The Practice and Art of Judging:

A Conversation with The Honorable Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, MA ’96, PhD ’00, The Honorable Susan Y. Illston, JD ’73, and The Honorable Vaughn R. Walker, JD ’70

Moderated by Professor Pamela S. Karlan

Tuesday, April 26, 2016
5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
5:30 – 6:30 p.m. Reception
6:30 – 7:30 p.m. Panel

Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305
Room 190

Stanford Law School’s Silicon Valley Alumni Chapter is pleased to invite you to join three of Stanford’s distinguished alumni for a conversation about the practice and art of judging. California Supreme Court Associate Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, MA ’96, PhD ’00, Senior U.S. District Judge Susan Y. Illston, JD ’73, and retired U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, JD ’70 will talk about their paths to becoming a judge; how their judicial philosophy has developed; how judging differs on various courts; and current challenges facing the courts. The panel will be moderated by Pamela S. Karlan, Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law and Co-Director, Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, and will be preceded by a reception with wine and light appetizers.

One hour of MCLE credit will be offered. Kindly register by April 22.

About the Speakers

The Honorable Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, MA’96, PhD ’00 began serving on the California Supreme Court in January 2015. His previous career was in public service, university administration, and legal academia, with a focus on administrative, criminal, and international law. A full-time Stanford University faculty member from 2001 to 2015, he was the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law and Professor (by courtesy) of Political Science before joining the judiciary. Cuéllar also was Director of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Co-Director of the Institute’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and led university-wide initiatives on global poverty and on cybersecurity. In the federal executive branch, he served as Special Assistant to the President for Justice and Regulatory Policy at the White House (2009-2010), Co-Chair of the Presidential Transition Task Force on Immigration (2008-2009), and Council Member of the U.S. Administrative Conference (2010-2015), among other positions. Cuéllar is on the boards of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the American Law Institute, and the American Bar Foundation, and leads the California judiciary’s Language Access Implementation Task Force. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Cuéllar began his career after law school at the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Enforcement, and clerked for Chief Judge Mary M. Schroeder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. A naturalized U.S. citizen born in northern Mexico, he is a graduate of Calexico High School in California’s Imperial Valley, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale Law School.

The Honorable Susan Y. Illston, JD ’73 was appointed to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in May 1995. Her chambers are located in San Francisco, California, where the District Court has many active intellectual property and antitrust matters. Judge Illston has presided over numerous notable cases, including the Balco steroids cases; the trial of Barry Bonds; and the multidistrict litigation involving allegations of price-fixing among LCD flat-screen manufacturers, In re TFT-LCD Flat Panel Antitrust Litigation. Before joining the bench, Judge Illston was a partner in the law firm of Cotchett, Illston & Pitre, in Burlingame, California, specializing in civil litigation practice with emphasis on commercial litigation. Judge Illston is a member of various professional organizations, including the American College of Trial Lawyers, the American Board of Trial Advocates, and the International Society of Barristers, and she has also lectured and authored numerous articles. She received her B.A. at Duke University in 1970 and her J.D. at Stanford in 1973.

The Honorable Vaughn R. Walker, JD ’70 served as a United States District Judge for the Northern District of California from 1990 to 2011; he was chief judge of that court from 2004 to 2011. Judge Walker graduated from the University of Michigan (1966), and he received his law degree from Stanford Law School (1970). After clerking for Judge Robert J Kelleher of the United States District Court in Los Angeles (1971-72), he practiced in San Francisco at Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, now Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, until becoming a judge. Judge Walker was named to the bench by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H W Bush and was confirmed by the United States Senate on November 21, 1989, on unanimous consent. Judge Walker presided over a number of notable lawsuits. These include Apple Computer, Inc v Microsoft Corporation, involving the copyrights to the graphical user features of the computer desktop; United States v Oracle Corporation, involving the acquisition of PeopleSoft Corporation; In re Terrorist Surveillance Cases, involving federal government wiretapping for national security purposes; and numerous patent, antitrust, securities and other complex business disputes. Judge Walker retired from the bench at the end of February 2011 and established a mediation-arbitration practice in San Francisco to which he now devotes most of his time. He has also taught at the Berkeley School of Law and Hastings College of Law, University of California, and Stanford Law School. Judge Walker is a member of the American Law Institute and a trustee of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center. He served for many years as a director, and one year as chair, of the Saint Francis Foundation, which supports healthcare in San Francisco through an affiliation with Saint Francis Memorial Hospital, and serves on the boards of Americans for Responsible Solutions, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Center for United States and Mexican Law at the University of Houston.

Moderator: A productive scholar and an award-winning teacher, Pamela S. Karlan is co-director of the school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, where students litigate live cases before the Court. One of the nation’s leading experts on voting and the political process, she has served as a commissioner on the California Fair Political Practices Commission, an assistant counsel and cooperating attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (where she received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service – the department’s highest award for employee performance – as part of the team responsible for implementing the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Windsor). Professor Karlan is the co-author of leading casebooks on constitutional law, constitutional litigation, and the law of democracy, as well as numerous scholarly articles. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1998, she was a professor of law at the University of Virginia School of Law and served as a law clerk to Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Abraham D. Sofaer of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Karlan is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, and the American Law Institute.