More than 200 members of the UCLA School of Law community gathered on Nov. 3 for the law school’s fourth U. Serve L.A. celebration, an event that this year also marked the conclusion of UCLA Law’s second Public Service Challenge. Students, staff, and faculty members joined in recognizing the community’s remarkable pro bono, public interest, and public service contributions.
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J.D. David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law & Policy

With wins in five national trial advocacy competitions, UCLA School of Law’s A. Barry Cappello Trial Team recently completed its most successful fall season ever.
The squad, which has been ranked No. 1 in the country for the past two years, was the only one in the nation to prevail in more than one tournament, leading some to consider the team to have accomplished the most dominant fall season in the history of law school trial advocacy competitions.

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.
When recent UCLA School of Law graduate Dana Ontiveros ’21 sits down to work each day in the Los Angeles office of Snell & Wilmer, she is able to tap into the vast array of skills that she gained during her time in law school. While she spends the bulk of her hours working in the firm’s commercial litigation group, with additional projects in corporate and securities law and real estate, she consistently finds her mind returning to many of the lessons she enjoyed most at UCLA Law — the ones centering on tax law.
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J.D. Business Law & Policy