Tyler Gerking ’02 is advancing the cause for Partners in Leadership, a program that encourages alumni at law firms and organizations with four or more Berkeley Law graduates to help achieve 100 percent giving. “This experience gives me the opportunity to connect with great colleagues for a noble cause,” he says. Kim Natividad ’09, Berkeley Law’s director
of student services, leads the charge to engage young alumni. She is enriching friendly connections over eggs and toast, as the recently launched Alumni and Admit Brunch Mixer starts a new tradition. “It’s important to involve young alums in our community,” she says, “because their voices and experiences are invaluable in shaping the school’s priorities.” —Linda Peterson
Alumni Meet the Access for All Challenge
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or Carolina Garcia ’16, the road to Berkeley Law was filled with potholes. Her father never went to school, her mother only reached fourth grade, and Garcia—who grew up on a drug-ridden street in Seaside, California—had a son while in high school. Undaunted, and buoyed by her parents’ support, she clung tightly to her dream of practicing law. “My parents didn’t want me to become a statistic—because statistically speaking, I shouldn’t be here,” Garcia says. “I really want to be an example for people, especially for girls from poor families … that you can become a lawyer; that you’re not limited by where you came from.” To help ensure that students like Garcia can continue to attend Berkeley Law, late last year Dean Sujit Choudhry launched the Access for All Challenge—a fundraising campaign for need-based aid, so the school remains accessible to all qualified applicants. Over the past two decades, tuition has soared as California’s support of its public colleges and universities plummeted. At Berkeley Law, state support has dropped from 76 percent of the school’s revenues in 1990 to 11 percent today. “I wouldn’t have become a lawyer if not for Berkeley, because I couldn’t afford any other law school,” says former U.S. Ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich ’89, a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson. “I paid for it with the money I earned during summers, but you can’t do that today. The cost of a Berkeley
education is nine times what it was in my day. So it’s up to us alums to pay it forward— to give the next generation the same opportunity we had.” Thanks to two generous graduates who matched gifts at various levels, the Challenge exceeded its $2 million goal well before this year’s June 30 target date. Other alums stepped forward to offer matching funds, enabling Berkeley Law to extend the program through the end of 2015. The school has steadily increased its annual financial aid expenditures, from $7.2 million in fiscal year 2009 to $13.3 million last fiscal year. More is needed, however, to sustain a proud tradition of providing a toptier legal education to exceptional students from all economic circumstances. “My family didn’t have a lot of money,” says financial aid recipient Tim Shadix ’16. “I would not have been able to attend Berkeley Law without the really generous financial package offered to me here.” Learn more about the program at www.law. berkeley.edu/challenge. —Andrew Cohen
“ I would not have been able to attend Berkeley Law without the really generous financial package offered to me here.” —Tim Shadix ’16
DREAM NOT DEFERRED: Carolina Garcia ’16 credits the law school for helping students show “that you’re not limited by where you came from.”
S P R I N G 2015 | T R A N S C R I P T |
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