school had 58 points.) It was the fifth consecutive year in which UCLA Law finished No. 1.
- Trial Competition Performance Rankings, run by Fordham University School of Law, assigned UCLA Law 49 points for the season. (The next highest school had 28 points.) It was the fifth consecutive year in which UCLA Law finished No. 1.
- The Tournament of Champions, sponsored by the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, ranks every law school’s results over the most recent three-year period. UCLA finished the year with an all-time record of 48 points. (The next highest school had 15 points.) It was the fourth year in a row in which UCLA Law ranked No. 1.
“UCLA Law’s dominance in the trial competition community is crystal clear,” says Jared Rosenblatt, a special professor of law at Hofstra University’s Maurice A. Deane School of Law, who runs the Gavel Rankings. “UCLA Law is so far ahead of everyone else that if they didn't compete for the next five years, they would still be ranked first in the nation.”
Alabama judge Jim Roberts directs the trial teams at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law and serves on the Tournament of Champions board of directors. “For the fourth year in a row, UCLA Law has earned the most TOC points in the country – and this year they broke their own record for highest points in TOC history,” he says. “This accomplishment is a testament to the incredible coaching of Professor Bernstein and his leadership of the UCLA Law program.”
Over the course of the season, the Cappello team was assisted by 19 coaches – including 16 alumni. “It’s not a coincidence that our best year was also the year when the most alums coached and mentored our students,” says Bernstein. “We were also fortunate to have help from two wonderful coaches who were new to our program, Nat Warner and Amanda Sadra. I hope they will continue to teach our students for years.”
During the 2023-24 school year, trial team members included Andrew Burnquist ’24, Edouard Goguillon ’24, Eirene Oji ’24, Erica Kelley ’24, Alara Abbasi ’24, Ireland Larsen ’24, Kelly Koehnen ’24, Kim Bittinger ’24, Marisol Alvarez ’24, Max Gordon ’24, Natalie Manoogian ’24, Nolan Cubero ’24, Peter Jones ’24, Sophia Cherif ’24, Sydney Gaskins ’24, Kensington Cotter ’24, DeAnna Christensen ’25, Eddy Chikukwa ’25, Jade Magaña ’25, Jordain Thompson ’25, Joseph Dale ’25, Micalyn Struble ’25, Nathan Mostow ’25, Nick Boroski ’25, Peter Martin ’25, Rachel Oda ’25, and Sara Delacey ’25.
Coaches included Aidan Welsh ’19, Christian Cotter ’23, Deeksha Kohli ’20, Kyle DeCamp ’19, Avery Hitchock ’21, Nathaniel Warner, Amanda Sadra, Natalie Garson ’22, Jack Eyers ’21, Sarah Stebbins ’23, Enrico Trevisani ’22, Stephen Johnson ’22, Celebre Fouka-Nganga ’23, Tiffany Sarchet ’21, Corey Wilson ’19, Pauline Alarcon ’22, Andrew Gordon ’22, Kenny Capesius ’22 and Justin Bernstein.
Two distinguished members of the UCLA School of Law community – Donna Cox Wells ’92 and Chase Griffin M.L.S. ’24 – are among the distinguished graduates who were honored with UCLA Awards by the UCLA Alumni Association for their extraordinary achievements, leadership and contributions to the university, their communities and the world.
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Master of Legal Studies