King Hall Plays Prominent Role in Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting
King Hall faculty and alumni were a prominent presence at the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) 2013 Annual Meeting in New Orleans on January 4-7, speaking and taking leadership roles in meetings, discussions, and presentations. UC Davis School of Law also hosted a highly successful Alumni & Friends Reception in conjunction with the Annual Meeting on January 4.
Dean Kevin R. Johnson was particularly active at the conference, speaking in panel discussions and representing UC Davis at the AALS Representatives Meeting. Dean Johnson spoke as part of the plenary session roundtable on "Finding Ways to Make the Statement of Good Practices a Reality for Law Schools" that also featured remarks from former King Hall faculty member Angela Onwuachi-Willig, a professor at University of Iowa College of Law. Dean Johnson also participated in "Deconstruct and Reconstruct: Reexamining Bias in the Legal System; Searching for New Approaches," a panel discussion moderated by Professor and former King Hall Dean Rex Perschbacher, and which also featured alumna Debra Lynn Bassett '87, a member of the faculty at Southwestern Law School. The discussion was based on a proposal authored by Professors Perschbacher and Bassett and selected for presentation as a "Crosscutting Program" chosen through a competitive process by the AALS Committee on Special Programs for the Annual Meeting. The program will be published in the UC Davis Law Review.
Professor Gabriel "Jack" Chin appeared at a "Meet the Authors" forum for his new West Criminal Law Casebook, and also met with other law faculty working on an amicus brief to be submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court prior to its upcoming review of the Voting Rights Act. Also attending the Annual Meeting were Associate Dean and Professor Vikram Amar, who serves on the Journal of Legal Education Editorial Board, Professor Leticia Saucedo, who serves on the Committee on Clinical Legal Education, Professor Rose Cuison-Villazor, who has been nominated to serve on the Executive Committee of the Minority Section, and Professor Carlton Larson. (Professor Afra Afsharipour, who did not attend the conference, serves on the Executive Committee of both the Section on Transactional Law and Skills and the Section on Law and South Asian Studies. Professor Thomas W. Joo, who was scheduled to moderate a panel discussion on "The Law of Contract or Laws of Contracts?" and serves as Chair of the Section on Contracts, was unable to attend.)
The Alumni & Friends reception was well-attended, with Dean Johnson and Professors Vikram Amar, Alan Brownstein, Gabriel "Jack" Chin, Angela Harris, Carlton Larson, and Leticia Saucedo, as well as Visiting Professor William Wiecek among those present. Numerous faculty colleagues from other law schools attended, including Angela Onwuachi-Willig and another former King Hall faculty member, Professor Spencer Overton of George Washington University Law School. Alumni guests included Rachel Anderson '09 of Aufrecht & Anderson, Professor Jay Carlisle '69 of Pace University School of Law, Mary Gaber '10, Criminal Justice Act Clerk at the U.S Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Professor Gregory Ogden '73 of Pepperdine University, and others.