Elite, but not elitist. #LawSchool committed to #Excellence #Community and #PublicMission.
Don’t miss this Friday’s Symposium Celebrating Pamela Samuelson (@pamelasamuelson)!
Judge Pierre Leval of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will give the lunchtime keynote address. The rest of the day will be organized around panels corresponding to different aspects of Professor Samuelson’s scholarship & impact (to date).
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/symposium-celebrating-pamela-samuelson/
#copyright #LawSchool #lawprofs #libraries #FreeExpression
Kristie Chamorro, an instructional & educational technology librarian at #BerkeleyLaw, had already begun gathering information she thought might be helpful to faculty, students, and staff navigating #generativeAI. Her compilation is now available on the library’s website, with regular updates to reflect the latest developments, and she’s working on an #ai research guide for students. #lawfedi #LawSchool #LawLibrary
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/law-library-resources-generative-ai/
Berkeley Law and the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology will be hosting an event to honor the career and impact (so far!) of our dear colleague @pamelasamuelson. The event will be held at Berkeley’s beautiful University Club at the California Memorial Stadium on Friday, November 3, 2023. https://www.law.berkeley.edu/research/bclt/bcltevents/symposium-celebrating-pamela-samuelson/ #lawfedi #lawprofs #LawSchool
Berkeley Law faculty create new courses to address legal challenges with national and global implications.
"For decades, conservatives have railed against judicial activism, but Thursday’s decision striking down affirmative action by colleges and universities in admissions was the height of conservative judicial activism. The court rejected almost half a century of precedents, overturned decisions made by public and private universities across the country, and ignored the history of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
The experience of California — where affirmative action was eliminated by Proposition 209 in 1996 — shows that it still will be possible to have diversity in higher education, but it will take sustained effort and it will be difficult."
#Opinion by Dean Erwin Chemerinsky via LA Times
“Why don’t the Supreme Court justices understand that that they would benefit greatly from an ethics code and an independent office to assess their ethical issues?”
— #Opinion by Dean Erwin Chemerinsky via CNN
https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/22/opinions/scotus-cant-afford-another-self-inflicted-wound-chemerinsky
Since 1983, U.S. News has published rankings of the nation’s law schools. For almost as long, there have been complaints about the way the rankings are done and what value they offer.
Last fall, Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerken announced that Yale — which consistently earned the top spot in the rankings — would no longer participate in the process because it is “undermining the core commitments of the legal profession.” Berkeley Law quickly followed, as did more than 60 law schools.
In this episode of the More Just podcast, Dean Chemerinsky talks to a blockbuster panel to discuss how we got here, what the revolt means, and what the future may hold: Dean Gerken, now in her second term leading Yale Law School; Colorado College President L. Song Richardson, who pulled her school out of the college rankings; and Colin Diver, a former dean at Penn Law and president of Reed College who’s been a longtime critic of the rankings.
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/podcast-episode/the-future-of-law-school-rankings/
Chemerinsky: Time Is Running Out for John Roberts and the Supreme Court
"In light of the Supreme Court’s unwillingness to adopt an ethics code for itself, Congress must step in and pass a statute imposing standards. All other judges in the country — state and federal — are bound by ethical rules. It is inexcusable that the most important and powerful judges are not."
Via CalMatters: California ranchers intentionally violated an emergency water order. Now lawmakers want to triple the fines
“The board doesn’t have the tools to act quickly,” said Michael Kiparsky, water program director at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at UC Berkeley School of Law. “The fish don’t care if the lawyers are trying to figure out who’s right or wrong if they’re dead.”
https://calmatters.org/environment/2023/06/california-water-fines/
Dean Chemerinsky on Allen vs. Milligan:
"After a decade of weakening federal protection of voting rights, the Supreme Court on Thursday reaffirmed that the Voting Rights Act prevents racial discrimination in drawing election districts. This was a surprising and important 5-4 victory for voting rights, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. writing the majority opinion, joined by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson."
The SEC Takes on Crypto
Assistant Dean Adam Sterling will be joined by Emily Flitter of the New York Times to discuss the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuits against crypto exchanges Coinbase and Bitcoin. Followed by a panel discussion with Berkeley Law Professors Robert Bartlett, Stavros Gadinis, and Jai Massari.
June 8, 2023 at 10:00 Am PT
Register here for Berkeley Boosts hosted by Berkeley Law Executive Education
https://executive.law.berkeley.edu/boosts/the-sec-takes-on-crypto/
On Bears With Video Cameras and Fourth Amendment Law
Professor Orin Kerr opines on a civil suit recently filed in federal court in which the complaint alleged that Connecticut officials violated a couple's Fourth Amendment rights by releasing camera-carrying bears in the area that came within 200 yards of their home.
https://reason.com/volokh/2023/06/07/on-bears-with-video-cameras-and-fourth-amendment-law/
Listen to the new episode of More Just: Tracking the Diversity of Federal Judicial Clerks
For recent law school graduates, clerking for a federal judge can be a key career stepping stone, and the hiring process is both highly opaque and famously nerve-wracking. Even as law school cohorts have become more diverse, the clerkship ranks have remained heavily skewed toward white men, particularly from a handful of top-ranked law schools.
Leaders from Berkeley Law’s Berkeley Judicial Institute wanted to know why. So they asked 50 federal judges how and why they hire particular clerks in the first qualitative study of the issue. These conversations yielded a number of insights for law students, law schools, and other judges, from how much an aspiring clerk’s cover letter matters to the fact that “diversity” doesn’t mean the same thing to every judge.
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/podcast-episode/tracking-the-diversity-of-federal-judicial-clerks/
#LawFedi #LawSchool #LawProfs #Judiciary #Clerkships #Diversity
Chemerinsky: Social media and internet companies likely face more free speech challenges at the Supreme Court
"Sometimes there is great significance in what the U.S Supreme Court doesn’t do, and that was definitely so for two cases it handed down May 18 about the internet and social media."
Dean Erwin Chemerinsky on Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google, via ABA Journal
#LawFedi #LawSchool #LawProfs #SCOTUS #SocialMedia #Twitter #Google #SupremeCourt
"The Supreme Court dealt a serious blow on Thursday to a core protection of workers, the right to strike."
– Berkeley Law Professor Catherine Fisk and Dean Erwin Chemerinsky on Glacier Northwest, Inc. vs. International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union No. 174, via Los Angeles Times Opinion.
#LawFedi #LawSchool #LawProfs #workersrights #LaborLaw #SCOTUS
Former San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin to pursue meaningful change as the founding executive director of Berkeley Law’s new Criminal Law & Justice Center.
Berkeley Judicial Institute series aims to improve communication between media and the courts
“The work of the press, like that of the courts, is vital to a thriving democracy,” says Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge who’s the executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute (BJI). “We encourage both institutions to explore new ways to make their relationship mutually productive.”
All three “Judges and the Press” sessions are free and open to anyone, with a target audience of judges, court administrators, and journalists.
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/article/berkeley-judicial-institute-judges-press-communication-event/
#LawFedi #LawProfs #LawSchool #Judiciary #Media #PublicMission
Generative AI meets copyright law
Professor @pamelasamuelson recently delivered the final of four Distinguished Lectures on the Status and Future of AI, co-hosted by CITRIS Research Exchange and the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Group.
“Copyright law is the only law that’s already in existence that could bring generative AI systems to their knees. If the court says ingesting [is] infringement, the whole thing can be destroyed. Copyright law is an existential threat to progress in this field,” Samuelson said.
“If you think [generative AI] should continue to thrive,” she said, “help to build arguments that it will actually advance the purposes of copyright, rather than destroy it.”
https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/05/16/generative-ai-meets-copyright-law/
#ai #Copyright #LawFedi #LawProfs #LawSchool #UCBerkeley #Berkeley
Excessive Police Use of Force: Experts Push for Legal Solutions Focused on Training and Culture
A recent Berkeley Law symposium confronted excessive use of police force, with renowned experts identifying obstacles to victims’ access to the courts and officer accountability, and exploring potential solutions.
“The law itself is a barrier to justice, and legal reform is needed to ensure that victims of police violence are heard in court and that officers are held accountable,” said Professor Osagie K. Obasogie, the event’s lead organizer. “Police violence is ultimately about the physical and psychological harm this can have on people and communities.”
More than 5,000 tons of toxic chemicals released from consumer products every year inside homes and workplaces
“Although Prop 65 has reduced the public’s exposure to toxic chemicals both through litigation and by incentivizing companies to reformulate their products, people continue to be exposed to many unsafe chemicals,” says co-author Claudia Polsky, Director of the Environmental Law Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law. “This study shows how much work remains for product manufacturers and regulators nationwide, because the products in CARB’s database are sold throughout the U.S.”
#LawFedi #LawProfs #EnvironmentalLaw #UCBerkeley #PublicHealth