Ideas in Action

From intellectual property to constitutional law, UC Law SF faculty are driving the conversation and advancing scholarship in the defining legal issues of our time.

 

Award-Winning Book Documents a Prison Crisis

The American Society of Criminology recognized Professor Hadar Aviram with the 2025 Michael J. Hindelang Outstanding Book Award for Fester: Carceral Permeability and California’s COVID-19 Correctional Disaster, co-authored with data scientist Chad Goerzen. Fester combines original qualitative and quantitative research on COVID-19 in California’s prisons and jails with first-person accounts from incarcerated people. “We wrote Fester to bear witness to the worst prison medical scandal in California history, to give a voice to our most neglected neighbors, and to uplift the effort of a coalition of upstanding citizens that came together to save lives during one of our state’s darkest times,” Aviram said.

 

Lefstin Recognized for IP Scholarship

Professor Jeffrey Lefstin won the 2026 Vanguard Award from the California Lawyers Association for his scholarship and policy work related to intellectual property. The award recognizes those who have made significant impact on IP law through teaching and research. In addition to his work at UC Law SF, Lefstin has testified on IP issues before Congress and written several amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases. His current research explores the inside story of how the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence led to the United States’ current regime of excluding AI and medical diagnostics from patent protection.

 

Foundation Award Recognizes Chen’s Scholarship

The UC Law San Francisco Foundation Board of Trustees selected Professor Ming H. Chen for the 2026 Foundation Faculty Award recognizing scholarly productivity, excellence, and promise. Chen is the Harry & Lillian Hastings Research Chair and founding faculty director of the Center on Race, Immigration, Citizenship & Equality. Foundation Board of Trustees Immediate Past President and Dean Emeritus Leo Martinez ’78 said Chen’s research “leverages theory, history, and empirics to analyze inequality. … She also follows the tradition of excellence that has characterized UC Law SF throughout its history.”

 

Coles Honored for a Career of Teaching and Advocacy

Professor Matt Coles ’77 — a legendary civil rights attorney who brings decades of frontline advocacy into the class-room — received one of the school’s highest honors, the 2026 Rutter Award for Teaching Excellence. Coles was a legal adviser to San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and spent decades at the ACLU. He joined the faculty in 2016. At a March ceremony, students praised his educational storytelling and emphasis on adhering to rigorous standards. Coles, in turn, said, “I have never seen such a thirst for justice, for fairness, for decency as I see among our students.”

 

Marcus Feted with UC Law Journal Issue

Distinguished Professor Richard Marcus, a storied civil procedure scholar and educator, was honored with a March 2026 campus celebration and a special issue of the UC Law Journal as he headed into emeritus status. Marcus joined the faculty in 1988 and has played an influential role in federal civil procedure, serving as a lead author of West casebooks on civil procedure and complex litigation and several volumes of the Federal Practice & Procedure treatises. Peers and former students recalled his “encyclopedic awareness of the procedural universe,” his intimidating yet warm classroom presence, and his thrifty sense of style. Marcus acknowledged during the festivities that the coat he was wearing was a high school graduation gift from his parents 61 years earlier.

 

 

Reiss Recognized for Leadership in Vaccine Policy

Professor Dorit Reiss, a leading voice on vaccine law and policy, won the 2026 Distinguished Service Award from the Association of American Law Schools Section on Law, Medicine and Health Care. The award honors sustained service to public health through advocacy, education, and mentorship. Reiss, the James Edgar Hervey ’50 Chair of Litigation, leads a vaccine legislation; and testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on vaccine mandates and exemptions

 

Rethinking the Role of Morality in Administrative Law

Jodi Short, the Mary Kay Kane Distinguished Professor of Law and an expert in constitutional and administrative law, won the American Constitution Society’s 2025 Richard D. Cudahy Writing Competition for her article “The Moral Turn in Administrative Law,” which identifies an emerging trend in administrative law scholarship, practice, and jurisprudence that emphasizes moral justifications for government policy decisions over technical and procedural concerns that sometimes overshadow them. This focus, she wrote, both presents “a path forward to govern in a deeply polarized society” and risks “rule by moral fiat.” The article provides tools for developing an approach to moral administration anchored in democratic values.