UCLA School of Law has established a fund to assist students with urgent needs brought on by the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic and address some of the long-term impacts of the related disruptions. The Law Student Wellness Support Fund provides:

Student-run startup companies in technology, dental hygiene and women’s clothing won the top awards in UCLA School of Law’s $100,000 Lowell Milken Institute-Sandler Prize for New Entrepreneurs competition, which concluded its fifth-annual event on April 20.

While working remotely and contending with other disruptions during the coronavirus pandemic, more than 60 UCLA School of Law students have leapt into action to create and volunteer for an effort to secure unemployment benefits for hospitality and restaurant workers in California.

During its first week of operation, the project filed claims to return more than $1.4 million in unemployment benefits to members of the UNITE HERE Local 11 union who lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 crisis.

UCLA School of Law Dean Jennifer L. Mnookin was elected on April 23 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, among the world’s preeminent learned societies of scholars, scientists and artists.

More than 200 people joined an April 23 webinar, hosted by the Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports Law, where a distinguished panel discussed the impact that the coronavirus pandemic has had on the entertainment business.

Members of three UCLA School of Law clinics are part of a coalition including people who are incarcerated in Los Angeles County jails, lawyers and activists that has sued the county and county sheriff’s department seeking the release of medically vulnerable people and the implementation of heightened health and safety standards in jails during the coronavirus pandemic.

In the spring of 2020, Dean Jennifer Mnookin sent two messages to faculty, staff and students in response to challenges to the school's goal of fostering an environment where people of all backgrounds feel welcome. The first message was issued April 14, 2020. Below is the message sent May 4, 2020.

Dear Students, Staff and Faculty,

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will deliver the keynote address to the UCLA School of Law Class of 2020 at the law school’s virtual commencement ceremony on May 15.

Holder is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Covington & Burling and among the most accomplished and experienced lawyers in the country. He served as attorney general during the Obama administration, from 2009 to 2015. He is the first African American ever to serve as attorney general, and his six years in the position marked the third-longest tenure for an attorney general in U.S. history.

Professor Sameer Ashar, UCLA School of Law’s vice dean of experiential education, has been honored with the inaugural Ellmann Memorial Clinical Scholarship Award from the Association of American Law Schools’ clinical section.

The award is presented to “scholars and teachers who have dedicated their careers to clinical and experiential teaching, whose written body of work evinces a concern for justice and a commitment to healing the world, and whose body of work emanates from [their] clinical commitments.” Ashar will be celebrated during an online ceremony on May 27.

The Criminal Justice Program (CJP) at UCLA School of Law, with grant support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Liberty Hill Foundation, has created a new fellowship at UCLA Law and an initiative focused on advancing the interests of justice-involved youth.