UC Law San Francisco (Formerly UC Hastings)

Professional Headshots sponsored by White and Case
2025-11-06 13:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | Dobbs Atrium

Mary Kay Kane Excellence Awards & Ceremony
2025-11-06 12:30 - 13:30 | 200 ARC, Alumni Reception Center, 200 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102, United States
Contents

Event Information

Service Excellence

Scholarly Excellence and Contributions to Intellectual Life

Teaching Excellence (Full-Time Faculty)

Teaching Excellence (Part-Time Faculty)

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Service Excellence

Jeff Lefstin, Professor of Law. When he served as Associate Academic Dean (a role that we now call “Dean of Students”) from 2016 to 2019, Professor Lefstin significantly contributed to the College’s redesign of its academic program, including changes to the Academic Regulations and our pedagogical norms that have benefitted students and helped to produce a sustained 30+ percentage point increase in first-time bar pass rates since 2016. In the years since, Professor Lefstin has played leading roles on the faculty, including chairing the Academic Standards Committee on a regular basis and, in that capacity, navigating complex updates of our Academic Regulations. He has also generously mentored and advised new student affairs officers we have onboarded over the years and advised the administration on student affairs matters.

Professor Lefstin also serves as Advisor for the Intellectual Property Concentration and co-directs the highly regarded Bucerius / UC Law SF Summer Program in Licensing Transactions in IP, an intensive, three-week, English-taught program for upper division students and junior practitioners. His contributions to the College are often behind the scenes, making it particularly fitting that he be honored with an award in Emerita Chancellor & Dean Mary Kay Kane’s name, given that much of what she did to improve the College during her tenure was similarly under the radar.

Scholarly Excellence and Contributions to Intellectual Life

Jodi Short, Mary Kay Kane Distinguished Professor of Law. Professor Short is a nationally respected scholar of constitutional law, administrative law, and corporate compliance behavior. Her research investigates how institutions and private actors influence the effectiveness and legitimacy of regulation. Short brings interdisciplinary rigor to her work, often drawing on empirical methods to deepen legal insights. Recently, Professor Short has engaged in applied scholarship, submitting amicus briefs challenging executive orders and actions. It is no accident that Professor Short is the inaugural holder of the Mary Kay Kane Chair, which, like this Kane Excellence Award, is endowed as part of a gift from Dean Kane’s estate. Like Dean Kane was during her lifetime, Professor Short is a pillar of the law school’s scholarly community.

Professor Short served as Associate Dean for Research 2020-2023, during which time she led the College’s efforts to achieve the scholarly and research elements of its mission as a center of higher learning. Both before and after her exemplary service in that key role, Professor Short set a high bar for scholarly engagement and discourse at the College by, among other things, regularly attending and actively participating in scholarly colloquia and generously mentoring peers and commenting on their work. Professor Short combines a fierce intellect with a joyfulness about scholarly inquiry, quietly, through her participation and example, inspiring us all to pursue our research with passion and vigor.

Teaching Excellence (Full-Time Faculty)

Laurie Zimet, Director of Academic Support and Professor of Practice. Professor Zimet helped define the field of professionalized academic skills instruction and support in the legal academy. In a 2024 article posted on the UC Law SF website marking the 40th anniversary of Professor Zimet’s tenure at UC Law SF, we wrote: “Known nationally as a ‘founding mother’ of law school academic support, she helped pioneer a new field of legal education and won numerous accolades along the way. But it wasn’t fame or notoriety that propelled her to do this work. Rather, it was a deep-seated commitment to equity and the idea that every law student should get a fair shake at unlocking their potential.”

One of the ways Professor Zimet has operationalized that value system is by helping to pioneer the use of “active learning” techniques in law school classrooms, a toolkit and pedagogical skill set Professor Zimet has generously shared with many colleagues on the faculty over the years. As Professor Zimet often says when training new faculty members

— “The more I talk, the less students learn. The more they talk, the better they learn.”

That philosophy has sparked a revolution of creativity in our classrooms at UC Law SF. It is thus fitting that we have the opportunity this year to recognize Professor Zimet’s many accomplishments over the past four decades at UC Law SF and in legal education more generally.

Teaching Excellence (Part-Time Faculty)

Rachel Proffitt, Adjunct Professor. Professor Proffitt has taught Venture Capital & Startups at UC Law since 2012. In connection with that, she was an integral part of UC Law SF’s effort to offer an expansive curriculum that gave law students the opportunity to learn from lawyers at the cutting edge of practice. Professor Proffitt’s course is one of the reasons why National Jurist prelaw Magazine regularly rates UC Law SF’s business education programming with the highest rating of A+, as it did this past year.

As one student wrote in a prior end-of-semester course evaluation: “Professor Proffitt brings vast industry experience to the class. She knows how things work in the real world, which really prepares us for [working with] venture capital firms.” As another student wrote: “She’s an incredible professor.”

What makes Professor Proffitt’s dedication to teaching even more remarkable is that she has continued to teach at UC Law SF since she became the CEO of Cooley, one of the country’s top law firms. Professor Proffitt reminds us that the teaching and public service elements of UC Law SF’s mission are intertwined: teaching is a form of public service.

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Settler Colonialism Then and Now: History and Impact on the Ohlone in The Bay Area
2025-11-04 12:30 - 13:30 | 333-202
Interested in learning the history of the land you’re on? Please join INALSA and the Indigenous Law Center as we hot Dr. Jonathan Cordero to lead a teach-in about the original inhabitants and stewards of the Bay Area, how settler colonialism shaped their lives and the legal system, an Indigenous-led efforts against these injustices. Everyone is welcome to attend!

Halloween Mixer
2025-10-30 18:00 - 20:00 | 333 Quad, 333 Golden Gate, San Francisco, CA, 94102
A collaboration event between LIPA and the Entertainment Law Society for students to come together and talk about their interests in the entertainment and IP law fields.

OutLaw Halloween Party
2025-10-30 16:00 - 20:00 | Deb Colloquium Room, 333 Golden Gate, San Francisco, CA, United States
OutLaw will hold a Halloween Party including a costume contest, mini pumpkin painting, and a spooky movie.

Business Law Track for 1Ls and the CBL Scholars Program
2025-10-30 12:30 - 13:30 | 333 Deb Colloquium and Sky Deck, 5th Floor Cotchett Law Center, 333 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco, CA, 94102, United States
CLICK HERE TO RSVP

OASIS Academic Support
2025-10-30 12:30 - 13:30, 2025-10-23 12:30 - 13:30 | CA

Faculty Teach-In: The Lawfulness of Federal Enforcement Actions in San Francisco?
2025-10-29 12:30 - 13:30 | 200 ARC, Alumni Reception Center, 200 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102, United States
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Academic Skills Workshop: How to Prepare for Finals
2025-10-29 12:30 - 13:30 | 333-202
APALSA is hosting an academic skills workshop to provide tips and tricks to prepare for finals. This includes outlining, memorizing, creating a study schedule, and maintaining overall wellness during a stressful period.

ADR Speaker Series - Pedagogies in the Meantime: Reflections on ADR and Restorative Justice in U.S. and Canadian Legal Education
2025-10-29 12:30 - 13:30 | Zoom, San Francisco, CA, United States
FALL 2025 ADR SPEAKER SERIES
Pedagogies in the Meantime: Reflections on ADR and Restorative Justice in U.S. and Canadian Legal Education

Wednesday, October 29, 2025
12:30 – 1:30 P.M. PST
Via Zoom

RSVP here

Amy Cohen, Robert J. Reinstein Chair in Law, Temple University Beasley School of Law

Daniel Del Gobbo, Assistant Professor & Chair in Law, Gender, and Sexual Justice, University of Windsor Faculty of Law

Amy Cohen is the inaugural holder of the Robert J. Reinstein Chair in law at Temple University Beasley School of Law. Amy’s research focuses on two areas of sociolegal scholarship—informal justice, including among people building alternatives to the criminal legal system, and law and economic development, including the law and political economy of agriculture and food. Before joining Temple, she was the John C. Elam/Vorys Sater Professor of Law at The Ohio State University and Professor of Law at UNSW Sydney, where she remains an honorary professor. Amy has taught a range of classes including property law, family law, mediation, negotiation, international dispute resolution, law and development, food law, and experimentalist legal theory. She has held visiting professorships at Harvard Law School, Osgoode Hall Law School, the University of Turin Faculty of Law, and the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences. She has also held fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the American Institute of Indian Studies at the University of Chicago, the Fulbright Program, and the Collegio Carlo Alberto. She used several of these fellowships to develop a multi-year project on smallholder farmers and economic justice in India.

Daniel Del Gobbo (daniel.delgobbo@uwindsor.ca) is an Assistant Professor and Chair in Law, Gender & Sexual Justice at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law. Daniel’s research and teaching fall at the intersections of civil procedure and dispute resolution, restorative justice, human rights and equality, legal ethics, and gender and sexuality. He has published widely in peer-reviewed journals and edited collections, including the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, UBC Law Review, Canadian Bar Review, Journal of Law and Equality, Dalhousie Law Journal, Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, and the Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution. His book, Feminist Frontlines: Campus Sexual Violence and Conflict Resolution, is under contract with the University of Toronto Press. Before coming to Windsor, Daniel was a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the McGill University Faculty of Law. He earned his J.D. from Osgoode Hall Law School in 2011, LL.M. from Harvard Law School in 2015, and S.J.D. from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law in 2021.

Big Law Recruiting with Kirkland & Ellis
2025-10-29 12:00 - 13:30 | 200-123

FGP and Morgan Lewis Lunch Panel
2025-10-28 12:30 - 13:30 | 333-LL02
Attorney Panel with Morgan Lewis

PALS Fundraiser
2025-10-28 12:30 - 13:30 | Dobbs Atrium
We will be selling a filipino food item (TBD) to raise funds for PALS.

Career Panel: Immigration and Criminal Law in Public Defense
2025-10-28 12:30 - 13:30 | 200 ARC, Alumni Reception Center, 200 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102, United States
This panel will feature four public defenders from San Francisco’s Public Defender’s Office: Hayley Upshaw and Genna Beier from the immigration defense unit, Alejandra Ramirez Diaz from the felony unit and La Raza Centro Legal, and Amy Tao from the misdemeanor unit. We will combine questions in the next two weeks from students and our board to present to the attorneys before hand to prepare them for the series of questions they may be asked. Questions will focus on what their work looks like, especially under the current administration, how clients facing criminal charges may face immigration consequences, and where the intercepts of the laws are heaviest. They will have an opportunity to inform students of what their case load currently looks like, a day in their lives, and more

Public Defender Speaker Series pt. 2: Immigration
2025-10-28 12:30 - 13:30 | 200 ARC, Alumni Reception Center, 200 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102, United States

Certificate in Legal Research Program: Federal Legislative History Research
2025-10-28 12:30 - 13:30 | 200-123
Earn your Certificate in Legal Research – and a notation on your transcript – or just attend to learn more about researching federal legislative history. Pizza will be provided to students who RSVP by 5 pm the night before. RSVP at: https://hastingslawlibrary.wufoo.com/forms/r1340b721n428gk.
You are free to attend as few or as many classes as you like; however, to complete the program, you must attend a minimum of 5 live classes (in person or on Zoom) and earn 100% on 12 online quizzes by the time you graduate. To find out more about the program, go to: https://www.uclawsf.edu/academics/library/legal-research-cert-program.

Flourish Before Finals and Build a Bouquet
2025-10-28 12:30 | 200-605, 200 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA, CA, 94102, United States
Take a break from outlining and let your creativity bloom. Join LLSA and MLSA for a relaxing hand-on activity where you’ll build your own flower bouquet.

UCLAS Professional Headshots
2025-10-27 09:30 - 17:00 | Deb Colloquium Room, 333 Golden Gate, San Francisco, CA, United States
UCLAS is hosting a free professional headshot event for all students. We’ve fundraised to hire a photographer who will photograph approximately 60 students a day in 15-minute intervals using both the Colloquium and Sky Deck for background variety. UCLAS will provide all necessary resources and staffing for the event; we only request one table for student check-in and check-out.

October Run & Social #2
2025-10-25 16:30 - 18:00 | 198-213
Come run/walk with run club to Taco Bell!

Festival of Lights
2025-10-24 18:00 - 21:00 | 333 Quad, 333 Golden Gate, San Francisco, CA, 94102
This event will celebrate the South Asian cultural festival known as Diwali, or the Festival of Lights. This holiday is celebrated across many nationalities, religions, and cultures within South Asia. We will have food at this event, music, as well as opportunities for socializing and networking with attorneys and professors.

AALS ADR Section Works in Progress Conference
2025-10-24 08:00 - 2025-10-25 13:00 | 333-501 and SkyDeck
The AALS ADR Section Works in Progress Conference (“WIP”) brings together dispute resolution scholars, teachers, and practitioners to present and receive feedback on their scholarly ideas and projects in a welcoming and collegial environment. Projects at any stage are welcome.
This year’s WIP will include a special plenary workshop. Presenters selected for the workshop will be paired with a senior scholar, who will read the paper in advance and provide commentary. Those interested in participating in the plenary should submit a draft paper for consideration by the registration deadline. Scholars at any stage of their career are welcome, but junior scholars and newcomers to the field are especially encouraged to apply.
In addition to the plenary, we will have the usual parallel-track panel presentation format and one or more sessions for beginning stage “ideas-in-progress.”
The conference will take place in-person with Zoom access. Zoom will be limited to a webinar format, in which remote participants may submit questions through the chat only. Presenters are strongly encouraged to participate in person.
For more information and to register, please visit the conference website here.

PALS and VALS wine and paint night
2025-10-23 18:00 - 20:00 | 198-213

TLS Panel with Gunderson Dettmer - What is Tech Law?
2025-10-22 12:30 - 13:30 | 198-106
Panel of Gunderson Dettmer attorneys to discuss what it means to work at the intersection of law and technology. Gunderson Dettmer will be sponsoring the event.

Sports Law Panel
2025-10-22 12:30 - 13:30 | 200-122, 200 McAllister, San Francisco, CA, 94102
Panel of various attorneys in the area who work in sports law.

DOs, DON’Ts, & DONUTS!
2025-10-22 12:30 - 13:30 | 200-630
The FLSA Board will be hosting a Q&A Panel on Wednesday, October 22 to talk through how to approach your first meeting, share helpful do’s and don’ts, and answer any questions you might have about making the most of this experience.

ADR Speaker Series - Now, Women Do Ask: A Call to Update Beliefs about the Gender Pay Gap
2025-10-22 12:30 - 13:30 | 200-605, 200 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA, CA, 94102, United States
FALL 2025 ADR SPEAKER SERIES
Now, Women Do Ask: A Call to Update Beliefs about the Gender Pay Gap

Laura Kray, Ned & Carol Spieker Professor of Leadership, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley

Wednesday, October 22, 2025
12:30 – 1:30 P.M. PST
In Person – Room 200-605
and Via Zoom

RSVP here

Laura Kray received her PhD in Psychology from the University of Washington. Prior to joining UC Berkeley in 2002, she taught at the University of Arizona and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Since 2018, Kray has been the faculty director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership. She is a leading expert on the role of gender stereotypes, power and status, and mindsets on workplace behavior, including negotiations and ethical decision-making. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and has been recognized with multiple best research awards from the Academy of Management and the International Association of Conflict Management.

Spring 2026 Clinics & Externships Open House
2025-10-22 12:30 - 13:30 | 333 Quad, 333 Golden Gate, San Francisco, CA, 94102
Come learn from faculty about the clinics and externships offered next semester!

Wednesday, October 22, 2025
12:30pm – 1:30pm

The Quad

Food will be provided!

2025 Contra Costa Alumnus of the Year
2025-10-21 17:30 - 20:00 | The Greenery, 1551 Marchbanks Dr., Walnut Creek, CA, 94598, United States
We’re thrilled to celebrate Hon. Wade Rhyne ’01, Judge for the Contra Costa County Superior Court, as this year’s Contra Costa Alumnus of the Year!

Please join us for an evening of community, connection, and recognition as we honor Judge Rhyne’s outstanding work and impact in the Contra Costa region.

Enjoy appetizers, beverages, and conversation with fellow UC Law SF alum and supporters. We will be located in the Eagle Room of The Greenery.

Tickets:$40 for recent alum (Class of 2015–2025)$50 for alum from the Class of 2014 and earlier
$60 for non-alum attendees
Free for students
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UCLJxJIOP Panel
2025-10-21 12:30 - 13:30 | 333-101, 333 Golden Gate, San Francisco, CA, United States
Hosting a panel aimed towards 1Ls about JIOP. The panel will comprise of local judges and students who have participated in the JIOP program.
