Reducing methane emissions is a high priority for greenhouse gas mitigation. Several jurisdictions are starting to use methane remote sensing from aerial, satellite, and ground-based platforms and more are planning to do so soon. The trajectory and potential limitations of these advances are still emerging. Yet they are likely to have profound implications for methane control efforts, whether pursued through managerial, market, informational, regulatory, or other legal and policy channels.
Outstanding new members boost law school faculty and administration in 2023–24.
New Tenure-Track Faculty
ARIELA GROSS
Distinguished Professor of Law
New Senior Leaders
TIMOTHY CASEY
Director of Curricular Administration and Professor from Practice
Tim Casey will teach Professional Responsibility and provide support for the non-senate law faculty. He started his teaching career at Columbia Law School, where he established a Criminal Practice Clinic and received the Presidential Award for teaching. He also held an appointment as a professor of law at Case Western Reserve University. And he received a Fulbright award for research and teaching in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Most recently, Casey served as the director of the STEPPS Program and professor in residence at California Western School of Law, where he oversaw an innovative program in legal ethics and lawyering skills. He also was a visiting professor at the University of San Diego School of Law. Before entering legal academia, he practiced law as a public defender in New York City.
Casey is an internationally recognized expert in experiential legal education. His research interests include legal ethics, surveillance and civil liberties, problem-solving courts and experiential pedagogy. He is a co-author of Legal Ethics in the Practice of Law (Carolina Academic Press, Fifth Edition, 2019), and his scholarship has appeared in law reviews including UC Davis Law Review and SMU Law Review. He serves as chair of the Legal Ethics Committee of the San Diego County Bar Association, a board member for local and international non-profit organizations, and a member of the editorial board for the peer-reviewed Clinical Law Review.
He received his B.A. from Boston College, J.D. from UC Law San Francisco and LL.M. from Columbia Law School.
HANNAH GARRY
Executive Director of the Promise Institute and Professor from Practice
Hannah Garry joins UCLA Law as executive director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights and professor from practice. Garry has devoted her legal career to seeking justice and accountability for human rights abuses and atrocity situations across the globe, while making the U.S. a destination for the study and practice of human rights law.
She joins UCLA Law from USC Gould School of Law, where she was clinical professor of law and founding director of the International Human Rights Clinic for 12 years. Her areas of teaching and scholarship include international criminal law, transitional justice, international human rights law and international refugee law. She has supervised student attorneys in the clinic on cases and projects nationally and internationally that address atrocity crimes, refugee rights, fair trial rights, gender justice, human trafficking and systemic racism.
Garry’s career as an international human rights advocate, scholar and teacher took root when she was a graduate student at Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre. After graduation, she was hired by Oxford as a field researcher visiting refugee camps throughout Uganda and Kenya for two years where she witnessed and documented first-hand the abuses refugees endure in exile while under the protection of the international community.
Garry has held many other academic and expert legal advisor positions, including in international criminal courts and leading human rights organizations, and she has been quoted widely in major media outlets. Last year, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Oslo Law’s PluriCourts Centre in Norway.
Garry earned her J.D. from UC Berkeley and master’s in international affairs from Columbia University.
MELISSA GOODMAN
Executive Director of the Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy
Melissa Goodman joins UCLA Law as the inaugural executive director of the Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy after a five-year tenure as the legal and advocacy director for the ACLU of Southern California. There, Goodman led 60 attorneys across Southern California and oversaw the department’s visioning and strategy, strategic planning, intersectional issue and cross-team collaboration and resource allocation. In doing so, she helped lead statewide legislative, electoral and organizing strategy. She also co- chaired the national ACLU’s Gender Justice Task Force.
Goodman previously spent a decade as the ACLU SoCal’s Audrey Irmas Director of the LGBTQ Gender and Reproductive Justice Project, and as a senior litigation and policy counsel for reproductive and LGBTQ rights at the New York Civil Liberties Union. In those roles, she led and participated in reproductive justice, LGBTQ and gender equity litigation, as well as policy advocacy campaigns. Along the way, Goodman led or co-counseled an array of high-profile cases, including those involving pregnant unaccompanied immigrant minors; gay, bisexual and transgender prisoners; and same-gender couples.
Goodman clerked for Judge Frederic Block of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. She earned her B.A., magna cum laude, from New York University and her J.D. from NYU School of Law.
New Lecturers
EMILY CHURG
Lecturer in Law
Emily Churg teaches Legal Research and Writing. She previously practiced complex commercial litigation at WilmerHale and ran her own bar exam preparation company. She has also taught legal writing at USC Gould School of Law and undergraduate writing at Arizona State University.
She earned her B.A., with honors, from UC Santa Cruz; her Ph.D. in rhetoric, composition and linguistics from Arizona State; and her J.D., Order of the Coif, from UC Davis School of Law. After law school, she clerked for Judge S. James Otero of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
THOMAS WANEBO
Lecturer in Law
Thomas Wanebo teaches Legal Analysis, Writing, and Research for LL.M. students. He currently works as a trial attorney at Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County, defending low-income families against eviction. He began his career as a litigation associate at Irell & Manella in Los Angeles.
Wanebo earned his B.A. from Colorado State University and his J.D. from UCLA Law, where he was a senior editor of the UCLA Law Review. His publications include the article “Remote Killing and the Fourth Amendment: Updating Constitutional Law to Address Expanded Police Lethality in the Robotic Age,” which appeared in the UCLA Law Review.
New Fellows
MELODI DINCER
UCLA Institute for Technology, Law and Policy Fellow
Melodi Dincer will join UCLA Law in January 2024 as a fellow with the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law and Policy. Her work focuses on helping social movements fight algorithmic violence and build transformative futures.
She was previously an appellate advocacy fellow with the Electronic Privacy Information Center and has been a legal research fellow and clinical supervising attorney at NYU School of Law, where she earned her J.D. She earned her B.A. from Brown University.
RUTHIE LAZENBY
Shapiro Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy
As the Shapiro Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy for 2023–25, Ruthie Lazenby will be focusing on energy law and regulation. She was previously a staff attorney in the Environmental Justice Clinic at Vermont Law School and a legal fellow in the environmental justice program at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.
She earned her B.A. from Wesleyan University and her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Law and Political Economy Blog.
This year, the Supreme Court of the United States delivered major decisions on affirmative action, voting rights, free speech and Indigenous sovereignty, among other issues.
UCLA School of Law experts stepped in to break down the impact of the term in a variety of places: “Whither the Court: The Allan C. Lebow Annual Supreme Court Review” program, a webinar titled “From the Frontlines: The Supreme Court Rulings on Affirmative Action, LGBTQ Rights, and Student Debt,” public writings and even social media videos.
The Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, UCLA Law’s environmental law hub, tracks many environmental bills that move through Sacramento each legislative session. But when Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 779 in October, students and faculty at the center paid extra close attention. Three UCLA Law students helped write the new groundwater law.
The movement of goods through the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach is a major source of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in the L.A. region. The South Coast Air Quality Management District has reported that the Ports are “the single largest fixed source of air pollution in Southern California.” And neighboring communities—predominantly low-income communities of color—bear the brunt of this pollution, suffering from smog and toxic air pollution from port equipment.
RSVP to receive a link to the webinar HERE.
The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are well on their way toward electrification, but the road to zero emission is a long one.
Join us for a panel discussion webinar on Thursday, Nov. 16 at 1pm featuring expert panelists from the Port of Los Angeles, Southern California Edison, and Earthjustice. The panelists will share updates on the progress being made to transition to zero-emission cargo handling equipment at ports in L.A. County, as well as their recommendations for solutions that would accelerate deployment.
This conversation marks the publication of a new report by the UCLA Emmett Institute and UC Berkeley’s Center for Law Energy & the Environment. The report, tilted “A Heavy Lift: Policy Solutions to Accelerate Deployment of Zero-Emission Cargo Handling Equipment at the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and Beyond,” will be published in advance of the webinar on Tuesday, November 14.
Panelists:
Brian Bustamante, Senior Advisor, Government & Institutions · Southern California Edison
Jacob Goldberg, Environmental Specialist · Port of Los Angeles
Regina Hsu, Senior Attorney, California Regional Office, Earthjustice
Moderated by Emmett/Frankel Fellow Beth Kent
DATE: Tuesday, November 14, 2023
TIME: 5:30pm - 7:00pmLOCATION: Shapiro Courtyard at the Law SchoolRSVP: https://forms.gle/FWvBphnAB6zHXza38Join us for casual conversation and refreshments with environmental students, faculty, and staff across campus.RSVP not required, but encouraged to assist with planning.
Please contact Heather Morphew, at morphew@law.ucla.edu with any questions.