Honoring a Legal Advocate with a Heart for Service

On March 21, Santa Clara University School of Law faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends gathered in the Adobe Lodge at SCU to celebrate and honor the 2023 Alexander Law Prize winner, Tara Berta, supervising attorney at the Cooperative Restraining Order Clinic (CROC) in San Francisco.

First awarded in 2008, the Katharine & George Alexander Law Prize was created through the generosity of the late Katharine and George Alexander to bring recognition to legal advocates who have used their careers to help alleviate injustice and inequity.

Katharine Alexander practiced law for 25 years as a public defender for Santa Clara County and taught law courses at San Jose State University. George Alexander served as a professor at Santa Clara Law for 34 years and as dean for 15 years. Both Katharine and George dedicated their lives to instilling a commitment to justice in students and lawyers.

Chip, the son of George and Katharine Alexander, attended the event with his wife, Laurie, while the Alexanders’ daughter, Suzi, attended via live stream.

Since 1999, Tara Berta has served as supervising attorney at CROC in San Francisco, where she leads a team that provides direct legal services to survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. CROC empowers survivors to understand their legal rights and options, and the staff provides free legal services to help enforce and protect those rights, with a particular focus on restraining orders, family law, Title IX, and Marsy’s Rights. Each year, CROC assists 750 to 1000 survivors with securing their personal safety, their children’s personal safety, and financial support.

Beyond her work at CROC, Berta has served the community and helped shape domestic violence policy in numerous ways. Highlights include Berta’s service on the board of directors of Bay Area Women Against Rape from 1999 to 2018. She also co-chaired San Francisco’s Domestic Violence Death Review Team from 2000 to 2015, reviewing domestic violence-related homicides, strengthening system policies and procedures, and identifying prevention strategies to reduce future incidents of domestic violencerelated injuries and deaths.

Jerel McCrary, former managing director of Bay Area Legal Aid and longtime social justice advocate, introduced Berta, saying “[Tara] has always recognized the need to address systemic impediments that compromise the safety of survivors of violence.” Jerel shared powerful quotes from CROC clients, which he said best illustrated the five characteristics that make Berta the “exceptional lawyer and advocate that she is.” He highlighted Berta’s “limitless compassion for people of all backgrounds,” her “tireless dedication to her clients,” her “unambiguousness,” her “belief in client empowerment,” and her “humility.”

In her remarks, Berta outlined her long history with CROC, which began when she joined as a volunteer, and she also emphasized the powerful practice of deeply listening to the clients who come for help. “We don’t measure our success at CROC by how many restraining orders we get,” she said. “We measure our success based on whether the survivors we work with feel like we listened to them.” Berta also thanked her entire CROC team, which was in attendance; her parents, who also attended; and the entire Alexander family. “The work done by Katharine and George Alexander during their lifetimes to promote justice in an unjust world is a model for all of us for how and why to serve our communities,” said Berta.

At the end of the evening, Dean Michael Kaufman presented Berta with the award, thanked the Alexander family, and honored the legacy of Katharine and George Alexander. “It is because of their generosity, their vision, their leadership, and their sense of humanity and justice that we are able to gather today and celebrate and lift up Tara’s incredible work and achievements,” he said.

“Tara, thank you for your work and for your example,” Kaufman said. “I think we are all incredibly struck by the fact that you not only have a brilliant mind, but—much more importantly, at this Jesuit Law School—you’ve got a beautiful heart. Thank you for helping us answer our call to do justice and do right by the world.”