USF Lawyer Magazine Spring 2017

U N I V E R S I T Y O F S A N F R A N C I S CO S C H O O L O F L AW • S P R I N G 2 0 1 7

trailblazers “Wome n

do n’t go to law school.”

These graduates walk a path of progress

A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN This edition of USF Lawyer highlights some of the

admissions to academics to employment. I continue

alumnae our school has produced and their deep

to solicit your ideas and will provide you with

impact on the practice and profession. Last year,

current information on our plans and trends.

women law students nationwide outnumbered

More rigor in the classroom, support throughout

men for the first time. We got there in 1989. Today,

law school, and hard decisions on selection are

our law school is about 58 percent women, and

among the things we need and we are advancing.

we have worked diligently to remove unnecessary

Now is a critically important time in our society

obstacles to success.

to go to law school and for lawyers to engage with

When Professor Susan Freiwald becomes associate

communities, clients, and concerns.

dean in June, every one of my dean-level leadership

I close this note with deep respect and in memory

colleagues and half of our senior directors will be

of a dear, dear friend of the School of Law and all

women. Beyond the profiles of the USF alumnae

USF graduates, Martin “Pete” Murphy ’61. We

featured as judges, litigators, public officials, and

featured Pete in the Spring 2014 USF Lawyer, as the

firm and business leaders, we recognize their day-

son of Martin M. ’28 and father of Martin D. ’91.

to-day achievements that makes us a school in the

While reminders remain in our law school buildings

Jesuit tradition to train men and women for others.

he led campaigns for, his model lives on in his

We are indebted to trailblazers whose courage

devotion to church, family, and profession.

and into the profession such as Molly Minudri ’57, San Francisco’s first female deputy public defender, legendary Judge Agnes O’Brien Smith ’41, and San Angela Alioto ’83, and Katy Tang ’17 to name a few.

And we salute Sharon Meadows, Philip and Muriel Barnett Professor of Trial Advocacy, who retires from the faculty this year as director of our Criminal and Juvenile Justice Law Clinic.

DONALD E. HELLER Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs JOHN TRASVIÑA Dean JOSHUA DAVIS Associate Dean for Academic Affairs TRISTIN GREEN Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship ELIZABETH BENHARDT Assistant Dean for Academic Services GRACE HUM Assistant Dean for Student Affairs JOHANNA HARTWIG Assistant Dean for Career Planning and Legal Community Engagement MICHELLE SKLAR Assistant Dean for Development and Alumni Relations

and stamina propelled them through law school

Francisco Supervisors Dorothy von Beroldingen ’54,

PAUL J. FITZGERALD, S.J. University President

John Trasviña Dean

ANGIE DAVIS Senior Director of Communications and Marketing TALYA GOULD SANDERS Associate Director of Communications and Marketing DESIGNED BY USF Office of Marketing Communications

USF’s richness and bold leadership is not just part of our heritage. It is central to our future.

As we take on serious bar examination performance challenges, we are putting into place a comprehensive program that strengthens our approach and capacity on everything from

USF LAWYER IS PUBLISHED BY: University of San Francisco School of Law 2130 Fulton Street San Francisco, CA 94117-1080 T (415) 422-4409 F (415) 422-4397 usflawyer@usfca.edu

USF Lawyer is printed on paper and at a printing facility certified by BM Trada Certification North America, Inc. to FSC® standards. From forest management to paper production to printing, FSC certification represents the highest social and environmental standards.

CONTENTS SPRING • 2017

DEPARTMENTS

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IN BRIEF Law Students Win National Trademark Moot Court Competition Partnership With Van Jones’ #Cut50 Susan Freiwald Named Associate Dean New Law Student Housing to Open Professor Sharon Meadows Retires

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TRAILBLAZERS USF women graduates have been breaking ground in the law for more than eight decades

GIVING The Power of Scholarships

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FACULTY FOCUS On the Record With Bill Ong Hing

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18

32

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ALUMNI NEWS

PEOPLE POWER

FROM CASES TO COURSES

CLOSING ARGUMENT

Two New Judges

A passion for helping people motivates Britt Strottman ’00 to fight the good fight — and win

Alumni turned adjuncts give back in the classroom

Jonathan Madison ’16 on we are what we believe

Alumni Holiday Mixer Upcoming Events

ON THE COVER: Doris Cheng ‘98, partner at Walkup, Melodia, Kelly and Schoenberger

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IN BRIEF USF Partners With Dream Corps’ #Cut50 to Reduce Prison Population Two USF law clinics are partnering with #Cut50, an initiative of the Dream Corps, founded by author, commentator, and attorney Van Jones, to reduce the country’s incarcerated population by 50 percent over the next 10 years.

Students in the Racial Justice and Criminal and Juvenile Justice Law Clinics have focused their research on the felony-

USF’s winning moot court team: (from left to right) Daniel Gaitan 2L, Nguyen La 2L, Liam McNamara 3L, and Jef frey Hughes 3L.

murder rule in California. This rule provides that any participant in a felony that results in a homicide is guilty of firstdegree murder, even when there was no intent to kill. Although this rule has been abolished in all common-law jurisdictions and in states within the U.S., California continues to impose felony-murder liability and use it broadly. #Cut50 asked USF students to draft proposed legislation to eliminate or limit the impact of this law. USF law students and faculty will join advocates in these efforts in Sacramento.

As part of its Voices from Inside project, students will also tell the stories of inmates at San Quentin State Prison by interviewing those who were incarcerated for violent crimes committed as young adults or juveniles. Their stories will become part of a social media campaign.

“The hope is that these legal and humanizing efforts will combine to create legislative change,” said Kate Chatfield, assistant professor and interim director of the two clinics involved. “Our students jumped at the opportunity to work on this project, saying this is why they wanted to go to law school.” n

USF TEAM WINS NATIONAL MOOT COURT CHAMPIONSHIP A USF School of Law team beat out 70 teams from across the country in a

other teams at San Francisco’s regional

moot court competition hosted by the

competition in February.

International Trademark Association.

USF took first in the Saul Lefkowitz

USF SCHOOL OF LAW

“The western region, we’ve been told, is probably the most difficult region to

Moot Court Competition, held March

compete in,” said Hughes. “We went up

18 in Washington D.C. The 26-year-old

against Stanford, Berkeley, and Hastings,

competition is designed to help students

among others. Just winning that one

sharpen their legal skills in the field of

alone was a win for us and USF.”

trademark and unfair competition law.

“It’s still very surreal,” said Nguyen La 2L, captain of the team. “Each and every one of us worked very hard.”

La, Daniel Gaitan 2L, Jeffrey Hughes 3L,

In D.C., the USF team presented 30-minute oral arguments in front of a panel of trademark attorneys and judges.

“It’s been a great way to get our names out there and be recognized by

and Liam McNamara 3L were part of the team.

the community we want to work in,” said

The fictional case under consideration

Hughes. “I’ve made a lot of connections

was a dispute between two fitness bracelet companies. Teams argued over issues

in the trademark community.”

The win wouldn’t have been possible

including whether a company could trademark

without the support of students and alumni

the buzz alert associated with its bracelet.

who coached the team and critiqued oral

Teams first wrote legal briefs and performed oral arguments at regional competitions.

argument practices, said La. “People who graduated from USF

Then 10 teams moved on to a final round of

School of Law came back and paid it

oral arguments at the U.S. Court of Appeals

forward,” she said. n

for the Federal Circuit in Washington D.C.

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USF’s moot court team bested 20

PROFESSOR SUSAN FREIWALD APPOINTED ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS Cyberlaw and information privacy expert Professor Susan Freiwald will become associate dean for academic affairs in June.

As associate dean, Freiwald will oversee academic programs and be responsible for curricular and program development and implementation. She succeeds Professor Joshua Davis who is stepping down to return to the faculty.

“Beyond her academic and professional expertise in privacy law, Susan is respected for her university service and law school strategic activities,” said Dean John Trasviña.

“She will build on Josh Davis’ outstanding and tireless work as associate dean for the past four years to help us move the law school forward.”

Since Freiwald joined the faculty in 1997, she has held faculty leadership roles including chairing the appointments and budget committees and has been a key voice in strategic planning.

A former software developer, Freiwald has authored and co-authored amicus briefs in major cases involving electronic surveillance laws. She also regularly assists the Electronic Frontier Foundation with electronic surveillance litigation efforts and has served on the board of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. She earned undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University.

“I am looking forward to taking on this new role at a time of significant challenges and great opportunities for the law school,” said Freiwald, who this spring received the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology’s 2017 Privacy Award.

“I’m delighted that I will be working together with the dean and alongside our inspiring students, alums, faculty, and staff to improve the law school and our community.” n

USF to Open New Law Student Housing The University of San Francisco will open a new residence hall in August to help law students secure housing in the city’s notoriously tight rental market.

The new facility will open in time for the start of the fall semester, with priority given to incoming, first-year law students. It will consist of two floors housing 48 students, almost all in single rooms.

“While most law students live off campus within the city of San Francisco, it can be especially challenging for first-year students to secure housing,” said Dean John Trasviña.

“This new facility will provide an affordable, comfortable, and convenient option for 48 of our law students.”

The building is located 1.5 miles from campus in the Inner Sunset on the St. Anne of the Sunset Church and School site. This unique partnership with the parish opens two fully renovated floors of a St. Anne’s building to exclusive use as USF law student housing, complete with a dedicated entrance. n

Architectural rendering of a single room at the new law school residence hall.

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IN BRIEF

McCarthy Institute Convenes Leading Trademark Experts USF’s McCarthy Institute partnered with Microsoft Corporation to present USF’s seventh annual symposium, “Trademark Law and Its Challenges 2017,” on Feb. 17 at the Amazon campus in Seattle. The conference, organized by Professor and McCarthy Institute Director David Franklyn, brought together brand owners, trademark attorneys, and public policymakers who faced off on the most pressing issues in trademark law.

Keynote speakers included Joe Ferretti, vice president and chief counsel for global

“The McCarthy Symposium was an excellent opportunity to hear about current concerns and developments in the industry, as well as meet the movers and shakers in the industry.”

— Jeffrey Hughes 3L trademarks at PepsiCo, Inc. and president of the International Trademark Association, as well as Maria Renz, vice president and

USF Law Review Examines Business and Ethics of Cannabis On the heels of California voting to legalize recreational marijuana use, nearly 200 lawyers, students, cannabis business owners, and others gathered Jan. 27 at USF for a symposium focused on the emerging legal and ethical questions in California’s burgeoning cannabis Keynote speaker Robert industry.

Raich called on law The USF Law Review Symposium, students to “stand up “California’s Green Rush: The for your convictions.”

Business and Ethics of Cannabis,” included panel discussions on business issues and intellectual property questions, and a keynote from Robert Raich, a leading industry attorney who took two medical marijuana cases to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We are on the brink of marijuana being recognized as a legitimate law practice,” Raich said in his talk that traced the history of efforts to make cannabis illegal and then legal again in the United States.

“It’s now a commodity sold on the market just like any other. We as lawyers are riding that wave, but I don’t think the future is going to be a simple path. We will see a lot of bumps in the road.”

Dean John Trasviña said “the symposium continues the tradition of USF Law Review to take on cutting-edge issues facing our state and our nation. Many large firms are starting practice groups while district attorneys, tax attorneys, and IP specialists are facing new issues.”

The day-long event was put on by the staff of USF Law Review, led by symposium editor Ani Keledjian 3L. n

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USF SCHOOL OF LAW

technical advisor to the CEO at Amazon.

“The panel on Lee v. Tam, the disparaging trademark case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, was a highlight,” said Dean John Trasviña, “especially hearing our own Professor Tom McCarthy share his expertise.”

“The McCarthy Symposium was an excellent opportunity to hear about current concerns and developments in the industry, as well as meet the movers and shakers in the industry,” said Jeffrey Hughes 3L, who intends to practice trademark and copyright law after graduating.

“I cultivated relationships that will certainly help me get jobs or business in the future.” n

California Water Law Symposium at USF Focuses on the Future of the Bay Delta

The Bay Delta ecosystem faces significant sustainability challenges.

The Bay Delta was the focus of the annual California Water Law Symposium Jan. 21 hosted by the USF School of Law and organized

by USF students.

“Students from USF and around the Bay Area joined agency decision-makers and lawyers from industry and public interest groups to learn about and debate one of the most difficult issues facing the state: the sustainability of the beleaguered Bay Delta ecosystem,” said Professor Alice Kaswan. “The Water Law Symposium provided not only an excellent educational forum, but an opportunity for students to interact with the lawyers and stakeholders shaping future policy.”

This was the 13th year of the symposium, and the six participating law schools — USF, UC Davis, UC Hastings, UC Berkeley, University of the Pacific, and Golden Gate University — rotate hosting the event.

Panels examined the future of Delta management, the Metropolitan Water District’s purchase of Delta islands, the drought, California WaterFix’s change petition, and the impact of the Delta on local communities, including fishermen, tribes, and diverters. Panelists were water experts from several state agencies, Natural Resources Defense Counsel, Rossmann and Moore, LLP, Restore the Delta, and faculty from the participating law schools. n

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Tag your posts to share your #USFLaw moments!

DECEMBER 2016

JANUARY 2017

MARCH 2017

Yesterday we launched a new partnership between #usflaw and Jinan University School of Law in Guangzhou, China: bit.ly/usflaw-jinan

The third annual USF Law Review AlumniStudent Reception, held at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, honored the journal’s legacy and celebrated the service of past and current members.

Check out all the photos: bit.ly/usflawreview-mixer2017 #usflaw

MARCH 2017

OCTOBER 2016 Sabha Salamah 2L won the 2016 Advocate of the Year Competition (AYC) on Oct. 21, after facing off against second place winner Yohannes Moore 2L in the final round of the oral and written advocacy skills competition. Dana Marquez 2L was awarded Best Brief in the competition.

Congratulations! Read more at bit.ly/usflaw-ayc2016

Members of the USF Black Law Student Association attended the Charles Houston Bar Association Gala earlier this month, where they cheered on two alums honored that night. Cometria Cooper ‘09 received the 2016 President’s Award for her tireless work this past year on the CHBA board, and Nichelle Holmes ‘10 was sworn in as board member that evening. #usflaw

NOVEMBER 2016 Ward Hoskins 2L and Robert Lopez 3L won second best respondent’s brief and came in 8th nationally at the National Criminal Procedure Tournament.

Congratulations to them, their student coach Jeff Hughes 3L, and their alumni coach Nicole Phillips ‘15! #usflaw

#USFLaw hosted the 13th Annual Pemberton Lecture on Workplace Justice at the iconic U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

During her keynote speech, Washington University School of Law Professor Pauline Kim talked about the use of big data in the workplace and the implications for employee privacy and workplace discrimination. #usflaw

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IN BRIEF

ONE TO WATCH: JOE LEWIS 3L Joe Lewis is known not only for his strong academics, but also for speaking on behalf of other students to effect positive change. He co-founded USF’s Real Estate Law Society and serves as vice president of the Environmental Law Society and on the USF Law Review. He is a McAuliffe Honor Society member, and last year won the state bar’s California Real Property Journal Law Student Writing Competition. He earned a bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Barbara and worked in software implementation before coming to USF. Did you dream of being a lawyer as a kid?

Yes, I vividly remember sitting across the dinner table from my parents (who are both attorneys) and asking about their cases. Between what they could tell me and what I could understand for my age, I was enthralled. It was as if the good guys and bad guys from fictional bedtime stories came to life.

Which class has challenged you the most?

The Intensive Advocacy Program (IAP). If you are one of those people who thinks hearing the sound of your own voice feels like nails on a chalkboard, try watching video of yourself giving a closing statement, while receiving critique from an accomplished judge.

IAP challenged me beyond issue spotting and rule memorization. After the two weeks with Doris Cheng ’98 and the IAP faculty, I noticed considerable improvement in my oral advocacy abilities.

What draws you to real estate law?

My interest in real estate law started with the housing bubble of 2008. The software company I worked for also specialized in property management.

I found it fascinating how impactful the real estate market could be on so many people and industries. One thing led to another — I am now a licensed realtor

and I have been managing properties ever since. Combining that interest with law is only natural.

What’s your proudest accomplishment as cofounder of the Real Estate Law Society?

It would have to be effectuating our first event. It was a debate between the head of policy strategy at Airbnb and a campaign strategist seeking to tighten regulation on short-term rentals.

It was a lively discussion to say the least. My cofounder Rose Caruso ’16 and I were proud to see the room filled to capacity with students, faculty, and even the local news.

What advice would you give new law students?

Take practice exams. Outlining is key, but there is no greater preparation you can give yourself than simulating the test itself.

What are your plans for after the bar exam?

In the fall, I’ll start as an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in San Francisco.

During my time there as a summer associate, I realized the firm truly practices what it preaches. It has top-notch attorneys passionate about their work, extensive resources and training, and a vibrant culture. n

PRESS CLIPPINGS “ The hard question that the administration is going to have is to prove that they can blanketly say that people from those countries except for Christians are detrimental to the United States. That’s what a court is ultimately going to have to decide.”

Professor Bill Ong Hing in an article in The Mercury News comparing how similar President Trump’s order banning some refugees is to President Obama’s.

“ [Mike] Pompeo is promoting the discredited view that it is always good for a government to collect more data on its people.”

Professor Susan Freiwald on new CIA director Mike Pompeo, in the San Francisco Chronicle shortly after his nomination was announced.

“ It can be a very aggressive, intimidating, and even psychologically coercive process….

Police are trained to accuse suspects they believe committed a crime and to confront them oftentimes with made up or false evidence.”

Professor Richard Leo on ABC’s Good Morning America after Amanda Knox wrote an essay exploring what leads women to make false confessions.

“ [Judge Neil Gorsuch] will be called upon to give his views on the president’s recent executive orders. It’ll be his job to dodge those questions.”

Dean John Trasviña on NBC Bay Area News, on the questions U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch will face during his confirmation hearings.

“ As soon as you move across that line [of violence], then of course, the speech protection really evaporates. Allow speech and protect speech, even the speech you hate, of a hateful speaker all the way up to where the speech crosses the line into inciting violence.”

Herbst Foundation Professor of Law Julie Nice, on KTVU, on the limits of free speech in the wake of a fiery protest at UC Berkeley, which resulted in the cancellation of a speech by alt-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos.

“ [Airbnb] knows it’s signaling not only to San Francisco, but possibly elsewhere, that it’s willing to come to some sort of negotiated resolution like this.”

Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Joshua Davis in The Mercury News after Airbnb agreed to help San Francisco enforce its home-sharing rules, including limiting the days an Airbnb landlord can rent out a home.

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IN BRIEF

Retiring Professor Sharon Meadows Leaves a Legacy of Talented Litigators After 27 years training a generation of USF lawyers, Professor Sharon Meadows is retiring in May from the USF School of Law. She was recently named the Philip and Muriel Barnett Professor of Trial Advocacy, an endowed chair position, and has long served as the director of the law school’s Criminal and Juvenile Justice Law Clinic.

“I am grateful to the law school for allowing me to teach wonderful and talented students over the past 27 years,” she said.

“I see former students in courtrooms across the Bay Area and at work in law offices and am proud to have been a part of their advocacy training. I am already missing my students and my colleagues as I retire from the place that has been my home for so long.”

As head of the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Law Clinic, Meadows guided students in their representation of indigent defendants in all phases of criminal proceedings, from arraignment through trial and appeal in the San Francisco Superior Courts. In addition, Meadows recently established the Racial Justice Clinic in collaboration with the San Francisco Public Defender’s office. In this clinic, students work with seasoned trial lawyers to track and address racial disparities in bail settings, as well as write and argue bail hearings in court.

“For a generation, Sam has played an instrumental role at USF accomplishing our mission of producing San Francisco’s best litigators,” said Dean John Trasviña. “Graduates of the criminal law clinic can be found trying cases in courtrooms throughout Northern California. Together, Sam and I serve on the Bar Association of San Francisco Criminal Justice Task Force, another demonstration of how USF is helping our criminal justice system tackle some of the most important issues facing our city today.” n

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USF SCHOOL OF LAW

THE GIFT THAT CHANGES LIVES

GIVING

By endowing scholarships, alumni give current students much more than money.

For Betelhem Gedlu 2L, a USF scholarship is changing the course of her legal education — and, ultimately, her career. With a long commute her first year, she considered transferring to a school closer to home but was hesitant to leave the supportive community and inspiring faculty that drew her to USF and that she came to value even more during her first year.

When she received the Agnes O'Brien Smith Scholarship for her second year, it was the recognition and motivation she needed to stay.

“The recognition means a lot to me. Of course the financial component is very important, but I love USF,” she says. “This scholarship keeps me going and working toward an outstanding academic performance that’s going to help my career.”

USF School of Law has launched an initiative to create more endowed scholarships like the one helping Gedlu in an effort to attract and retain the most talented students, and to keep a USF legal education accessible to dedicated students who will change the world.

Gedlu participates in the USF Law Review and holds leadership positions in the Student Bar Association, International Law Society, and Immigration Law Society. She is active in several other student organizations and tutored for the Academic Support Program.

The scholarship not only alleviates some of the stress of financing law school, but it frees her to explore career options she otherwise might not consider, she says. She emigrated 10 years ago from Ethiopia, where she earned an undergraduate degree in computer science, and is now drawn to both international human rights law and international intellectual property law.

“Whenever you think about having to pay back your loans, you have to make hard decisions — considering doing what you want or being able to pay back your loans,” she says.

“I want to serve my community, and now I’m lucky enough to pursue a career path that will enable me to do that.”

The impact of scholarships extends far beyond individual recipients, says Assistant

Betelhem Gedlu 2L says her scholarship will help her pursue a career path that will enable her to serve her community.

Dean for Development and Alumni Relations Michelle Sklar. “The cost of law school is now so high that scholarships are one of the top things, if not the top thing, students consider when deciding whether or not to enroll in a school they have been admitted to.”

Scholarships allow USF to attract and retain bright, talented, and committed students, she explains. “Currently, we are only able to provide scholarships for roughly 50 percent of our students. The need is much greater. Scholarship resources allow us to strengthen our student body while also mitigating the debt students graduate with, which in turn allows USF law school to continue to improve year over year.”

Lindbergh Porter ’81 is one of four alumni who recently endowed a scholarship. His is in honor of Charles Lawrence, the first African American tenured faculty member at the law school, who was known for “doing anything and everything he could for students,” remembers Porter. Not long before Porter graduated from USF, he was part of a group Lawrence organized to fundraise for students in need. Currently a

member of the Board of Trustees at USF and the Board of Counselors at the law school, Porter wants to build on that momentum.

“Now that we’re at the back end of our careers, our potential is greater,” Porter says.

“We have more resources and connections.

We can do far more and better than when we were just starting out.”

A recipient of scholarships himself, he believes “receiving a scholarship helps remind you of being helped yourself and gives you something of an obligation to pass it on.”

“I hope my scholarship will go to students with financial need who show a sense of duty to use their law school education to make things better where they are — students who have made their way and have seen the power of education in their lives, who see that it is possible to overcome your background,” he said. n To learn more about endowing a scholarship at USF School of Law, please contact Assistant Dean for Development and Alumni Relations Michelle Sklar at msklar@usfca.edu or (415) 422-2551.

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FACULTY FOCUS ON THE RECORD

PROFESSOR BILL ONG HING

Professor Bill Ong Hing ’74 is an immigration expert with an active history of community work and fighting for social justice. He founded USF’s Immigration and Deportation Defense Law Clinic, the only clinic of its kind in the state to represent unaccompanied immigrant children and women with children in immigration proceedings. In December 2016, he was appointed to the San Francisco Police Commission.

Hing is the author of academic and practiceoriented publications on immigration policy and race relations, including Ethical Borders — NAFTA, Globalization, and Mexican Migration (Temple University Press, 2010). He founded the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco and serves on the National Advisory Council of the Asian American Justice Center in Washington, D.C. He also frequently analyzes immigration issues for national and Bay Area news media.

What does the future of immigration enforcement look like under the Trump administration?

As President Trump’s executive orders have demonstrated, he is determined to make immigration enforcement a high priority. His Muslim ban on Jan. 27 sent shock waves across the world and demonstrated a willingness to overreach. His commitment to building a wall along the southern border reveals a willingness to antagonize the Mexican government, a longtime ally and important trading partner of the United States. Raids and racial profiling by ICE are becoming common place. As the courts are beginning to demonstrate, many of these actions exceed his executive authority.

How are President Trump’s executive orders likely to affect funding for sanctuary cities like San Francisco or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students?

The administration’s threat to cut all federal funds to sanctuary cities like San Francisco is ultimately likely to fail. In order to take such action, President Trump will need Congressional language inserted in related funding authority. Even then, the funded area must be germane to the issue of immigration enforcement, and the penalty for failing to cooperate cannot be so much as to be considered coercive. I think only a 5 to 10 percent penalty in federal law enforcement funds could be assessed.

On the other hand, ending DACA for 750,000 beneficiaries is within the president’s power since the program is the product of executive action by former President Obama rather than through congressional legislation. That would be unfortunate, because 90 percent of DACA recipients are holding jobs, contributing to the economy, and earning fair wages, which are good for all U.S. workers. Thus far, Trump has demonstrated some recognition of the value of continuing the DACA program.

You were recently appointed to the San Francisco Police Commission. What do you hope to accomplish as a commissioner?

The highly publicized police shootings across the country — including those in San Francisco — are a cause for concern and highlight the need for reforms. The U.S. Department of Justice has made over 270 recommendations for reform in the San Francisco Police Department. I hope to help provide guidance and leadership to the police department in its efforts to implement all the reforms, recognizing that the police have a difficult job, but that the entire community deserves fair and equal treatment. I am particularly interested in pushing for greater training in crisis intervention strategies that involve de-escalation skills and in community policing that allow the community and the police to get to know each other.

What inspires you to weave community involvement, litigation, and scholarship together in your work?

Being a faculty member at USF brings with it a responsibility to pursue social justice. I am privileged to teach at an institution that values community involvement, so I try to use my skills to the best of my ability to do meaningful work in any way that I can. n

Green’s New Book Pushes Law Toward Reducing Workplace Discrimination

P

rofessor and Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship Tristin Green’s new book, Discrimination Laundering: The Rise of Organizational Innocence and the Crisis of Equal Opportunity Law (Cambridge University Press, 2016), tells the story of how and why judges are changing the law to protect employers from liability for discrimination.

Her past research identified a shift in the law toward individualized discrimination, of seeing it as a problem solely of individuals and not of the organizations and their contexts. Over time, she realized that these seemingly discrete pieces were part of a bigger story.

“I saw employers openly claiming to seek diversity and equality, while the measures that they implemented on the ground did little to attain that end,” she said. “And I saw the law not just turning to protect employers from liability, but incentivizing the wrong kinds of measures for reducing discrimination in their workplaces.”

Green’s background in journalism and sociology influenced how she crafted her argument and her analysis of how discrimination works in reality. She is the author of numerous articles and essays, appearing in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, Hastings Law Journal, and Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, among others.

She is also co-author, with Herma Hill Kay, of Sex-Based Discrimination: Text, Cases, and Materials (West, 2011).

Orly Lobel, Don Weckstein Professor of Labor and Employment Law at the University of San Diego, said in her review of the book that it will change the way we understand the processes of workplace inequality and what should be done to prevent ongoing biases and discrimination.

“With compelling storytelling and sophisticated analysis,” wrote Lobel, “Discrimination Laundering provocatively shows that, perversely, the law increasingly shields organizations from responsibility for patterned institutional discrimination.

Green skillfully weaves together developments in law, legal scholarship, and social science in a way that deepens and furthers the debate about workplace equality.” n

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FACULTY SCHOLARSHIP PROFESSOR AND ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR ACADEMIC AFFAIRS JOSHUA DAVIS co-authored the article “Writing Better Jury Instructions: Antitrust as an Example” in the West Virginia Law Review. He co-authored “Proposed Law Could Be a New Attack on Civil Rights,” about the Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act, in The New York Times.

PROFESSOR CONNIE DE LA VEGA was featured in the “Practitioner’s Spotlight” in The California International Law Journal for receiving the 2016 Warren M. Christopher International Lawyer of the Year Award. She wrote a brief for the California Supreme Court in The People, Respondent, v. Paul Gutierrez, Appellant, that addressed the international standards in support of the petitioner’s request that decisions regarding life sentences without parole for juveniles be made by the jury. Her letter “California Provides” was published in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Insight section.

PROFESSOR EMERITUS H. JAY FOLBERG was invited by the United Nations Development Program to assist Georgia with the implementation of a new mediation law. While there, he presented on challenges of mandated family mediation and conducted a two-day mediation training seminar for trial judges on how to identify and refer appropriate civil cases to mediation. He was cited in the fourth edition of the American Bar Association Section of Litigation’s Business and Commercial Litigation in Federal Courts as one of the best mediation advocates.

PROFESSOR DAVID FRANKLYN co-authored the article “Going Native: Can Consumers Recognize Native Advertising? Does it Matter?” published in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology. He co-hosted the seventh annual McCarthy Institute and Microsoft Corporation Symposium, “Trademark Law and Its Challenges 2017,” in Seattle at the Amazon campus. He won the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Rossman Award for greatest contribution to the field of patents, trademarks, or copyrights.

PROFESSOR SUSAN FREIWALD wrote the chapter “California’s Electronic Communications Privacy Act (CalECPA): A Case Study in Legislative Regulation of Surveillance” in The Cambridge Handbook of Surveillance Law. She was quoted in “Trump’s CIA pick would reinstate U.S. collection of phone data” in the San Francisco Chronicle. She received the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology’s 2017 Privacy Award at its Privacy Law Forum in March.

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PROFESSOR JACK GARVEY presented lectures on the management of the European refugee crisis to European government officials, non-governmental organizations, and graduate students in governmental relations at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. This followed his work in Croatia with the U.S. State Department and European Center for Peace Studies as Fulbright Senior Specialist addressing the European refugee crisis. He wrote the article “U.S. Courts Walk the Line in Human Rights Cases” in the San Francisco Daily Journal.

PROFESSOR AND ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR FACULTY SCHOLARSHIP TRISTIN GREEN wrote the forthcoming article “America is from Venus, France is from Mars: Pinups, Policing, and Gender Equality” in the Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal. She served on the panel “40 Years After Washington v. Davis: Legal and Empirical Reflections” at a Yale Law School Symposium.

PROFESSOR BILL ONG HING was appointed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to the San Francisco Police Commission. He wrote the article “Contemplating a Rebellious Approach to Representing Unaccompanied Immigrant Children” in NYU’s Clinical Law Review. He was quoted and appeared in several media outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle and KTVU-TV, about President Trump’s immigration policies.

PROFESSOR PETER JAN HONIGSBERG wrote the article “Guantanamo: Fifteen Years and Counting” in the American Constitution Society blog.

He served as a panelist on “Alternatives to Liability for International Human Rights Abuses” at the UC Davis Journal of International Law and Policy Symposium.

PROFESSOR TIM IGLESIAS wrote the forthcoming article “A Novel Tool for Teaching Property: Starting with the Questions” for the Chapman Law Review. His article “Affordable Housing, Fair Housing and Community Development: Joined at the Hip, We Need to Learn to Walk Together” will be published in the Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Development Law. He also wrote the chapter “Two Competing Concepts of Residential Integration” in the forthcoming book Social Equity in a Time of Change: A Critical 21st Century Movement (Birkdale Publishers). The New York Times published his letter to the editor in response to President Trump’s travel ban.

PROFESSOR ALICE KASWAN co-authored the report “Untapped Potential: The Carbon Reductions Left Out of EPA’s Clean Power Plan” for the Center for Progressive Reform. She wrote a number of articles for the Center for Progressive Reform blog including “With or Without the Clean Power Plan, It’s Up to the States to Transition to Clean Energy.” She authored “As court weighs clean power plan, rule’s approach could reduce carbon emissions, improve public health” on The Hill. She was quoted in “Screened out of Cap-and-Trade Funding?” in the Bay Area Monitor.

E.L. WIEGAND DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR IN TAX DAN LATHROPE co-authored an update to his book Black Letter Outline on Corporate Taxation (West Academic Publishing). He also updated his books Fundamentals of Corporate Taxation, co-authored with Stephen Schwarz, and Fundamentals of Federal Income Taxation, co-authored with James J. Freeland, Steven A. Lind, and Richard B. Stevens (Foundation Press).

HAMILL FAMILY CHAIR PROFESSOR OF LAW AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY RICHARD A. LEO wrote the forthcoming article “Police Interrogation, False Confessions, and Alleged Child Abuse Cases” in the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform. He co-authored “Analyzing Videotaped Interrogations and Confessions” in the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer’s The Champion. He wrote the forthcoming articles “The Miranda App: Metaphor and Machine” in the Boston University Law Review and “The Criminology of Wrongful Conviction: A Decade Later” forthcoming in the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice.

SENIOR PROFESSOR J. THOMAS MCCARTHY updated his book McCarthy on Trademarks and Unfair Competition (West/Clark Boardman Callaghan), now in its fourth edition.

PROFESSOR RHONDA MAGEE wrote the chapter “Community-Engaged Mindfulness and Social Justice: An Inquiry and Call to Action” in the Handbook of Mindfulness: Culture, Context and Social Engagement (Springer International Publishing) and “Teaching Mindfulness with Mindfulness of Race and Other Forms of Diversity” in Resources for Teaching Mindfulness: An International Handbook (Springer International Publishing). She also wrote the chapter “Teaching Law to Transform: Mindfulness-Based Learning Communities as Incubators of Social Justice through Law” in the forthcoming book Transforming Justice, Lawyers, and the Practice of Law

(Carolina Press). Her article “The Way of ColorInsight: Understanding Race and Law Effectively Through Mindfulness-Based ColorInsight Practices” was published in the Georgetown Journal of Law and Modern Critical Race Perspectives.

PROFESSOR MAYA MANIAN presented “Reproductive Rights and Justice After Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt” at the USF chapter of If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice’s brown bag lunch. She was quoted in the article “With Child: The Right to Choose in Rapid City” in Harper’s, and spoke about current abortion rates on KCBS radio.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR THOMAS A. NAZARIO authored a new book, Doing Good: Inspiring Activities and Ideas for Young People to Make the World a Better Place (Rowman & Littlefield), published in February.

He gave a talk titled “Building a Meaningful Life” at the first TEDx event hosted at the University of San Francisco.

HERBST FOUNDATION PROFESSOR OF LAW JULIE A. NICE wrote the chapter “Gender Justice and American Constitutional Law” in a book published in Chinese, which aims to explain the development of women’s rights to Asian law professors. She presented “Punishing Poverty” at the American Association of Law Schools’ annual meeting in San Francisco. She also presented “SCOTUS and the 45th President” to the Queen’s Bench Bar Association in San Francisco. She commented on KCBS radio on the firing of Attorney General Sally Yates and on KTVU-TV on the limits of free speech.

PROFESSOR MARIA ONTIVEROS wrote the op-ed article “Broken H-1B program: litigation alternatives to immigration reform” in the San Francisco Daily Journal.

DEAN JOHN TRASVIÑA commented on the San Francisco lawsuit over sanctuary city funding in the San Francisco Chronicle and on KTVU. He also commented on President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee during KGO, KPIX, KNTV, KTVU, and KRON television news shows. He provided legal analysis on KGO of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals hearing on Trump’s executive order on immigration. He was quoted in the article “USF law school to partner with Chinese law university” in the San Francisco Examiner and addressed the St. Thomas More Society of San Francisco’s March luncheon on how new immigration policies may affect California.

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A passion for helping people motivates Britt Strottman ’00 to fight the good fight — and win.

By Leslie A. Gordon

S

canning all that Britt Strottman ’00 has accomplished in 17 years as an attorney, it’s hard to believe that she nearly dropped out of law school.

Named one of California’s top 100 lawyers and twice as one of California’s top 100 women lawyers by The Daily Journal, Strottman’s most notable work has been on behalf of the City of San Bruno against Pacific Gas and Electric in matters related to the 2010 gas pipeline explosion in which eight people were killed and nearly 40 homes were destroyed. Her work resulted in a $1.6 billion fine, criminal indictments, and several government investigations of PG&E and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Similarly, last fall, Strottman helped secure an $85 million settlement to cushion the property tax revenue loss from closing California’s last nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon.

All told, Strottman has handled 30 jury trials and more than 60 state and federal administrative hearings, resulting in her being described as a “Giant Slayer” by The Recorder.

FIRST-YEAR STUMBLE Looking back, Strottman’s reasons for going to law school were “Pollyannaish,” she recalls.

“I wanted to make some sort of change. I wanted to do public interest law. I wanted to go into court, make arguments, and write briefs instead of being on the sidelines” of social change.

But, she adds, “I really struggled my first year because I entered law school right out of college and I didn’t have a lot of real-life experience compared to other students. I almost dropped out.”

Instead of treating her “like a statistic,” USF invested in her and gave her a second chance, she says. Professors Peter Jan Honigsberg

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and Thomas Nazario, as well as the professors who led bar review classes in her final year, worked closely with Strottman to ensure that she’d succeed in law school and pass the bar, and the USF community supported her. “Even my roommate, who was at the top of the class, helped me. Instead of being competitive, she tutored me.” So Strottman decided to stick with it, working in the law library and waiting tables while working to keep her grades up.

One of the highlights of Strottman’s time at USF, she says, was Nazario’s Street Law class in which she taught legal concepts to high school students. Nazario remembers Strottman having early concerns about whether law school was right for her.

“She was thinking twice,” he recalls. “To the extent I was able to keep her on track, I’m happy. She quickly realized that legal practice could be used as a good tool to help people. So she had additional motivation to not give up. I always tell people, law school is not necessarily an awful lot of fun. But if you want to do some good, bite the bullet because there are rewards at the end.”

Honigsberg similarly remembers Strottman as “high energy and hard working. She stood out,” he says. “She knew what she wanted to do and that was to make a difference. She was determined and clear about what she wanted for herself.”

As to Strottman’s doubts about whether she should continue with law school, Honigsberg says that one of his jobs as a professor is to instill confidence in students. “I assure them that the USF admissions office wouldn’t have accepted them if they couldn’t do the work,” he says.

“She heard it. She heard that we believed in her — and she ran with it.”

FROM EXTERNSHIP TO DREAM JOB After muddling through the first year, Strottman attended a USF jobs fair, through which she landed a summer externship at the District Attorney’s office in San Mateo. She loved the work and accepted a full-time job with the office after graduation.

“All of my dreams came true,” Strottman says. “In my second week of work there, I was in court, presenting a case to a jury completely by myself. It was an amazing experience.”

As a deputy DA, Strottman specialized in elder abuse prosecution and spent six months as filing deputy, meaning she got to decide which cases the office would file. The years she spent at the DA’s office still impact “everything I do now,” Strottman says. “I learned how to work up a case with limited resources, how to figure out how it might play out with a jury or judge, how to investigate a he-said-she-said scenario.”

While she would have been happy to work as a DA her whole career, Strottman’s husband enrolled in business school in Boston so she joined the Boston office of Bingham McCutchen, where she defended white collar crimes. “It was difficult for me to do personally,” she recalls, “but it helped me see that there is another side and it helped me understand a criminal defendant’s perspective.”

When Strottman’s husband graduated and took a job in Ohio, she

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joined the Ohio Attorney General’s office. There, she spent three years handling sub-prime mortgage securities cases and tobacco litigation.

She also worked on a special task force to restore public trust after the elected attorney general left office due to sexual harassment and theft-of-office allegations. It was her first exposure to crisis management.

Eventually, Strottman and her family moved back to San Francisco and she returned to Bingham McCutchen where she handled business cases. While there, she received a recruiting call from a friend who worked at a public relations agency handling crisis communication.

Strottman jumped at the chance to try something new and spent a year as a vice president at iQ 360 (formerly Van Prooyen Greenfield).

In that job, she learned to work with the media, understand crisis communication, and manage a client message.

The Meyers Nave law firm was a client of the PR firm and before long the firm recruited Strottman for a unique job that was half legal work, half public relations. “I really liked the idea of going back to practicing law, but not full time. I wanted a job where I could still do PR work,” she says. “Also, a law firm that practices public interest law is unique.”

Strottman joined Meyers Nave — a mid-sized California firm with six offices — in 2010. Today, about a third of her work is PR matters for the firm’s clients and the bulk of her job is pure legal work. She chairs two statewide practice groups: the California Public Utilities Commission Practice and the Crisis Management: Public Policy, Ethics, and Investigations Practice. She’s also a member of the firm’s Women’s Initiative Committee.

“ She quickly realized that legal practice could be used as a good tool to help people. So she had additional motivation to not give up.”

— Assistant Professor Thomas Nazario

THE CASE OF A LIFETIME For the last six years, Strottman and a small team have worked on behalf of San Bruno against PG&E in matters related to the 2010 explosion. “We’ve been working to cause PG&E’s ‘death by a thousand cuts’ and expose corruption at the CPUC,” Strottman says. “It’s been the case of a lifetime — challenging and rewarding. San Bruno’s city manager has faith in me and has given me a lot of autonomy. And the Meyers Nave senior attorney has let me do most of the work and take the limelight.”

Connie Jackson, San Bruno’s city manager, describes Strottman as a “smart and highly skilled lawyer who understands the law, is able to explain it in layperson’s language, and demonstrates the highest level of integrity and an ability to apply the law to achieve her clients’ interests.”

In addition to serving as San Bruno’s primary representative in several complex proceedings before the CPUC, Strottman assisted with the city’s work as a party to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigation in the first year following the explosion.

She also played a key role as a member of the three-person team Jackson assembled to negotiate restitution for the city from PG&E, an effort that ultimately resulted in a $70 million settlement. According to Jackson, Strottman is “extremely hard working” and able to analyze and produce a large volume of work.

“She worked tirelessly writing hundreds of pages of legal briefs

to document and advocate the city’s position, and she pored over thousands of email communications we received in settlement of our public records lawsuit against the CPUC.” As a result of Strottman’s work, San Bruno uncovered flagrant examples to prove that the NTSB’s characterization of the “too cozy” relationship between the CPUC and PG&E was a contributing cause of the explosion and was actually collusion and corruption at the highest levels of the CPUC. That finding resulted directly in the resignation of the CPUC president and executive director along with other senior CPUC staff, followed by the governor’s decision not to reappoint other commissioners at the expiration of their terms.

Jackson recalls one hearing in which Strottman stood up to the CPUC president after he tried to improperly and abruptly cut off her comments. “He doubtless thought that as a tenured and powerful head of the California Public Utilities Commission he could publicly intimidate and belittle this young, female lawyer who was at the lead in calling for his resignation,” Jackson recalls. The CPUC president also “doubtless knew” that it was Strottman who researched and brought to light his illegal communications and relationship with PG&E and his efforts to avoid his responsibility to conduct a legitimate investigation and to hold PG&E accountable for its negligence. “But Britt did not display any irritation or antagonism and she did not invite a debate.

She simply proceeded to complete her statement with confidence, conviction, and ultimately success.”

Jackson adds that Strottman listens carefully to clients and responds to their needs, direction, and interests. “She’s a team player who understands that hearing, understanding, and integrating the contributions of others will often produce a better result than even the smartest lawyer may develop on their own,” says Jackson.

Strottman has been able to achieve these career triumphs while keeping an 80 percent schedule (she’s Meyers Nave’s first reduced-time partner) and parenting three kids, ages 9, 7, and 4. In her spare time, she loves to ski and has been in the same book club for 16 years. She and her husband, a private equity investor, also make their own wine.

Looking back on law school, Strottman believes that USF uniquely prepared her for the exceptional legal career she’s built.

“My law school professors taught me how to have emotional intelligence, which is something a lot of lawyers don’t have,” Strottman says. “Being a lawyer is not just about being book smart but also about interacting with people. My professors would go on a walk or to coffee with me. They’d explain that being a lawyer is more than just making money. It’s about having a passion for the law and for helping people.”

Strottman “represents the best of USF,” Professor Honigsberg says. “It’s why I teach. We’re one of the few schools with a mission of teaching social justice. She’s one of the students who translated that into huge success.” n

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Fr o m

C ASES to

COURSES

By Samantha Bronson

Adjunct professors Bob Arns '75 (left) and Thomas Brandi '72 (right) say that teaching at USF is one of the most gratifying experiences of their careers.

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A L U M N I T U R N E D A D J U N C T S G I V E B AC K I N T H E C L A S S R O O M At first glance, it would seem that Thomas Brandi ’72 has plenty to keep him busy as founder of The Brandi Law Firm. With a focus on plaintiff’s personal injury and consumer class actions, Brandi has tried numerous cases, including 19 trial verdicts ranging from $1 million to more than $1 billion. That’s in addition to more than 200 settlements in excess of $1 million. His many professional honors over the years include, most recently, being named to the State Bar of California’s Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame.

Yet every fall semester, Brandi joins Bob Arns ’75 in the classroom at Kendrick Hall, teaching a room full of third-year law students the ins and outs of trial practice. The time in the classroom represents just part of the commitment — there’s also several hours each week of prep time needed. That the workload is on top of his already busy, successful career doesn’t faze Brandi, who has been teaching at USF for 13 years.

“The students at USF are fantastic,” said Brandi, who, with Arns, received the USF School of Law Adjunct Professor of the Year Award in 2011. “They’re energetic, inquisitive, eager to learn, and creative. I enjoy watching students get out of their comfort zones and improve their skills in examination and presentations, seeing them grow in knowledge and confidence, watching them mature into young lawyers with skills and excitement about their futures.”

That’s a sentiment shared by other School of Law alumni who return to teach as adjunct professors. Their reasons for initially being drawn back to the classroom may vary, but they stay because they see their teaching as a way to give back to USF while helping shape the next generation of attorneys.

These alumni juggle their teaching responsibilities on top of their fulltime work, bringing with them impressive resumes and career histories that they’re able to draw on in the classroom. But the influence extends the other way as well — alumni adjuncts say their experience in the classroom positively impacts their careers. The result is a relationship that benefits both students and alumni, further strengthening connections and commitments to USF all around.

“Returning to teach is another way our alumni give back to the law school. I am so delighted to see so many alums among our ranks of adjunct professors,” said Dean John Trasviña. “By day, they continue their professional roles as judges, mediators, patent attorneys, DAs, or criminal defense attorneys and the like. And then they take on the role of teacher in trial advocacy or another subject. They are an important part of our efforts to ensure that our students are practiceready when they leave USF.” That real world experience certainly makes it into Brandi and Arns’ class. Because both are trial lawyers, “Everything we do in class, we do in court,” Brandi said. “Class enables me to sharpen my skills and learn from my students to try new things. My class makes me a better lawyer. It keeps me fresh and open to trying new ways and seeing things from different angles.”

Shounak Dharap ’16, who took Brandi and Arns’ class as a 3L, said their expertise was always evident. For example, Dharap said, the two would continually provide corrections and suggestions as students addressed the jury (the class takes students through all aspects of trial, from inception to verdict by having students take on roles in

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Lynn Duryee '79 (right) with Cristal Harris 3L (left) and Sabha Salamah 2L (center).

several mock trials). That type of feedback — on everything from hand movements to facial expressions to voice modulation — is invaluable in learning to interact with a jury. It’s also difficult feedback to give, Dharap said, unless you have a wealth of experience to base your suggestions on.

Giving students confidence about trials, however, was just one part of Brandi and Arns’ impact, Dharap said. An even bigger impact, he said, was providing students with a sense of being able to do things themselves.

“They instill in students this idea that the measure of a lawyer isn’t only the ability to think, but the ability to do,” said Dharap, who now works as an associate attorney at The Arns Law Firm. “That sense of agency, in my opinion, is the single greatest gift Bob and Tom give their students.”

But the gifts go the other way as well, said Arns, founder and partner of The Arns Law Firm. Arns, whose career doesn’t lack for highlights — he has practiced trial and appellate law in San Francisco since 1975, has resolved more than 300 seven- and eight-figure cases by verdict and settlement, and is continuously named one of the top 100 Super Lawyers in Northern California — said that teaching with Brandi has been a true highlight.

“We both find that teaching the students is one of the most gratifying experiences of our careers,” said Arns. “We usually have 20 students and can really spend some quality time with them. It is incredible how we see them grow from that first class to their final trials at the end of the semester. Many of the sitting judges who serve as judges in our class comment that the students’ level of performance equals some of the best lawyers they see in court.”

ADVANTAGE: INSIGHT Carol Langford ’86 regularly draws on her three decades of experience in the field of legal ethics to teach a very practice-oriented course on legal ethics. Langford, who specializes in giving advice on legal ethics and discipline to attorneys, judges, law firms, and corporations, isn’t content to simply tell students what the rules are. Instead, she discusses how the rules apply in practice and, importantly, where the potential potholes are.

She has plenty of material to work with. In addition to running

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her own practice representing lawyers and law students before the State Bar of California in disciplinary and admission matters, Langford also is helping update the ethics rules by serving on the Commission for the Revision of the Rules of Professional Conduct. In discussing a particular ethics rule in class, “Students might say, ‘Look, I know a lawyer who did that and didn’t get caught,’” said Langford, who received the school’s Adjunct of the Year Award in 2009. “And I can say, ‘Perhaps he didn’t, but I know five lawyers who did, just in the last three years, and I handled their cases. Here is where the problem areas lie.’ They know I understand it.”

Langford also knows where the loopholes are in the ethics rules, which students like to point out to her, and she’ll explain why there’s a loophole and what she thinks would happen if a case fell into that loophole. “Insight is what USF is paying me to give students,” said Langford, “to give them insight they could never have on their own unless they specialize in the field.”

But the insight also comes from students. Langford said students offer different takes and thoughts on the rules that she hadn’t considered. Sometimes, she’ll purposely put an issue on an exam that she knows contains a loophole to gauge students’ analysis. In some cases, Langford has been so intrigued by a student’s take on a particular ethics issue that she’ll ask her contacts at the Bar to write an ethics opinion on the topic, always crediting USF with the idea.

“USF students have more of an impact than they know,” she said.

Langford said she feels tied directly to USF’s motto of "Change the World from Here." “That is the rallying cry for a good adjunct. Help your students have a better practice, give them the tools to be good lawyers, happy lawyers who don’t run into trouble with the ethics rules. Help them change the world.”

THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS As a patent lawyer with more than three decades of legal experience, Michael Dergosits ’84 has a wealth of substantive patent law knowledge to share with his class of 2L and 3L students. He regularly updates what he teaches to make sure students are learning what’s trending in patent law.

Since the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, for example, now rejects

many patent applications based on the concept of subject matter eligibility — or what types of inventions can be patented — Dergosits now spends much more of his time teaching about the idea.

Dergosits also taps into his experience to teach about the human dynamics of practicing patent law.

“My students are generally shocked when I give the lecture that basically involves the notion that you can’t believe everything your client says at face value,” said Dergosits, a partner at Dergosits & Noah LLP, who focuses on trials, trial preparation, and counseling regarding patent matters. “It’s good to be skeptical, to not be awed by your client, to do the best you can by being thorough and demanding. It’s not that I don’t believe my client, but if I say something is the truth, then it needs to be something that can be confirmed.”

He also teaches that working with creative people can bring with it personality challenges. Clients, he says, have devoted an incredible amount of time and energy to bringing forward something that is viable and potentially patentable. They understand the ins and outs, including the different nuances of how it was implemented, like no one else. The attorney’s job, however, is to peel back the item to its essence and to do so in a way that isn’t combative or confrontational.

That ability to distill a complex concept and then explain it is invaluable and is a skill that Dergosits keeps sharp with teaching.

“Teaching definitely gives me practice at explaining concepts and issues in a way that’s clear and that students can understand,” he said.

“Being in the classroom, I’ve learned to scan people’s faces for signs of not comprehending. How did things go on the first pass? What do I need to do on the second pass? That’s a skill that benefits me in my work. I have to be able to read judges, opposing counsel, jurors, and to separate general malaise and disinterest from understanding. That is a good talent to have.”

Like USF’s full-time faculty, adjuncts such as Dergosits share a dedication to students’ success. He now devotes half of two class periods to bringing in former students to talk with current students about their careers. He also offers all students an introduction to a group of former students and colleagues happy to give informational interviews about their careers in patent law.

“For me, teaching is about being a member of this community,” said Dergosits, who won the Adjunct of the Year Award in 2005. “It’s about being active and providing some sort of resource and service as you can.”

FROM ABSTRACT TO CONCRETE Lynn Duryee ’79 had been active with the School of Law since graduating, but took her participation a step further about five years ago when she returned to teach. A retired superior court judge in Marin County, Duryee teaches civil procedure to 1L students.

“I love USF and feel very devoted to the school and very grateful for the time I had there,” said Duryee, who now works full time as a neutral for JAMS. “It’s really exciting for me to work with the new law students, and civil procedure is a class that’s really hard for new students because it’s so theoretical. It’s not hard for me because I’ve spent my whole career implementing it and it’s a wonderful opportunity for me to pass along a subject that I have mastered and that I deal with every single day.”

Duryee taps into that experience regularly to provide students with tangible examples of theoretical concepts she’s teaching. Most of the

hypotheticals she uses in class, for example, are based on situations she’s come across in her career. “A lot of times I can tell students what happened to that case, what happened after that motion was argued,” Duryee said. “Students do respond well because this tends to be so theoretical that they’re happy to have real examples.”

Even Duryee’s way of teaching the hypos is based on experience, in this case as an instructor teaching judges from around the state at B.E. Witkin Judicial College. To keep her audience focused and engaged, Duryee would give each attendee a clicker, a small remote control learning device that is synched to the presentation. Ask the audience a question and everyone can reply via a push of a button, with results popping up on screen.

Duryee now regularly uses clickers in the classroom for about 15 questions each lecture, asking students to first discuss the hypo with a neighbor and then answer the questions via clicker. Their answers provide instant feedback to Duryee on whether they’re grasping the concept. After she taught civil procedure the first time, however, Duryee realized using the clickers wasn’t enough. “I had used clicker questions and thought the students really understood the material,” she said. “Then I read the finals and realized the students understood civil procedure but they weren’t experienced legal writers. I realized students needed to learn how to write and that I needed to help teach them.”

With decades of experience writing decisions coupled with experience writing books and articles for judges, Duryee set out to improve her students’ writing abilities. At the end of every class, she now gives students writing assignments based on that day’s lessons. Duryee reads the assignments and provides suggestions and feedback on each one. “By the time students take the final, they’ve had 18 practice questions,” she said.

The approach, academically known as formative assessment, certainly requires additional work from her but Duryee said it’s well worth it. Like other alumni adjunct professors, she feels a connection with current students, and a sense of gratitude to have the chance to share expertise, whatever the field, with the next generation of USFtrained attorneys.

“I feel like the luckiest person in the world to be able to teach at my law school,” Duryee said, “and to be able to teach a subject that has meant so much to me throughout my entire career.”

Dharap, the alumnus who took Brandi and Arns’ class as a student, said the benefits of having alumni teach as adjuncts extends beyond their ability to tap into their expertise in teaching the class. It’s also their ability to serve as role models and inspiration for current students.

“One of the great things about Brandi and Arns is they always seemed like they knew where we were coming from,” Dharap said.

“It was really great to know that these very successful alumni started out where we are. Having alumni who come back and teach, it’s a way for them to give back to the school in ways that people like myself should take note of. It’s a way to ensure that future generations of USF lawyers continue to uphold the USF tradition of advocating for justice, the disenfranchised, the underrepresented, and carrying forward that responsibility that we have.” n

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“ I 've had judges in Houston and Fresno call me ‘honey.’ This is

from the bench, not in chambers.

Unless you point it ou t, it's going to continue.”

Angela alioto ’83

22

USF SCHOOL OF LAW

Trailblazers USF WOMEN GRADUATES HAVE BEEN BREAKING GROUND IN THE LAW FOR MORE THAN EIGHT DECADES — AND THE FIGHT’S NOT OVER.

By Monica Villavicencio Early in her legal career, Jan Ramsay ’69 was leaving court with her client when the federal judge stopped her. “Young lady, just a moment,” he called out, in front of everyone in the courtroom. “You are going to be sorry you got into a man’s profession.”

After the judge lectured her on why women shouldn’t be lawyers, Ramsay rushed to the elevator almost in tears. It was a bitter reminder that she had entered an old boys’ club.

“Law was very much a man’s world. There were many ways in which you were embarrassed as a woman,” says Ramsay, who would go on to become her firm’s first female partner.

Countless women have stories like Ramsay’s, stories of being told they were not welcome, that they lacked the skills, temperament, and stomach to do the job. And yet, since the University of San Francisco School of Law graduated its first women in 1930, its alumnae have been proving those old boys wrong.

They have pushed their way into a world that often told them they didn’t belong. They have become judges, district attorneys, public defenders, and managing partners at leading firms. They have crafted signature city legislation and trained judges nationally and internationally. Their hard work and determination have blazed trails where once there were none.

‘WOMEN DON’T GO TO LAW SCHOOL’ In 1989, for the first time the USF School of Law enrolled more women than men, and last year for

the first time women made up the majority of law school students in the U.S. — both figures that would have been unimaginable for women studying law in those early years.

The then-St. Ignatius College of Law began to admit women in 1927, seven years after the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. Three women enrolled in the evening law program that year, and for decades, female enrollment at St. Ignatius and law schools around the country would remain stubbornly low. In fact, in the fall of 1965, out of 344 law students at USF, only 16 were women. Nationally, women accounted for less than 5 percent of the enrollment at American Bar Association-accredited law schools until the 1970s.

Many women faced pressure to avoid demanding, male-dominated careers like law. That pressure came from home, and sometimes from the law schools themselves.

Angela Alioto ’83 had four school-aged children when she enrolled in law school at the age of 29.

“My husband, who was Italian-born, was not crazy about me going to law school,” Alioto remembers.

“He said, ‘Women don’t go to law school.’”

Alioto’s father, himself a lawyer and former mayor of San Francisco, encouraged her to go. “‘Just get the ticket,’ he told me. ‘Get the credential.

Be a lawyer,’” says Alioto, who studied at night, after her children had gone to bed.

Ramsay had to talk her way into an evening law program in Indianapolis, where her husband was studying medicine. “I had a meeting with the dean to convince him to let me in. He said he was concerned about letting women in because

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23

they’d just have babies and not use their degrees. That was around ’65,” she says. Ramsay and her husband would later move to the Bay Area, and she would complete her degree at USF, where she was one of three women in her class.

BUT CAN YOU TYPE? Getting in and through law school was challenging enough, but when they graduated, the women faced the task of landing a job.

In 1930, when USF’s first women graduates were entering the profession, only 2 percent of the nation’s lawyers were women. In those early years, women graduates seeking positions as attorneys were often told implicitly and explicitly: we hire only men. Instead, their juris doctor degrees got them job offers as librarians, stenographers, and secretaries at law firms. If they were hired as lawyers, it was usually on a temporary basis.

Carmen Dominguez ’55, the first Latina to graduate from USF School of Law, brought a rock-solid work ethic and an independent streak to all that she did. She worked her way through college and law school, selling clothing at Macy’s, interviewing credit applicants at the Emporium, and splicing film for Eastman Kodak. “She was always told by her parents that she had to work twice as hard as anyone else,” says Dominguez’s niece, Lynn Jimenez Catchings BA ’72. “And she did what she was told. She worked twice as hard and did well.”

After graduating, Dominguez passed the bar and began applying for jobs all over San Francisco. She was told she would only be hired as a secretary.

“But she was determined to be a lawyer, so she opened up her own little law office in the Mission [District],” says Catchings, who remembers visiting her aunt’s storefront office as a child. “She had her metal desks and her bookshelves full of law books. She would type her own briefs on carbon paper. She did everything. That’s just how it was.”

Dominguez kept her practice open for 49 years, handling everything from landlord and business disputes to immigration cases.

“It wasn’t glamorous, but she was out there early on in an area where Hispanics and women weren’t supposed to excel. She wouldn’t accept being a secretary,” Catchings says.

Civil rights legislation in the ’60s and early ’70s helped open doors for women at major law firms. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination by employers on the basis of race, sex, nationality, and religion. The 1972 amendment to Title VII extended the anti-discrimination regulations to all employers with 15 or more

USF LAW LEGACY OF TRAILBLAZERS 24

USF SCHOOL OF LAW

Bertha Ast ’30 One of the two first women to graduate from the USF School of Law; president of the Queen's Bench Bar Association; practiced in San Francisco and Hawaii

employees, which included many law firms. Between 1970 and 1980, the number of women lawyers jumped from 4 percent to 12.4 percent, according to a 2009 Cornell University Law School study. The percentage of women in large law firms went from 14.4 percent in 1975 to 40.3 percent in 2002.

Ramsay was among the women who entered the profession around the passage of these key pieces of legislation. While still a student, she recalls hearing a San Francisco law firm say that it had never hired women and probably never would. “That was just the attitude at the time,” she says.

Ramsay ultimately landed a job at the downtown Los Angeles office of Cummins, White and Breidenbach. She was the firm’s first woman attorney and eventually its first woman partner.

“I had the feeling that people weren’t just judging me, but all women and how we’d do in the profession,” says Ramsay. “So I knew I had to be very prepared, probably more prepared than the average male.”

‘LITTLE LADY’ Ramsay was often the first woman to try cases in certain courts, and her colleagues worried about whether she, as a woman, would be tough enough to handle the pressure.

That was a common refrain. Litigation was a virtual no-go zone, and women weren’t usually trusted as prosecutors or as first-chair on big trials. Their confidence was often tested by judges who talked down to them or called them “baby,” “honey,” or “little lady,” with little or no consequences. Alioto remembers an incident in court in which the opposing counsel told the judge, “Your honor, she’s welcome to stay in my bed,” referring to Alioto.

“Certainly in the beginning part of my practice, it was really hard to be taken seriously,” says Doris Cheng ’98, who would go on to become a top-ranked lawyer specializing in personal injury and third-party negligence. “It’s age, gender, and ethnicity. Almost all of the people I’ve tried cases with have been older white males. I give USF a lot of credit for helping me surpass that.”

Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch ’87 started her career at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office, where she also ran up against these biases.

“When I started as a prosecutor, most prosecutors were male.

There weren’t very many women judges either. It was very difficult to get ahead as a woman,” Ravitch says. “We weren’t the ones trying the big murder cases. We were given child molestation cases and crimes against women.”

Ethel Joppas ’30 One of the two first women to graduate from the USF School of Law; opened her own probate law practice in Novato

Agnes O’Brien Smith ’41 First woman graduate of USF to become a judge, serving as presiding judge for the San Francisco Municipal Court; first woman to be named to the American Board of Trial Advocates

Mollie Minudri ’50 First woman public defender in San Francisco

“ I t's amazing how

much lighter your burden is when it's car ried by many r ather than few.”

Doris Cheng ’98

Dorothy von Beroldingen ’54 Third woman to serve as a San Francisco supervisor; first woman appointed to the San Francisco Civil Service Commission; served as a Municipal Court judge and was then elevated to the San Francisco Superior Court

Ann Miller ’70 One of the first woman partners at a major firm in San Francisco when she became the first female partner at Lillick & Charles and then at Nixon Peabody; dispute resolution expert in the hospitality, educational, and maritime industries

Barbara J.R. Jones ’74 First female presiding justice of Division 5 of California’s First District Court of Appeal Joanne C. Parrilli ’74 Municipal Court judge in King County in Seattle, Washington

Maria Rivera '74 Associate Justice in California’s First District Court of Appeal, Division 4 Mary Jane Theis ’74 Justice in the Illinois Supreme Court

Marjorie Scardino ’75 First woman board member of Twitter; served as CEO of Pearson PLC

USFCA.EDU/LAW

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“ I f you're not in

the room where decisions are made, you're not going to change anything.”

Pat ricia Gille t te ’76

Sister Barbara Dawson ’76 Third superior general from the U.S. of the International Society of the Sacred Heart

26

USF SCHOOL OF LAW

Saundra Brown Armstrong '77 Senior district judge in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California; Oakland's first African American policewoman

Marcia Gonzales-Kimbrough ’79 Los Angeles deputy city attorney who helped establish its Gang Enforcement Unit; was the first Mexican American female graduate from Princeton

Deborah Ratner Salzberg ’79 Leader in commercial and residential real estate development Maggie Kavalaras ’81 Leads Dentons' legacy corporate practice in Washington, D.C.

Patricia Shiu ’82 Appointed by President Barack Obama to be director of federal contract compliance

But while at the Alameda County DA’s office, Ravitch recalls watching spellbound as then-prosecutor Carol Corrigan argued a murder case. “She was an outstanding prosecutor, and the memory of seeing her was an experience that kept leading me forward,” says Ravitch. “I kept doing my job. I kept asking for more.”

Corrigan would go on to become an associate justice on the California Supreme Court. Witnessing Corrigan in action is an experience that Ravitch, decades later, still talks about with her students at the Empire College School of Law in Santa Rosa, where she teaches criminal law. “I tell the women all the time you can be anything you want to be,” she says.

CHANGE FROM THE INSIDE One of the most important lessons Patricia Gillette ’76 learned in her four decades of legal practice is this: “If you’re not in the room where decisions are made, you’re not going to change anything.”

Gillette has crafted a successful career out of understanding the dynamics and implications of power in the workplace. Gillette was an attorney at Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe, where she gathered an impressive Rolodex of clients that included Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oracle, and a number of other Fortune 500 clients. In her firm, Gillette was known as a rainmaker. She brought in a wealth of business, won her cases, and ultimately became an equity partner.

But it’s not the money that Gillette focuses on so much as the institutional power that her success confers. From her vantage point as a leader in the firm, she was able to see the institutional barriers that put women at a disadvantage — implicit bias, the pay gap, and policies like rewarding employees based on the number of hours they spend in the office over the quality of their work.

“I watched female colleagues suffer because they weren’t able to advance, and if they didn’t have power, they couldn’t address these issues,” she says. “But because of the power I had, I was able to get firms to begin to think about how they might practice law differently, about structural changes.”

Gillette, who is recognized as a leading expert on gender and diversity issues in the workplace, says she’s made it a priority to talk to firm leaders and chairs about how to get the industry to change, and, she says, she’s buoyed by the progress she’s seen.

“We’ve seen firms acknowledge that they have to have flex-time and part-time policies and at least talk about work-life balance,” Gillette says.

But institutional barriers aside, Gillette, who speaks at conferences and bar associations around the country, delivers another message.

Lisa Saveri ’83 Partner at Saveri and Saveri; appointed by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to its Standing Committee on Professional Conduct

Stephanie Sheridan ’88 First woman managing partner at Sedgwick in San Francisco

It’s the same advice that Dominguez received from her parents and echoes the realization that Ramsay had when she found herself the lone woman in a firm of men: you have to be really, really good.

It’s the advice that generations of USF women have embraced as gospel, with success in the public and private sectors, and in government.

A fount of energy, Alioto made her way through law school with four children in tow. Her time at USF led her down a path she never would have expected.

“I hated politics,” she says with a chuckle. And yet, in 1988, five years after graduating from USF, she found herself running for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She won and spent eight years in City Hall, including two as president of the board. During her time as supervisor, Alioto sponsored anti-smoking, anti-hate crimes, and sanctuary city legislation, as well as minority and small business laws. She also created the San Francisco Film Commission and the San Francisco Youth Commission.

When term limits prevented her from running again, Alioto started her own law firm, focusing on employment law and workplace discrimination. She’s worked on a handful of landmark civil rights cases.

Among the highlights of her legal career is a $135 million verdict in favor of 15 black workers at a Wonder Bread plant who sued for racial discrimination.

Ravitch has come a long way from the days when, as a young attorney, a jury mistook her for the secretary. Ravitch, who carried the memory of Justice Corrigan arguing a murder trial, amassed a portfolio of wins at the Alameda County DA’s Office. Her work in Alameda handling high-profile sexual assault, gang violence, and homicide cases earned her praise and ultimately led her to where she is today — the first woman to serve as district attorney of Sonoma County.

Now in her second term, the impact of her work is wide-reaching.

She opened the Family Justice Center, which provides comprehensive services to victims of sexual assault and family violence, as well as elder and child abuse. She also leads the Human Trafficking Task Force, which has become a model in interagency collaboration.

“I have the best job in the world,” Ravitch says. “I get paid to do the right thing.”

EYES WIDE OPEN Cheng graduated about a decade after Ravitch and admits that while the legal field remains male-dominated, the profession has been

Molly Lane ’90 First woman managing partner at Morgan Lewis in San Francisco

Jean Afterman ’91 Highest ranking woman in Major League Baseball as the assistant general manager and senior vice president of the NY Yankees

Stacy Miller Azcarate ’96 Preeminent recruiter and adviser in the legal placement field

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27

transformed by the women who came before her. She’s grateful not only for their hard, often unsung work but also for their willingness to share the truth of their experiences.

“I knew about the obstacles we faced as women,” she says. “Having been around women who endured far worse, we were forewarned and forearmed.”

That’s not to say that she hasn’t grappled with obstacles of her own. As a child, Cheng helped her mother, a Chinese immigrant, clean houses for a living. The family never had enough money, and college was a reach. So when she got her degree and landed a job as a paralegal, the idea of giving up a stable office job to rack up more student loans in law school seemed an unnecessary risk. But it was one Cheng, with a deep breath, decided was worth it.

Fast forward nearly two decades, and Cheng’s risk has paid dividends. She’s a shareholder at Walkup, Melodia, Kelly and Schoenberger, where she specializes in plaintiff personal injury and third-party negligence. Ranked as one of the top 50 women lawyers in Northern California, Cheng has won multi-million dollar verdicts on behalf of disabled plaintiffs, including a $14.25 million settlement on behalf of a man who suffered severe burns in an industrial accident.

Cheng has also trained trial lawyers and judges in Mexico, Kosovo, and Macedonia, and directs the USF School of Law’s Intensive Advocacy Program, which she was involved in while a student and which she credits with giving her the confidence and network to excel in a field that remains less hospitable to women.

“I don’t have the same lost feeling about being a woman in this profession, truthfully because we have a good support network at USF and the opportunities the school gives really do open doors,” she says.

MILES TO GO It’s difficult to deny how much these women have pushed the legal profession forward and how much of an impact they’ve made.

“It’s really interesting to see the vast amount of change,” says Ramsay, who had endured the judge’s lecture in front of an entire courtroom. “I’m really pleased about it.”

But she and others, including Gillette, who continues to study gender equality in the workplace, are quick to point out how much work still needs to be done. Only seven of the nation’s 100 largest law firms have women as chairs or managing partners, and studies have found that men are two to five times more likely to make partner than women.

“You would expect that with 50 percent of law school classes being women we’d see more women in first-chair trial positions, more women

Kandis Westmore ’97 Magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

28

USF SCHOOL OF LAW

Diane Webb ’98 Chief program officer at Legal Aid at Work; previously a litigation partner at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP

in rainmaking positions,” says Gillette. “We still have some intentional discrimination, and we have a lot of implicit bias, people who unknowingly making stereotypes about women that impact their careers.”

Among the most nagging of stereotypes is the one applied to lawyers who become mothers, what Cheng calls “mommy-tracking.”

In 2015, Cheng served as president of the San Francisco Trial Lawyers Association and participated in the association’s Women’s Caucus.

The caucus held a number of roundtables on the issue. “A lot of women were having children and then not coming back at the same level,” she says. “They were no longer on track to rise.”

Cheng has also led workshops for women on cross-examination and negotiation, what she calls empowerment workshops. “I didn’t just want to talk about our feelings, which are valid,” she says. “I also wanted them to have tools. As a woman you’re perceived so differently, so how do you operate within that?”

In her workshops, Cheng works with women lawyers on understanding how they’re perceived in different situations. If a man crossexamines a witness hard, for example, he’s doing his job, but if a woman adopts the same tone, it’s received negatively, Cheng says.

“We work on delivery, on how you get the questions out and get the answers you need.”

Another challenge they work on is how to deal with an opposing counsel. Women often encounter fellow attorneys who are condescending or dismissive.

Cheng says USF gifted her with a network of great women who have helped her build a fruitful and fulfilling career, and that’s why she believes the work of skills-building with the next generation of women lawyers — women who have yet more barriers to face — is both critical and rewarding.

“We don’t want them to be cynical, but we want them to be prepared. You set yourself up for a fight but one you’re prepared to win,” she says. “It’s amazing how much lighter your burden is when it’s carried by many rather than few.” n For more than 30 years, the USF Women Lawyers Committee has been creating a community for alumnae to stay connected and provide guidance and support for current law students and recent graduates.

Its full-tuition Scholarship for Transitional Students helps students returning after a break in their education make the transition from another career to law school. Learn more: usfca.edu/law/alumni/wlc

Elinor Leary ’03 Team leader of the Veen Firm's Leary Trial Team that handles complex cases that involve lifealtering injuries or death

Anne Costin ’08 Employment and civil rights attorney who won a $20 million lawsuit for her client, a whistleblower who exposed fraud

Marie Ma ’09 Corporate counsel and director of global equity administration at Gap, Inc.

ALUMNI NEWS CLASS NOTES

’58

Sister Terese Marie Perry ’58

celebrated her 70-year jubilee.

She served as CEO of St. Mary’s Medical Center in San Francisco and is a former superior general for the Sisters of Mercy, Burlingame.

’63

Don Carroll ’63 wrote

“The National Pension Crisis: A Test in Law, Economics, and Morality” published in the University of San Francisco Law Review.

’69

Edward Imwinkelried ’69

authored the chapter “Determining Preliminary Facts Under Federal Rule 104” in American Jurisprudence Trials.

’71

John Gherini ’71 published a two-volume book, Santa Cruz Island: An Illustrated History, which contains hundreds of images and a comprehensive history of the island that is now part of Channel Islands National Park.

’73

Bill Monning ’76 won re-election

Robert Beckham ’73 joined Duane Morris in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Thomas Durkin ’73 was profiled

in the Wall Street Journal article, “A Terror Suspect’s Best Hope in Court” for his work as a criminal defense attorney.

’74

Hon. Daniel R. Foley ’74

retired as an associate judge of the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals after 16 years. He continues to serve as a part-time associate justice on the Palau Supreme Court.

’75

Kenneth Feingold ’75

’76

Eugene Brown Jr. ’76,

has relocated his real estate and mediation practice, Law Offices of Kenneth A. Feingold, to Nicasio.

a partner at Sedgwick LLP in its San Francisco office, was elected firmwide chair of its complex division.

to the California State Senate.

’77

Dale Brodsky ’77 has been reappointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the California Fair Employment and Housing Council, where he has served since 2013.

David Clark ’77 has been reappointed

by Gov. Jerry Brown to the California Commission on Uniform State Laws, where he has served since 2008.

’80

Gregory Dannis ’80 was reelected to a third term as a school board trustee in the Hillsborough City School District in San Mateo County. He is president of Dannis Woliver Kelley, now in its 40th year of providing legal services to school districts and community colleges throughout California.

Becky Eisen ’80, chair of the California State University trustees, was the keynote speaker at the Vallejo Education Business Alliance Gala.

’81

Lindbergh Porter ’81 was elected chair of the board of directors of Littler, the world’s largest employment and labor law practice representing management.

’84

Aileen Casanave ’84 , deputy general counsel at Jiff, Inc., received the Black Legend Award for Law and Justice for her service to legal, nonprofit, and community service agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Cameron Stout ’84 wrote an article titled “The Best Laid Plans of Legislators and Mediators: The Case for Broadening the Scope of Mediation Confidentiality,” which was featured in The Resolver, the ADR newsletter of the Federal Bar Association.

’85

Joseph Decker ’85 wrote the article “Digital Forensics: Securing the Digital Artifacts Important to Employee Investigations” in DRI’s In-House Defense Quarterly.

Alumni Appointed to Imperial and San Francisco County Superior Courts Stephen M. Murphy ’81 (left) and Marco D. Nunez ’00 (right) joined the ranks of more than 330 alumni across the country when Gov. Jerry Brown appointed them to judgeships in December.

Murphy became a San Francisco County Superior Court judge after a 30-year career as a labor and employment attorney who focused on litigation. He was a partner at Bianco, Brandi and Murphy and then Bianco and Murphy before opening the Law Offices of Stephen M. Murphy in 1999. He was a law clerk for the New Hampshire Superior Court immediately after law school.

Nunez, who joined the Imperial County Superior Court, dedicated the majority of his career to public service in Southern California.

Most recently, he was a deputy district attorney in Imperial County for 10 years, and was a deputy public defender there for four years prior. He began his career as an associate at the Law Office of Eric Beaudikofer. n

USFCA.EDU/LAW

29

ALUMNI NEWS Ann Kotlarski ’85 was featured in the Northern California Record for joining Judicate West as a neutral in Southern California.

Alan Wilhelmy ’85 authored “Chapter 3: The Decision to Arbitrate” published in the Alternative Dispute Resolution Practice Guide.

’87

Mike Healy ’87 was re-elected for a fifth term to the Petaluma City Council. He was featured in Petaluma’s Argus Courier for his work as the longest-serving member of the Petaluma City Council.

’88

Carlos Rincon ’88 wrote

the article “Innovation and Synergy: Harnessing the Potential of Information” in DRI’s In-House Defense Quarterly.

’89

Thomas Burke ’89 was

Brad Lawrence ’00 became chief John Orta ’93 , general

counsel and corporate secretary at Metromile, was featured in Above the Law’s article “8 Tricks to Seamlessly Become Both a Business and Legal Professional.”

’94

’97

authored a chapter in the November 2016 update of the Business Workouts Manual.

Jason Altieri ’97 was named chief legal and compliance officer for Roofstock.

’98

Hon. Jose Franco ’98 was

profiled in The Daily Journal for his work as a superior court judge in Santa Clara County.

’91

Sullivan Hill as a shareholder in its San Diego office.

Benjamin Spater ’91 was named a

Northern California Super Lawyer

by Super Lawyers magazine and one of the Best Lawyers in America by Corporate Counsel magazine. He is a director at Trucker Huss, APC working in ERISA and employee benefits law.

’92

Stephen Akerley ’92 was featured in the Northern California Record for joining Mintz Levin in the firm’s San Francisco office.

USF SCHOOL OF LAW

’03

Elinor Leary ’03 was featured in the San Francisco Daily Journal for her role as trial team leader at The Veen Firm, which takes on complex cases and brings them to trial.

’99

Susan Saylor ’91 , deputy

of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center’s legal division in Glynco, Georgia. The center provides legal training to new and veteran officers and agents from across the U.S. and abroad.

Harry Stern ’94 , managing principal at the newly named Rains Lucia Stern St. Phalle & Silver, PC, won the Intelligence Squared U.S. debate series in January. He and his debate partner, Heather Mac Donald, argued against the motion that policing in America is racially biased.

a contributing author of the September 2016 update to Anti-SLAPP Litigation and the November 2016 update to Internet Law and Practice.

attorney general for the California Attorney General’s Office in San Francisco, contributed to the California Fair Housing and Public Accommodations December 2016 update.

30

’93

Michael Norton ’99 was selected as police chief of the Central Marin Police Authority.

Shannon D. Sweeney ’99 joined

’00

Suzanne Foley ’00 was named partner at Gizzi, Reep & Foley LLP in Benicia. She specializes in personal injury law, civil litigation, and estate planning.

Liz Fouts ’00 was named second vice president and associate counsel for retirement plans and individual annuities for the Standard Insurance Company.

Rasem Kamal LLM ’00 founded Kamal & Associates in 2007, a leading Palestinian law firm in Ramallah. The firm is one of only six Palestinian law firms ranked in the international legal directory Chambers & Partners.

’04

Vincent Novak ’04

’05

Adam Hofmann ’05 was promoted to partner at Hanson Bridgett, where he began his career in 2006. He is also an adjunct professor at USF School of Law, teaching courses in local government and land use law.

Suzy Loftus ’05 was featured in

the San Francisco Chronicle for joining the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department as assistant chief legal counsel for the law and policy team. She stepped down as president of the San Francisco Police Commission to take the new position. She also was honored

by Mayor Ed Lee for her ongoing dedication to public service at this year's Women’s History Month reception at San Francisco City Hall.

Angela Carmen McFall ’05 was

featured in Lockheed Martin’s African American Council For Excellence September-October 2016 newsletter. The article, “People on the Move,” showcases African American talent leading at all levels in the corporation.

’06

Benjamin McGowan ’06

was appointed deputy chief counsel in the Office of Legal Services at the California

Department of Health Care Services, where he has been a senior assistant chief counsel for health care financing and was an attorney for special projects.

’07

John Hong ’07, an attorney in the San Francisco office of Littler, has been elevated from associate to shareholder. He counsels and defends employers in a broad range of labor and employment matters under state and federal law and before federal and state agencies.

’08

Anne Costin ’08 obtained a $20 million verdict from a San Francisco Superior Court jury on behalf of a whistleblower who was retaliated against for protesting financial fraud in the workplace.

The case was recently featured in The New York Times.

Christina Gagnier ’08 has joined

University of California, Irvine School of Law as an adjunct faculty member, teaching privacy law and serving as clinical faculty for the Intellectual Property, Arts and Technology Clinic.

David Sutton ’08 was recently

named a supervising deputy federal public defender in the Federal Public Defender’s Office for the Central District of California.

’09

Cometria Cooper ’09

received the 2016 President’s Award from the Charles Houston Bar Association for her work on the CHBA board.

John Cueva '09 is president of

ALMA, the Association of Latino Marin Attorneys.

Alberto Rosas '09, tax counsel III at the California Franchise Tax Board, was awarded a 2016 Unity Award from the Bar Association of San Francisco’s Minority Bar Coalition.

Jessica Rybka ’09 joined Silicon Valley Legal Strategy as an associate in the firm’s

San Francisco office. She specializes in the representation of emerging growth companies.

Katy Young ’09, founding partner

of Ad Astra Law Group LLP, was chosen as a distinguished lawyer

by The Expert Network.

’10

Peter Volz ’10 joined Silicon

Legal Strategy as an associate in its San Francisco office.

’11

Laura Schniedwind ’11 opened

her own law practice, Schnied Weed Legal Services, focusing on licensing, regulatory compliance, entity formation, and outside counsel services for the cannabis industry.

’12

Jacquelyn Duysen ’12 joined San Jose State University’s athletics department as the associate athletics director for compliance.

’13

Wendy Betts ’13 received

the Geneva Centre for Security Policy Prize for Innovation in Global Security for her work as project director of the eyeWitness to Atrocities app.

Adam Kuhn ’13 won the U.S. Patent

and Trademark Office Rossman Award for greatest contribution to the field of patents, trademarks, and copyrights.

’15

Calla Yee ’15 co-authored, with Professor David Franklyn, the article “Going Native: Can Consumers Recognize Native Advertising? Does it Matter?” in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology.

’16

Jonathan Madison ’16 wrote

the op-ed “Victims, community must work together to rehabilitate offenders” in the San Francisco Chronicle.

McKenna Steere ’16 has joined Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton as an associate on the trademark and copyright team in the firm’s San Francisco office. 

In Memoriam Carl Shapiro ’50, Jan. 2017 Martin “Pete” Murphy ’61, Feb. 2017 Herbert A. Ross ’64, Feb. 2017 Glenn Becker ’70, March 2017 Paul Cool ’74, July 2016 David James Mattingly ’84, Nov. 2016 Carol Gee ’87, Feb. 2017 Jeffrey Crook ’89, Nov. 2016

What’s New? Share your professional and personal news with your fellow alums! Submit a class note today at lawalumni@usfca.edu or usfca.edu/alumni-update

UPCOMING EVENTS Save the dates to join us at USF School of Law events.

Get more information at usfca.edu/law/events or by emailing lawevents@usfca.edu

May 17

Alumni Graduates Dinner

June 13

Reception for Alumni and Admitted Students

July 13

Cheers to the Holidays Alumni and faculty celebrated the holidays at the City Club of San Francisco on Dec. 13.

This year’s Alumni Holiday Mixer was co-hosted by Molly Lane ’90, 2015 Alum of the Year and president of the Board of Counselors, and Chris Viadro ’92, president of the Board of Governors. Special thanks to Richard Stratton of Hanson Bridgett for serving as club host. For more photos, visit bit.ly/usflaw-holiday2016

East Bay Alumni Mixer *MCLE credit available

July 25

San Jose Alumni Mixer

November 4 Reunion Gala

USFCA.EDU/LAW

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ALUMNI NEWS

We Are What We Believe When others doubted my dreams, I kept the faith

By Jonathan Madison ’16 For many of us, life ends well before the day we die. One of our most common regrets before meeting our final resting place is that we have allowed our doubts and fears to blind us to our greatest dreams and visions. Instead of expending our short lives in the fearless pursuit of our dreams, we are often limited by our inability to see beyond present circumstances. As such, many of us adopt the false belief that nothing hopeful lies beyond it.

Belief is one of the single greatest forces human beings can manifest. Our beliefs literally shape our reality. Many can attest to the earth-shaking power of a fervent belief in our ability to shape the future — be it a principle, a passion, a vision, or creed. In Christianity, we call it faith — the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). This boils down to one fundamental fact. As C.S. Lewis once said, we are living, breathing manifestations of what we believe.

Belief has shaped my reality. Statistics told me that because I was a minority, my chances of getting into law school, completing law school, and passing the bar exam were all but impossible. My middle school teacher recommended that I pursue a career in carpentry, suggesting that the legal profession would demand a curriculum that was far too challenging and expensive. Nevertheless, I chose to believe in myself — in a vision only I could see.

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Growing up, my friends, classmates, and professors would laugh when I told them my ambitions of working for Congress in the nation’s capital. Again, I believed in my vision more than I did the present challenges and circumstances.

I cast no blame on those who doubted my vision. After all, they could only envision what they saw in front of them — another young African American male from a middle-class family, unqualified, and in far over his head.

I am mindful that my accomplishments thus far are in large part attributed to the hard-earned efforts of those who supported me. I have come to learn that our lives are like clay constantly molded by the people and changing circumstances around us. Although I am a first-generation attorney, the support to complete such an endeavor was made possible by the efforts of my parents, each of whom worked two to three jobs to support my siblings and me.

Likewise, I will always be thankful for the invaluable support I received through the USF School of Law faculty — a faculty that believed in me when I found it difficult to believe in myself.

From the Academic Support Program in my 1L year to the Bar Plus Program as I prepared for the bar exam, I am convinced that without faculty assistance, I could not have succeeded in law school and passed the bar exam.

I have always been convinced that the most important ingredient to success is

a courage to believe in a hopeful future to which others may be blind. Quite frankly, that is difficult. I was always terrified about whether others were right about what they presently saw in me and my wide-eyed ambitions. Nevertheless, I am encouraged by my unfailing belief that all things are possible through hard work, ambition, and sacrifice.

Few could have imagined that I would have the opportunity to work for the Financial Services Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives during the aftermath of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. Likewise, no one could have imagined that I would have the wondrous opportunity to graduate from law school at USF, practice as an attorney, and frequently share my opinions in newspapers circulated throughout the Bay Area.

It is our beliefs that kindle the bright flame of optimism in times of great darkness. The day we become blind to a vision of a better future is the day we allow our fears to prevent us from exercising our greatest virtue — hope. n Jonathan Madison ’16 is an associate at McGlashan & Sarrail, PC in San Mateo, California. He regularly writes opinion pieces for the San Mateo Daily Journal and other Bay Area publications.

“USF has been like a family to me, and it prepared me for my varied career in the law. My husband, Joe, and I want USF to continue to thrive. We want to give back to the community that has given us so much.”

For Judge Judith Epstein ’77, USF School of Law is about academic excellence and deep connections to a strong community. Her commitment to USF grew stronger over the years as she forged what would become lifelong friendships with Fr. Schlegel, Fr. Privett, and Dean Jeff Brand. She experienced firsthand the openness of the USF law community to students from a variety of backgrounds and with different family situations. This is what is inspiring Judge Epstein and her husband to support USF School of Law in their estate plan.

Plan Today to Support the USF Community To create your own legacy for the USF School of Law, contact the Office of Gift Planning today.

Elizabeth Hill | (415) 422-4163 | ehill3@usfca.edu | giftplanning.usfca.edu

NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID SAN FRANCISCO, CA PERMIT NO. 11882

The Koret Law Center 2130 Fulton Street San Francisco, CA 94117-1080

C H A N G E S E R V I C E R EQ U E S T E D

G A L L E RY

An Extended Classroom: This academic year, 135 students fanned out across San Francisco and the Bay Area working in externships at leading firms, companies, agencies, and courts. They built practical skills and relationships at Duane Morris LLP, California Supreme Court, ACLU of Northern California, Yahoo, Inc., and many more.

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