UC Berkeley School of Law

By any objective measure, Omar Gómez Trejo did his job meticulously. Five years after Mexico’s government dubiously blamed a local gang for the disappearance of 43 student teachers during a 2014 protest, Trejo — named special prosecutor of the high-profile Ayotzinapa case in 2019 — and his team began diligently examining all angles.

Over three years, his investigation unearthed bombshells that continue to ignite outrage: The government planted evidence, hid evidence, forced confessions, and disrupted investigation efforts. Trejo secured indictments of more than 100 federal, state, and local authorities, people in Mexico’s armed forces and intelligence agency, and organized crime members for their roles in the disappearance or subsequent cover-up.

But when Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office persuaded a judge to vacate 21 recently granted arrest warrants — 16 of them for military officials — the die was cast. Trejo saw the independence and autonomy he received as special prosecutor increasingly undermined by political decisions, and he resigned in September 2022. Soon after, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador began publicly accusing him of trying to spark an army rebellion for having indicted those military officials.

“During his time in office, the President has attacked many journalists, human rights defenders, and even recently the families of the missing students,” Trejo says. “Sending messages of disqualification from the most listened-to official platform creates a stigma, and I believe it put me and my family at risk. That’s why I decided to leave Mexico.”

Once in the United States, he received a scholarship from an initiative called Practitioners At Risk. In March, he joined Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center through a program that helps bring at-risk international scholars to the Bay Area. Support from UC Berkeley, individuals, and foundations have enabled the center to welcome four such scholars over the last four years as they transition to their new lives in America.

“We are so lucky to have Omar join our team as a visiting scholar,” says Human Rights Center Executive Director Betsy Popken. “We are proud to support his research, writing, and speaking on the issue of impunity in Mexico — not only to share what he learned from his time investigating the Ayotzinapa case, but also to help him shape what more can be done to stop impunity for such crimes in Mexico.”

Read "A Safe Harbor: Omar Gómez Trejo Finds Welcoming New Home at Berkeley’s Human Rights Center" https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/omar-gomez-trejo-finds-safe-harbor-at-berkeley-human-rights-center/

Photo Credit: Philip Pacheco

"There is no legal problem with Vice President Kamala Harris being the Democratic nominee for president. Simply put, no candidate has been officially chosen and the party can choose who it wishes to run for president in November at its national convention in Chicago beginning on Aug. 19. That candidate then will appear on the ballot in all 50 states."

Opinion by Dean Erwin Chemerinsky for the San Francisco Chronicle:

GOP will sue to challenge Harris as the Democratic nominee. Can they win? There might be lawsuits challenging Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. But they are without legal foundation and should be dismissed by the courts.

Registration is open! Register now: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/alumni/reunion/

"Judge Aileen Cannon’s stunning ruling dismissing the federal indictment against Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents is just wrong as a matter of constitutional law, but it can be easily overcome."

Opinion by Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, via Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Opinion

Opinion: Judge Aileen Cannon is flat-out wrong, again Special counsel Jack Smith's appointment was constitutional, no matter what Judge Aileen Cannon says. There is a simple fix for the mess she's caused.

Registration opens mid July! https://www.law.berkeley.edu/alumni/reunion/

"Two Supreme Court rulings on Friday that dramatically change the law are profound reminders that presidential elections matter enormously for all of us." Opinion by Dean Chemerinsky for the Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Opinion

Opinion: The Supreme Court's purely ideological reasoning will change our lives The homelessness and 'Chevron deference' Supreme Court decisions change law for the worse. They never would have happened if Hillary Clinton had won in 2016.

"As a dean of a public university law school, do I violate my students’ free speech rights when I encourage them to speak respectfully to one another, to demonstrate civility and to refrain from hateful expression? There are countless instances in which government officials speak out — does that chill freedom of expression among those who disagree with what an official says? In two Supreme Court cases this term, including one decided Wednesday, the justices rightly reaffirmed that speech by government officials violates the 1st Amendment only if it includes an explicit threat of sanctions."

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky via Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times Opinion

Opinion: When does government speech violate the 1st Amendment? A pair of Supreme Court decisions makes it clear that the government can encourage and discourage speech without violating the 1st Amendment.

Dozens of Latina law professors from across the country gathered for the annual Graciela Olivárez Latinas in the Legal Academy Workshop (GO LILA) held recently at Berkeley Law, sharing experiences and strategies for collective and professional development for Latinas — who comprise just 1.6% of tenured and tenure-track law professors.

The two-day event featured plenary discussions, a keynote address, issue-focused breakout sessions, and networking activities from writing sessions to painting.

Read all about it in "Berkeley Law Hosts National Workshop Addressing Challenges for Latinas in the Legal Academy" https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/berkeley-law-hosts-national-workshop-addressing-challenges-for-latinas-in-the-legal-academy/

Two new Los Angeles Times op-eds from Dean Chemerinsky:

- Opinion: The Supreme Court went out of its way to ignore common sense on bump stocks
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-06-14/bumpstock-supreme-court
- Opinion: What a relief. The Supreme Court did the right thing on mifepristone https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-06-13/mifepristone-brett-kavanaugh-standing-supreme-court via Los Angeles Times Opinion

Opinion: What a relief. The Supreme Court did the right thing on mifepristone We should be thankful that the ultraconservative Supreme Court unanimously dismissed an antiabortion case that never should have gotten that far in the first place.

Renowned corporate law attorney Kenton King ’87, health policy leader Tam Ma ’11, esteemed Professor Eric Rakowski, and public interest powerhouse Ann Brick ’75 receive Berkeley Law’s top honors!

Read "All-Star Crew: Four Standouts Honored at Annual Alumni Awards and Donor Celebration" https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/four-standouts-honored-at-annual-alumni-awards-and-donor-celebration/

Photos by Jim Block

Four students from Berkeley Law’s Board of Advocates Tech & IP Team won its regional and placed second overall among 76 law schools at the National Patent Application Drafting Competition, hosted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Advancing to the final round with four other teams at the USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, 2Ls Edlene Miguel, Marley Macarewich, Jisoo Hong, and Nicole Zeinstra say the experience developed career-enhancing skills and provided lasting memories.

“I attribute our success to effective teamwork that involved complementing each other’s strengths and interests,” Zeinstra says. “Combined with insightful mentorship from our coaches, we felt confident in our preparation.”

The competition closely simulates real patent application drafting from start to finish. Michael Schallop and fellow intellectual property expert Lee Van Pelt ’93, partners at Van Pelt, Yi & James in Silicon Valley, guided the students’ development of an application for a hypothetical invention disclosure to advance a low-cost, modular neonatal incubator. Schallop, who teaches Patent Prosecution and Technology for Lawyers at Berkeley Law, accompanied the students to the final round.

“People often think patent drafting is a largely solitary endeavor, but many patents are drafted on teams,” says Macarewich, executive vice president of the school’s Intellectual Property Law Society and the incoming managing editor of its Berkeley Technology Law Journal. “In our law school classes, however, the learning is largely individual. My biggest learning takeaway from this competition was the teamwork aspect of patent drafting.”

Read all about it: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/students-win-awards-at-national-patent-application-drafting-competition/

Tragic News – The Passing of Chris Edley, Visionary and Beloved Dean

Message from Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, May 10, 2024: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/message-from-dean-chemerinsky-tragic-news-the-passing-of-chris-edley-visionary-and-beloved-dean/

Those who lead the Berkeley Journal of Black Law & Policy know the subject can get heated and divisive. But they see reparations, the focus of the journal’s recent 30th anniversary symposium, as more logical development than pie-in-the-sky wish.

“It’s a contentious topic, as are many that involve race,” said Editor-in-Chief Alexis Tatum ’25. “But that’s not a reason to shy away from it. It’s not that crazy an idea in our legal system to atone for past wrongs. That’s what the law is regularly used for.”

Senior Symposium Editor Dominick Williams ’25 proposed the topic. He worked with California Secretary of State Shirley Weber as a liaison to the California Reparations Task Force — the first such unit created nationwide in 2020 — to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans, especially descendants of people enslaved in the United States.

“The badges of slavery are vestiges of a system that never really ended,” Williams said. “They therefore complicate and enrich conversations about what reparations could look like.”

Journal Historian and Communications Editor Alyssa Young ’25 created the program for the symposium, which included attorneys, scholars, and task force members who discussed its work and outlined arguments for reparations — as well as hurdles to achieving them. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/reparations-not-that-crazy-an-idea-in-our-legal-system-to-atone-for-past-wrongs/

Berkeley Law Trio Wins Hispanic National Bar Association’s Moot Court Competition! 🌟

A self-coached trio of Berkeley Law students recently won the Hispanic National Bar Association’s (HNBA) Uvaldo Herrera National Moot Court Competition, topping a field of 32 teams to snag scholarship money along with bragging rights.

3Ls Adriana Hardwicke and Maripau Paz decided to team up late last fall after Hardwicke found information about the contest, held annually during the association’s annual convention. Hardwicke had competed on the law school’s Moot Court Team, but Paz had chosen the Trial Team route instead.

“It was an opportunity to try a skill, and of course to work with Adriana,” Paz says. “We had worked together during our 1L year on a mock trial competition, so I thought it would be really cool if we ended our 3L year doing a moot court one together.”

José Rodriguez, a Harvard Law exchange student, did Harvard’s Ames Moot Court Competition and says he jumped at the chance to join the team.

“The possibility of winning a scholarship was the thing that really made me want to do it,” he says. “Also, I was still trying to figure out what I really wanted to do between trial work and appellate work. Competing in the HNBA competition made me realize that I wanted to do more appellate work, so now I’m gearing myself toward smaller boutique firms that do more of that work.”

In this photo: (Left to right) Berkeley Law 3Ls Maripau Paz and Adriana Hardwicke and José Rodriguez, a Harvard Law exchange student, inside a courtroom at the Seattle federal courthouse, where the quarterfinal, semi-final, and final rounds of the competition were held.

Read: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/student-trio-wins-hispanic-national-bar-association-moot-court-competition/

Few would dispute that the current Supreme Court is shaking up the legal landscape in ways that strike at settled expectations from a generation ago. But is the Court really acting differently from its predecessors? And what does this tell us about what we can expect from this Court going forward?

Find out, as California Supreme Court Justice Carol Corrigan moderates a discussion/debate between two of the country’s leading scholars of the Supreme Court: Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Case Western Reserve Law Professor Jonathan Adler.

Presented by Berkeley Judicial Institute (BJI), ABA Litigation Section, and Bolch Judicial Institute at Duke Law. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bji/events/reshaping-american-life-todays-supreme-court-in-historical-context-and-its-potential-impact-on-our-future/

Berkeley Law students battle it out against Stanford Law students at the inaugural “Order on the Court” Basketball Championship Public Interest Fundraising Event! Tip-off at 3:30pm, on Sunday, April 14th. See details for how you can support the cause and receive an official Order on the Court t-shirt!

Order on the Court: Berkeley Law Students vs. Stanford Law Students Basketball Game for Public Interest Fundraising Come watch your classmates battle it out against Stanford Law students at the “Order on the Court” Basketball Championship Public Interest Fundraising Event. The game will take place at Berkeley High School on Sunday, April 14th. Doors open at 3:00pm. Tip-off at 3:30pm. RSVP here. All donations ...

Be a Shining Star! 🌟www.law.berkeley.edu/BigGive2024

In Legal Briefs: The Ups and Downs of Life in the Law, Hecht details his brushes with Nixon over four episodes — divulging some details publicly for the first time.

Lecturer Henry Hecht recounts Watergate days in new essay collection In Legal Briefs: The Ups and Downs of Life in the Law, Hecht details his brushes with Richard Nixon over four episodes — divulging some details publicly for the first time.

Watch: All American: The Walter Gordon Story — Discover the little-known story of Walter Gordon 1918, J.D. 1922. At Cal, he was one of the first two African Americans named to the College All-American Football Team in 1918 and the first Black graduate from the law school. After Cal, he made strides in politics, law enforcement, and government. This documentary was produced for PBS through KVIE Sacramento.

All American – The Walter Gordon Story Discover the little-known story of the first Black graduate of Cal's Boalt Law School.

Opinion from Dean Erwin Chemerinsky: How the Supreme Court should rule on Texas and Florida laws against social media moderation https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-02-26/supreme-court-social-media-texas-florida-netchoice-moderation-first-amendment-erwin-chemerinsky via Los Angeles Times Opinion

Opinion: How the Supreme Court should rule on Texas and Florida laws against social media moderation The cases, NetChoice vs. Paxton and Moody vs. NetChoice, concern Florida and Texas laws prohibiting moderation by platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.

Don't miss Prof. Dylan Penningroth discussing his new book (Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights) in Conversation with Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell. Thurs, 2/22, at the Commonwealth Club of California.

Dylan Penningroth: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights The story of the American Civil Rights Movement is often told like this: The country's legal system shut out Black people and refused to recognize their rights, dignity or even their lives. When lynch mobs formed, police and judges often closed their eyes, if they didn't join in. Law was hostile to....

Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture with Justice Sonia Sotomayor in Conversation with Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Recorded Monday, January 29, 2024, at UC Berkeley.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor / Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture with Justice Sonia Sotomayor in Conversation with Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. Recorded Monday, January 29, 2024, at ...

“Change never happens on its own.” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor conveys optimism and offers candid insights in conversation with Dean Chemerinsky at Herma Hill Kay Memorial Lecture, Berkeley Law.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor offers candid insights during visit to Berkeley Law She discussed the Court’s challenges and culture as well as clerkships, work-life balance, oral arguments, citizen engagement, and more.

Kevin Steward ’24 Earns Highly Selective Criminal Justice Fellowship https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/kevin-steward-earns-highly-selective-prettyman-fellowship-criminal-justice/

In his commencement speech, 2023 Elise and Walter A. Haas International Award recipient Damir Arnaut ’02 told the graduates that a Berkeley degree gives you both humility and audacity. It’s not a contradiction, he says.

“Humility because being surrounded by so many brilliant people, you realize early on how little you really know, and how important it is to constantly strive for an ever higher level of excellence,” he says. “Audacity one gets because having been exposed to that excellence for so long, having been taught the most noble of values and ideas, you simply refuse to accept simple-minded approaches or settle for mediocrity. And you are not afraid to show it.

“In short, Berkeley teaches you what is right, provides you the skills to bring it about, but also gives you that healthy dose of arrogance that makes you unwavering in your quest. That shapes one’s life, let alone a career.”

Ambassador, human rights advocate Damir Arnaut ’02 wins Haas International Award The longtime advocate for democracy and human rights in his native Bosnia and Herzegovina received the award at the UC Berkeley winter commencement.

With policy inaction and a Supreme Court setback, Gwen Iannone ’24 and Grace Geurin-Henley ’25 help students pivot to international law to pursue justice and reform.

Berkeley Law’s Gun Violence Prevention Project forges a new strategic path Group leaders help students use international law to pursue justice and reform.

“Is homelessness a crime? The answer should obviously be no. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court agreed Friday to review a case that poses that question, and there is every reason to fear that the conservative justices will allow governments to criminalize sleeping in public spaces even if people have nowhere else to go.”

by Dean Chemerinsky via Los Angeles Times Opinion

Opinion: In California, homelessness isn't a crime. Is the Supreme Court about to change that? In reviewing Johnson vs. Grants Pass, the court could undo the 9th Circuit's Martin vs. Boise opinion, which limits punishment of homeless people.