THE BEST IN THE WEST: The Daily Journal’s list of the 100 most influential lawyers in California includes three members of the faculty: Joseph Grundfest ’78, W. A. Franke Professor of Law and Business; Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law and John A. Wilson Distinguished Faculty Scholar; and Kathleen M. Sullivan, Dean and Richard E. Lang Professor of Law and Stanley Morrison Professor of Law. Also on the list were alumni Warren Christopher ’49, Ronald George ’64, Beth Jay ’75, Carlos Moreno ’75, Richard Pachulski ’79, and Frederic Woocher ’75

KUDOS TO STUDENTS: Skadden Public Interest Fellowships were awarded to four SLS students and alums: Angie Schwartz ’04, who will be working with the National Center for Youth Law; Trisha Miller ’04, with the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Jenny Chang ’03, with the ACLU National Immigrant Rights Project; and Keith Cunningham-Parmeter ’02, with Oregon Legal Center. ❖ Shirin Sinnar ’03, who will be working with the Northern California ACLU, and Jessica Steinberg ’04, with San Mateo County Legal Aid, were awarded Equal Justice Works Fellowships. ❖ From the Foundation of the State Bar, Schwartz, Sharon Terman ’04, Rashida Edmondson ’05, Sarah Varela ’04, and Ray Ybarra ’05 received merit scholarships. 

LAW & GENETICS: The Center for Law and the Biosciences will launch Feb. 27 with the conference “Unnatural Selection: Should California Regulate Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis?” Directed by Henry T. Greely (BA ’74), C. Wendell and Edith M. Carlsmith Professor of Law, the center will examine how new discoveries in bioscience will change society and how the law may affect those changes.

LESSIG WATCH: In October Professor Lawrence Lessig was tapped by Wired magazine to write a monthly column—and by judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for a citation. Both he and Mark Lemley, a visiting professor from UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall, were cited in the court’s Oct. 6 opinion in Brand X Internet Services v. FCC.

FACULTY TRAVELS: Robert Weisberg ’79, Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law, has run four marathons in the last six months, including a 4:03:36 jog in Seattle. ❖ A U.S. District Judge in November ruled in favor of Hawaii’s Kamehameha Schools, which were represented by Dean Kathleen M. Sullivan, saying that their Hawaiians-only admission policy was justified. ❖ Joseph Bankman, Ralph M. Parsons Professor of Law and Business, was a driving force behind new legislation that prohibits California from contracting with companies that establish headquarters abroad to avoid paying state taxes. Then-Gov. Gray Davis (BA ’64) signed the bill in October. ❖ Deborah Hensler, Judge John W. Ford Professor of Dispute Resolution, delivered the keynote address at the International Conference on Government Reform and the Civil Service System in Taiwan in October. ❖ Assistant Professor Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar was elected in January to the board of directors of the ACLU of Northern California. 

BUY THIS BOOK: The Law School’s Center for Internet and Society has published a book that criticizes rules allowing media consolidation to increase. The book, Media Ownership and Democracy in the Digital Information Age, is authored by Mark Cooper, research director of the Consumer Federation of America.