UCLA School of Law has appointed Fanna Gamal and Aaron Littman as Binder Clinical Teaching Fellows, starting in the 2019-20 academic year. Named for UCLA Law professor emeritus and clinical legal education pioneer David Binder, the two-year fellowships offer opportunities for clinical teaching and research designed to prepare fellows to seek permanent law school faculty positions.
Littman joins UCLA Law from the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta. A prisoners' rights litigator and advocate, Littman clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Judge Myron Thompson of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. At UCLA Law, he will work with the Prison Law and Policy Program led by professor Sharon Dolovich, and collaborate with other faculty working in criminal law and civil rights. Littman earned a J.D. from Yale Law School, a master of philosophy from the University of Cambridge and a bachelor’s degree from Yale.
Several previous Binder Fellows have gone on to tenured faculty positions, including UCLA Law professors E. Tendayi Achiume and Joanna Schwartz, Irene Joe of UC Davis School of Law and Jyoti Nanda of Golden Gate University School of Law.
Copyright (c) 2019 Thomson Reuters
Daniel Wiessner
This article is reprinted from Reuters Legal News on Westlaw with permission of Thomson Reuters.
(Reuters) - Thousands of aspiring lawyers are sitting for California's two-day bar exam this week, and the state's legal community will be watching closely to see if a sharp decline in passage rates in recent years continues.
UCLA School of Law hosted its annual convocation ceremony on August 23, where distinguished alumni and members of the faculty welcomed the law school’s newest class of students. The incoming roster includes a diverse and highly accomplished array of 524 people, including 310 members of the J.D. Class of 2022; 212 students who are pursuing a master of laws degree; and two candidates for a legal doctorate.
View the Fall 2019 Incoming Class Profile.
Alumni and friends of UCLA School of Law raised $32.7 million for the school in 2018-19, the largest single-year sum in the school’s 70-year history. This fundraising total topped UCLA Law’s previous annual record by nearly $2 million.
The generous donations support a wide variety of activities throughout the law school, including student scholarships, endowed faculty chairs and development of new curricular and educational opportunities.
Bayrex Martí, currently Assistant Dean for Student Life at the University of Michigan Law School, will join UCLA School of Law in January as the school's Assistant Dean of Student Affairs. In his new role, Martí will lead the UCLA Law department that works closely with the dean and faculty on all aspects of student success and wellness, provides counseling on academic and personal matters to individual students, supports and guides the school's 61 student organizations and 15 journals and coordinates a wide range of student activities.
Dynamic movie studio leader Stacey Snider ’85 returned to UCLA School of Law on Sept. 12 to deliver a Distinguished Alumni Lecture, sharing with more than 50 students the wisdom and war stories from her three-decade career at the pinnacle of the entertainment business. Snider offered a glimpse into what motivated her to become an executive at the head of the 20th Century Fox, DreamWorks and Universal movie studios and how current students might similarly pursue their passions after law school.
As the dangers of climate change grow and global political tensions rise, UCLA, in partnership with the University of California, Berkeley and other UC campuses, former California Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. and China's top climate change official Xie Zhenhua, today launched a groundbreaking new initiative — the California-China Climate Institute — to spur further climate action through joint research, training and dialogue.
Two recent alumni returned to UCLA Law on October 2 to give students an overview of a typical media and entertainment private M&A deal from start to finish. Roey Gilberg '14 and Cat Zhang '17, associates at Sidley Austin, made their presentation as part of the Supplemental Practical Legal Education (SPLE) program offered by the Ziffren Center.
The Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports Law brought together leaders from film, television and government for a Ziffren In-DC conference titled "The Future of Content Protection" in October 2019. Top executives, producers and attorneys addressed the challenges and opportunities arising as piracy continues to erode bottom lines and new content platforms change the economics of the industry.
Kicking off a year of events centered on the theme of “defending democracy,” UCLA School of Law’s David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy welcomed ACLU Voting Rights Project Director Dale Ho for a three-day residency during the week of Sept. 23.