GGU Law Special Edition Golden Gate University School of Law
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Golden Gate University School of Law GGU Law Digital Commons Golden Gate Lawyer Other Law School Publications 11-2015 GGU Law Special Edition Golden Gate University School of Law Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/ggulawyer Part of the Legal Education Commons Recommended Citation Golden Gate University School of Law, "GGU Law Special Edition" (2015). Golden Gate Lawyer. Paper 17. http://digitalcommons.law.ggu.edu/ggulawyer/17 This Newsletter or Magazine is brought to you for free and open access by the Other Law School Publications at GGU Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Golden Gate Lawyer by an authorized administrator of GGU Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 2015 We Do More Than Teach Law. We Train Lawyers. A Special Edition on GGU Law’s Community Engagement: Bringing Students, Alumni, and the Community Together to Aid Underserved Populations. PLUS: A NEWLY RENOVATED CAMPUS A FOCUS ON LITIGATION UPCOMING ALUMNI EVENTS Engaged Community Engaged Golden Gate University School of Law | 2015 Community WELCOME Welcome to Golden Gate University School of Law GOLDEN GATE UNIVERSITY ADVANTAGE Dear Alumni and Friends, Diversity 2 For the last two years I have met individually with Practical Skills 3 every first year student and I remain inspired by their #1 LLM in Taxation Program in California 4 paths to law school and their aspirations to use their legal education to build a better world. They seek Study Law in the Heart of San Francisco 6 to continue GGU Law’s 114-year history, rich with stories of community engagement, including being one FEATURE ARTICLES of the first law schools to actively admit and support women students and students of color, and consistently Cynthia Chandler Recognized for Prisoner Advocacy 8 advocating for LBGT rights. This year, we recognize our Rallying Support for Veterans 12 students, faculty, and alumni who are active leaders in our Candlestick Park’s Last Yard 18 communities, using their legal expertise to affect positive legal and social change. Student Social Entrepreneurship 24 By working with our students and our surrounding From Student to Litigator 28 community, GGU Law has become a national leader in practical skills training, fostering a new generation of COLUMNS diverse, socially conscious lawyers and entrepreneurs. World-class clinics and intensive practical legal training Engaged Learning 32 programs, such as the Litigation Center, provide students The Impact of Social Issues Before the Ninth Circuit 34 with both the tools and the venues to engage in social The Uncertain Future of the Criminal Grand Jury 38 advocacy. We continue to foster this kind of thoughtful involvement by grappling with challenges our justice Alumna Gives Back to GGU Law Community 42 system confronts through debating the criminal grand Welcome, Stephen Rosenbaum 44 jury system, student projects addressing the needs of Newly Tenured Faculty 46 underserved communities, and raising awareness about the challenges faced by veterans. DEPARTMENTS The work that we do would not be possible without you, our supportive alumni community and friends. Your Donors 48 ideas and your engagement with our students enhance Class Notes 52 our programs, our events, and the legal education that we 2015 Commencement 62 provide. I deeply appreciate your support and I invite you to join us at our upcoming alumni events. In Memoriam 66 Alumni Events 68 Warmly, Rachel Van Cleave, Dean Niall David Photography Cover photo: Compass Photographers Diversity GU Law’s diversity record continues to rise, earning an A- rating from the National Jurist Gin 2015. Each year, we strive to increase the diversity in our student body because we believe that training future lawyers with diverse backgrounds and experiences provides for a stronger, more inclusive justice system. Practical Skills nce again, the National Jurist has awarded GGU Law top marks for its practical skills training. OImproving from an A grade in 2014, GGU Law earned an A+ this year for its role as a national leader in litigation skills, practical training, and experiential learning, including our 1st STEP program. Niall David Photography 2 GGU Law 2015 www.ggu.edu/law 3 #1 LLM in Taxation Program in California GU Law’s LLM in Taxation program earns its third consecutive first place ranking amongst taxation programs in California (and 8th in the country) in 2015. For years, GTaxTalent has been surveying the heads of corporate tax departments, asking them to name the nation’s best LLM in taxation program, and GGU Law has repeatedly been chief amongst all other programs on the West Coast. With over 40 years of experience, GGU Law continues to offer the best taxation training to practicing attorneys, earning consistent praise from the readers of The Recorder, a legal periodical for tech-focused legal professionals in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and beyond. Niall David Photography 4 GGU Law 2015 www.ggu.edu/law 5 Study Law in the Heart of San Francisco olden Gate University School of Law has the added attraction of its location in the heart of beautiful Gdowntown San Francisco. Earning your post-law degree (SJD or LLM) from GGU Law is a valuable investment for those seeking to practice International Law, IP Law, Environmental Law, or improve their position in the job market. Our campus offers the advantage of being the most commuter friendly in the Bay Area. Begin fall, spring, or summer, and study either full time or part time. Visit www.ggu.edu/law/academics or email [email protected] with questions or to apply. 6 GGU Law 2015 Niall David Photography www.ggu.edu/law 7 Cynthia Chandler Recognized for Prisoner Advocacy n October 8, 2015, at the premature death, particularly among California Women Lawyers’ impoverished women and girls of color. (CWL) 41st Annual Dinner, This awareness fueled my dedication to OAssociate Dean Cynthia creating anti-violence strategies that do not Chandler received the prestigious rely on policing, and instead, are centered Fay Stender Award. The on community health, award was created in 1982 empowerment, and in honor of Fay Stender, accountability.” It was a Bay Area attorney Cynthia’s work in allyship who founded CWL, and with criminalized women dedicated her professional that first brought her in life to fighting for women’s contact with Fay Stender’s and prisoner’s rights. Dean legacy of advocacy for Chandler’s impressive imprisoned black activists. nomination was supported “It was Fay Stender’s by several prior Fay courage and her principals Stender Award winners, that inspired my work including Senator Hannah- thereafter,” says Cynthia. Beth Jackson and Drucilla Cynthia went on Stender Ramey. to earn an MPhil in Cynthia Chandler is Criminology from the an Adjunct Professor and University of Cambridge the Interim Associate Dean and a JD from Harvard for Law Career Development at GGU Law, Law School. Upon graduation from where she continues to work on issues of Harvard, she launched Women’s Positive women’s health, gendered violence, racial Legal Action Network, the first organization justice, human rights, and challenging in the United States advocating on behalf imprisonment. With more than 30 years of of HIV-positive women in prison. “While experience in these areas, Cynthia continues working with these women I truly began to to inspire the next generation of lawyers appreciate how many women were dying in and students who gravitate toward public prison each week from HIV,” says Cynthia. interest law. “I worked to develop a legal process “As a teen during the dual onset of allowing terminally ill people to be released the HIV-epidemic and the war on from prison before their sentence had been drugs,” says Cynthia, “I was aware of fully served.” Her first cases provided the how entrenched systems of oppression basis for today’s compassionate release laws heighten vulnerability to police abuse, for the terminally ill and incapacitated. criminalization, victimization, and Advancing Fay Stender’s vision of prison 8 GGU Law 2015 Photographer: Howard Watkins www.ggu.edu/law 9 Cynthia has received numerous other awards for her work empowering and representing people in California’s prisons. Among them, Cynthia was designated the 1997 Attorney to Whom California Can Be Most Grateful by California Law Business. She received the 2001 Ford Foundation Leadership for a Changing World Award. In 2005, Cynthia was named by Women’s Health Activist Network a Top 30 Activist for Women’s Health. GGU Law congratulates Cynthia Chandler on her impressive accomplishments as an advocate, and as a lawyer. abolition, Cynthia went on to co-found and to lead several seminal anti-prison organizations, including Justice Now, a human rights organization dedicated to challenging the root causes of imprisonment and gendered violence. Always working collaboratively with people in prison, she designed Justice Now to ensure imprisoned people serve on its governing board. Photos this page, top: Cynthia maintains a legislative practice, Kelly J. Robbins, regularly conceptualizing key legislation Cynthia Chandler aimed at shrinking the prison system and Top Right: its harms. Her advocacy includes leading Kelly J. Robbins, Justice Now to expose and shape successful Dean Rachel Van Cleave legislation to ameliorate California’s coercive sterilization of hundreds of women in prison Right: over the last decade. Cynthia Chandler, Amy Weaver 10 GGU Law 2015 www.ggu.edu/law 11 Rallying Support for Veterans Written by Kathleen Guthrie Woods GU Law’s Veterans Legal Advocacy Center, through its work with community members, the Veterans Administration (VA), and organizations such as OneJustice, Swords to Plowshares, and the Bar Association of San Francisco G(BASF), is a model of community engagement benefitting deserving veterans. “It’s a hub for everyone looking to support veterans,” says Dean Rachel Van Cleave.