For more than two decades, UCLA School of Law professor Joanna Schwartz has been a leading authority on civil rights, with a focus on police misconduct. In 2020, with the murder of George Floyd and the national reckoning that followed, her work was thrust into the national spotlight.

A candidate’s messaging, charisma and likability may all factor into a voter’s decision on election day. But the rubber hits the road when those candidates get sworn into office and begin to write, pass and block legislation that affects citizens’ everyday lives. Beyond the legislation that elected officials may pass, other issues loom large in the midterms, including election integrity and the evolving role of social media.

Here, UCLA School of Law’s faculty experts share what they’re paying attention to.

In September, Salvador Mendoza Jr. ’97 was sworn in as a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals judge in Richland, Washington. Geographically, he wasn’t far from the orchards where he worked picking apples as a teen, but he was worlds away in other respects.

Mendoza brings 25 years of legal and judicial experience to this new role and joins five other UCLA Law alumni currently serving on the Ninth Circuit.

Joel Handler, Richard C. Maxwell Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus at UCLA School of Law and a seminal interdisciplinary scholar who helped define the field of poverty law, died on September 22, 2022. He was 89 years old.

This April, nearly 200 members of the UCLA School of Law community gathered in the Shapiro Courtyard for the school’s fifth annual U. Serve L.A. Celebration honoring students and alumni for their commitments to pro bono, public interest, and public service.