Zainab Ramahi ’19

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Hometown: Ontario, Canada
Education: University of Waterloo 2015
Affiliations: Editor-in-Chief of the Berkeley Middle East and Islamic Law Journal; Equity and Inclusion Chair, Coalition for Diversity; Prisoner Advocacy Network

[Editor’s note: Zainab is the recipient of the 2018 Miller Institute-American Society of International Law (ASIL) Student Fellowship and the Reed Smith Diversity Fellowship]

I was one of the co-founders of an organization called Muslim Social Services. The area where I lived in Ontario was one of the main resettlement sites for refugees. With that comes the need for a whole slew of services to help them live healthy, successful lives. So we did a lot of work relating to spiritually and culturally sensitive counseling and education. You have to meet people where they’re at, and accommodate them in their language and not just expect them to immediately assimilate. That experience taught me a lot about communicating and prioritizing the people who we purport to serve, and it definitely impacts how I think about the role of a lawyer.

My efforts with the Coalition for Diversity are focused on affirming people in the spaces in which they exist and making sure marginalized students are able to have a positive and enriching experience here. I fundamentally believe that our solution spaces are enriched by diversity. If everyone is not meaningfully at the table—not just nominally in a token capacity—you are not going to reach the best outcome.

It’s a constant struggle, even here in Berkeley. But I’ve never been so inspired as I am by my peers here. I’ve made so many strong friendships based on shared goals and values. I love how rich the diversity of experiences are among the people who come to Berkeley Law. We could do better on racial diversity, that’s no secret. But the communities I am part of are so dedicated to improving the institution, so that’s really exciting and positive work.

Universities are almost like small scale worlds in-and-of themselves. It’s a good dry run for thinking about changemaking on a bigger scale when we leave this institution. In learning how to deal with the challenges we face here and collaborating with the administration and community as a whole will help us all be better advocates in our professional lives.

Yarden Kakon ’19

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Hometown: Davie, FL
Education: University of Florida 2016
Affiliations: Founder, Women in Tech Law; First Generation Professionals

When I first got to Berkeley, I attended a BCLT introduction session, and as all the different groups came up to present, I realized there was nothing focused on women. It felt so obvious since the inequalities of women versus men in leadership roles in the technology and startup space is such a big conversation right now. I started doing some research and discovered that there were almost no organizations focused specifically on women in tech law. It wasn’t even a suggested term on Google.

So that’s how Women in Tech Law (WiTL) at Berkeley started. Even at the first meeting, people came up to us to say thank you for creating this community where we can talk about the struggles that come with being a woman in this area of law. It’s also given a lot of support to women like me — who don’t have a tech background — in saying that you can succeed in tech law without a CS or engineering degree.

Our “It’s LIT” (Ladies in Tech) lunch talks bring in women from in-house, public interest, corporate, and firms to talk about their experiences. We don’t focus on the practice itself, but rather on them as women in the field. We’ll have the General Counsel of Uber or another big company sharing stories of how it feels to be the only woman in a board meeting and being otherized as a female lawyer. It’s remarkable to sit in the audience and relate so deeply with these inspiring women and realize we’re just like them, that it’s ok to feel this way, and that there’s ways to navigate it and empower yourself.

We have needs and concerns that are unique to women. A male associate is not going to need the same time off as a woman who is pregnant or has to care for her kids. This is not something to hide from or ignore. By reclaiming and embracing the needs of women, that’s how we are going to show the world that we’re not more fragile, but rather that we operate differently than our male counterparts. Women have so much to offer in totally different ways than men. We have a different perspective, a different way of approaching a conflict or a problem, a different demeanor in dealing with colleagues and clients and challenges.

So one of the goals of WiTL is to flip the narrative about these differences being negative. We’re saying: ‘We have a perspective and value that you need. You should show us why we should work for you.’

We’ve attracted a lot of attention from law firms. Basically all of the tech law firms in the Bay Area have reached out to get involved with WiLT and help us and even recruit our members. It means that firms recognize the value that comes from having more women in the tech law field and how the difference in perspective women bring is helping build and grow their law firm to become an even more successful entity. It’s really encouraging.

Maureen Stutzman ’19 & Samantha Lachman ’19

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Co-presidents of If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice at Berkeley Law; research assistants with the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice at Berkeley Law

Sam: As a politics reporter at the Huffington Post, I covered reproductive rights litigation happening all over the country. I knew I wanted to do that kind of impact litigation eventually, so I was looking for a law school where reproductive justice work was more than just a niche thing. Berkeley Law has so many connections to the reproductive rights and justice movements and leaders in that area, which was a huge reason why I wanted to come here for law school. For example, Jill Adams ’06, founded Law Students for Reproductive Justice (now called If/When/How: Lawyering for Reproductive Justice, which refers to the concept that reproductive justice will exist when every person has the right to decide if, when, and how to become a parent) as a student, then served as director of the national organization before returning to Berkeley Law to serve as executive director of the Center for Reproductive Rights and Justice (CRRJ). I had also heard before coming here that Professors Kristen Luker and Melissa Murray wrote the first casebook on reproductive rights law.

Maureen: I worked at Physicians for Reproductive Health, an organization that works to improve access to comprehensive reproductive health care. I helped our doctors do reproductive rights advocacy, such as lobbying and legislative work in their local governments. I was also on the board of directors of the New York Abortion Access Fund and am currently on the board of the National Network of Abortion Funds.  This has been my work and passion for a long time. I never thought I’d go to law school—I’m on the older side of law students here—but after years of policy work I felt like I could make more of an impact as a lawyer.

One thing that’s really special about Berkeley Law is that there’s a pretty clear reproductive justice path you can take: As a 1L you can become an If/When/How member and join the Reproductive Justice Project (RJP); 2L year you can run for a leadership position with If/When/How or RJP, and become a research assistant for CRRJ; 3L year you can do a semester in the UCDC program working with a nonprofit in Washington, DC, or do an externship with any number of organizations doing this work in the Bay Area.

Sam: We’re lucky to have the national chapter of If/When/How located nearby (in Oakland). So, we’ve been able to do a lot of really timely events with their support. When Jane Doe, an undocumented teenager in Texas, couldn’t get an abortion because the Trump administration was barring her from leaving an ICE detention facility, we co-hosted an event with the Women of Color Collective and La Raza Law Students Association on the connection between immigration justice and reproductive justice. The whole room was packed, there wasn’t a seat open. It felt really good to be able to bring in different practitioners who are working on this intersection at the same time as Jane Doe’s case was unfolding.

Maureen: Sam and I are also CRRJ interns. The way CRRJ defines reproductive justice in a broad sense brings a lot more people to the table — you get people working to end restrictions on welfare, people doing criminal justice reform, and others who wouldn’t be strictly considered doing reproductive rights work. We helped with the Center’s recent fifth anniversary symposium. CRRJ is really well respected in the field, so they were able to bring together a who’s who of academics, lawyers, and activists from across the spectrum of the reproductive rights, health and justice movements. It was such a privilege for us to be a part of it.

Sam: Seeing the way CRRJ goes about doing its work and going to this conference and meeting practitioners from so many different backgrounds has really expanded my conception of the range of possible careers in this area of the law.

15 1Ls Named CA Bar Foundation Diversity Scholars

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Fifteen Berkeley Law 1Ls are recipients of the 2017 California Bar Foundation Diversity Scholarship! Congratulations Martha Cardenas, Saxon Cropper-Sykes, Lana El-Farra, Chante Eliaszadeh, Nestor Cerda Gonzalez, Cristina Mora, Su Myint, Bill Nguyen, Cremeithius Riggins, Anna Rodriguez, Patrick Rubalcava, Seema Rupani, Dru Spiller, Joanna Torres, and Esther Yang! Read their stories at calbarfoundation.org/diversity-scholarships.

PAC Students Present at UN Forum on Poverty & Human Rights

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On Wednesday, December 6, members of Berkeley Law’s Policy Advocacy Clinic presented their research relating to the criminalization of homelessness at a community forum with the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. Hosted by the Western Regional Advocacy Project, Coalition on Homelessness San Francisco, St. Anthony Foundation, and St. Mary’s Center, the purpose of the forum was to aid the Special Rapporteur in developing a report on extreme poverty and human rights in the United States by discussing how poverty in the Bay Area affects poor and homeless people’s ability to enjoy civil, political, and human rights protections.

The student team, Rawan Elhalaby (MPP), Shelby Nacino (JD ’18), Zachariah Oquenda (JD ’19), and Daisy Quan (MPP), spoke to the assembly about the findings of PAC reports on the enactment and enforcement of anti-homeless laws, the role of Business Improvement Districts in policy advocacy and policing practices that criminalize homelessness, and criminal fines and fees imposed on homeless people.

“The students’ presentation to the UN Special Rapporteur highlighted ongoing human rights violations in the heart of one of the most progressive cities and states in this country,” said Professor Jeff Selbin, faculty director of the Policy Advocacy Clinic. “At a time when the federal government is poised to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich — and use the subsequent budget deficits to justify further shredding of the social safety net — I am proud of our students’ rigorous and principled work focused on the dignity and needs of some of the most vulnerable people in our community.”

Observed 3L Nacino, “sharing our research at the forum alongside community members demonstrated to me how we as law students and lawyers can support the critical work that communities are doing to fight for themselves everyday.”

Joel Sati

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Ph.D. student in the Jurisprudence and Social Policy program at Berkeley Law
Hometown: Nairobi, Kenya by way of Rockville, MD
Undergrad: CCNY 2016
Affiliations: Founder and Executive Director, Undocumental

After Trump got elected last November, it became pretty clear the narrative against all immigrants would be making a turn for the worse. My goal for Undocumental is for it to become a forum where illegalized immigrants use political analysis to take control of the political discourse on immigration where they are being talked about, but not talked to. I reached out to a few people and the concept quickly gained a lot of support. With that support I was able to recruit an editorial staff with various disciplinary backgrounds from different parts of the country. I also had a lot of support from the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law who helped me build capacity as well as helped us put together our formal launch this past November.

The mission is to offer incisive analysis of noncitizenship — not only looking at policy and trying to change people’s views, but also analyzing the debate itself around illegalized persons.

The intent of the phrase “illegalized” is to shift the focus onto institutions that make people illegal. The way undocumented immigrants are talked about — especially when the phrase “illegal immigrants” is used — is as if illegality is part of who they are, there’s something about them as a person that is intrinsically illegal. Focusing on illegalization also gives us a new framework from which to analyze certain policies. For example, though a policy may look to legalize a certain group of people on paper, it is imperative to as whether or not it illegalizes other people in turn.

Editor’s note: This concept was at the heart of an op-ed Joel published in the Washington Post following President Trump’s announcement that he would end the DACA program, excerpted here:

“How DACA pits ‘good immigrants’ against millions of others,” Washington Post, September 7, 2017

See also, “Noncitizenship and the case for illegalized persons,” UC Berkeley Blog, January 24, 2017

Deborah Oh ’20

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Hometown: Chicago, IL
Education: USC 2013
Affiliations: BHSA, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Asian American Law Journal

English wasn’t my first language. I was raised by my grandparents who spoke Korean. So I joined debate in high school to try to be more confident and it helped me become empowered to speak in class. That’s one of the reasons I decided to go to law school. The idea of helping people who are struggling with language confidence… I wanted to give that voice to others who didn’t have the training and good education that I had to overcome that obstacle.

I decided to run for 1L BHSA rep because I saw the position as a student support role. There are 300 of us in the first year class, and no matter how hard the staff and administration tries, there is no way for them to know every student’s needs and interests. As the 1L rep, by virtue of going through the same experience as my classmates, I can see what students need and what they are feeling. So I thought I could make a difference in this role by making people feel like they had the chance to be heard. Ideally every student will feel like Berkeley Law is their home and they can grow and thrive here. Helping them do that is why I was really passionate about the position.

If I wasn’t a BHSA rep I probably would have stuck with my core group of friends and been much more solitary in my studies. Because of this position I have to interact with students I barely know, and constantly think about how to better the 1L class and better the school. I hope every student has the chance to have a role that gives them a sense of investment in the school, whether it’s through a journal or student government or whatever, it has enriched my experience a lot.

Aseem Mulji ’19

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Hometown: Orange County, CA
Education: Middlebury College 2012
Affiliations: The Post-Conviction Advocacy Project, ElectionLaw@Boalt, California Law Review, Legal Research & Writing tutor

The Post-Conviction Advocacy Project (P-CAP, one of Berkeley Law’s many student-initiated legal service projects) allows students to get deep exposure to the criminal justice system and build deep relationships with clients. The program assigns two or three students to work with a prisoner who is eligible for parole for six to 18 months, and potentially even longer, to help them prepare for an upcoming parole board hearing. P-CAP students are currently working with clients at San Quentin, Mule Creek, and the women’s prison in Chowchilla, which is where my client is serving a life sentence.

We travel to the prison to work with clients about once a month. We work with a client up until their parole board hearing. Our job is to help them develop their own narrative and communicate to the Board of Parole why they should be paroled. Sometimes that means exploring their childhood or their crime or what they’ve done in prison. The other piece is helping them practice presentation skills, so we do mock hearings and ask them questions as the board might and help them practice giving answers. Finally, we represent the client at their parole hearing under the supervision of an attorney at a local non-profit called UnCommon Law.

The clients do a huge amount of work to prepare for their hearings. The sad thing is that this process is so weighted against them. The board has a ton of discretion. Their standard of evidence is “some evidence,” so they can point to anything—before and during the prison term—to deny the grant. What the board wants to see is that the prisoner has internalized the justification for their incarceration, even when their incarceration was wholly unjustified.

Fortunately, my client was granted parole, but the work opened my eyes to everything that is wrong with the criminal justice system. The parole process in California needs reform.

Mallory Morales ’18

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Hometown: New Jersey
Education: Boston University 2013
Affiliations: Editor-in-Chief of California Law Review

Editor’s note: In legal academia, most scholarship is published not in peer review journals, but by students in law review journals. California Law Review (CLR) is the flagship law review at Berkeley.

Legal scholarship that is published in a law review, particularly at a top law school, can have a huge influence. It can show up on the desks of judges and professors and policymakers. Professors who submit articles for publication in law reviews are at the forefront of their specialty and research in that area. Because of this, law review articles are often looked to for legal reform.

CLR has a huge amount of potential to influence the law, and it’s amazing that law students get to be the gatekeepers of the types of ideas that get disseminated into the world. We don’t want to create an echochamber of scholarship that only legal scholars are reading. We look for articles that are going to have an impact and will affect a lot of people and everyday issues outside of academia.

We have 131 members and publish six times a year, each issue has about seven pieces in it. So we’re basically running a full-time publishing house. I ran for Editor-in-Chief because I was excited by the opportunity to manage a big team that can have a real influence on the legal world. I’m also just inspired by the people I work with. My peers are some of the smartest people I’ve ever met and they have these big ideas about the direction of the law and legal profession and I really enjoy being in a position to help them achieve their goals. Learning how to run a large organization that is accountable to the legal community at a high level is a huge responsibility. It has been an honor and privilege to lead it.

Shelby Nacino ’18

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Hometown: Honolulu, HI
Education: UC Berkeley 2014
Affiliations: East Bay Community Law Center (Tenants’ Rights Workshop, Health & Welfare Unit, Community Economic Justice Clinic, co-founder of the Name and Gender Change Workshop), Policy Advocacy Clinic

My first summer I worked in EBCLC’s health and welfare unit. During that time we wanted to get the word out about services we had available for the transgender community. So that’s how the Name and Gender Change Workshop came about.

The workshop is a student-initiated legal services project, students run it under the supervision of one of the health attorneys at EBCLC. We host 2-3 workshops each semester where clients can come in and work with students to walk through the forms to obtain a court-order for a name and gender change.

EBCLC’s client population is low income folks and people who may not have stable housing. Someone who doesn’t have a place to live also probably doesn’t have reliable access to a computer or wi-fi. So they can’t necessarily do the research needed to complete the process. Another issue is that a lot of folks from marginalized communities have a valid fear around the law and legal processes in general, and this is true for a lot of transgender folks—especially those whose experiences with the justice system may have involved criminalization.

The whole point is to increase access to the legal system for people within a community that might not otherwise have access. The legal process for a name and gender change isn’t that complex, but for folks that experience discrimination at every turn, it really helps to have an advocate walk them through the process.

I’m applying for funding that would allow me to build on the Name and Gender Change Workshop and increase outreach and services we can provide to transgender folks—particularly low-income transgender people of color.