By Oliver Fredrickson

After a historically chaotic confirmation process, Brett Kavanaugh was finally sworn onto the Supreme Court on Saturday, Oct. 6.  Kavanaugh’s confirmation hung in the balance for 89 days amid concerns about his strongly conservative beliefs and later allegations of sexual assault. Nevertheless, the Senate confirmed his nomination by a vote of 50-48.

President Trump nominated Kavanaugh to fill the seat left by the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Since 2006, Justice Kennedy had been the decisive “swing vote” on a number of important issues. Replacing this seat with the unapologetically conservative Kavanaugh entirely reconfigures the composition of the Court. With a loyal five-man conservative bloc, future decisions on women’s rights, gay marriage, voting rights, the environment, and affordable health care will lie in the balance. Continue reading “Opinion: What’s the deal with Brett Kavanaugh?”

By Edgar Lopez, Student Bar Association President

Welcome to the 2018-19 school year! I hope you had a great summer.

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Edgar Lopez, and I am currently a 3L student at CWSL. I grew up in Beaumont, CA and attended undergrad at Cal State San Bernardino. I ran for SBA President because I enjoy being part of something that benefits the greater good. As President, I want to continue hosting and supporting great events, both on and off-campus. I am also excited to bring new ideas to the CWSL community.

Now let me tell you a little about who we are and what you can expect this upcoming year. Continue reading “SBA President: Welcome to 2018-19!”

California Western welcomes Kiyana Kiel as its new Assistant Dean of Academic Achievement. Kiel’s prior law school administration experience includes working as Director of Academic Success and Bar Programs at University of San Diego School of Law. Before that, she served as director of the McGeorge Education Pipeline Initiative, which coordinated academic enrichment activities, community service, and service-learning programs for K-12 and college students in the Sacramento region.

Kiel, a first-generation college student, earned her undergraduate degree in American Literature & Culture from UCLA and her law degree from UC Berkeley. In addition to working in legal education, she also has worked as an attorney, focusing on real estate, land use, and environmental transactions. Her passion for environmental law stems from her upbringing on her family farm in Compton, California, where she grew up riding horses, climbing avocado trees, and collecting eggs from the chicken coop. She and her husband have lived in San Diego since 2012, and they have a two-year-old daughter.

The Commentary interviewed Dean Kiel to ask about her professional background, her goals and ambitions in her new role, and her personal interests. Continue reading “Q&A with Kiyana Kiel, New Assistant Dean of Academic Achievement”

By Shane Dizon, Assistant Dean of Academic Achievement

It is with mixed emotions that I write this Commentary article, knowing it is one of the last (if not the last) opportunity I will get to address all of you while still playing the role of Dean Dizon. For those of you who do not know, I will be moving on to Brooklyn Law School to join its faculty as the Director of its Academic Success Program. It was a difficult decision for my family and me to reach, and I will dearly miss working with you, the faculty, and the staff of this great learning community.

But there is, at present, no time for tears. Only for “sweat equity,” as they call it in the business world – earning and owning a piece of the enterprise – in this case, your success as a law student and your solid foundational preparation for the bar exam.

Yet rather than bombard you with platitudes of how you should be doing every practice exam in sight and be prepared to put in the long hours to earn every point, I’m writing this article at your editors’ request to explain the grading curve in a bit more detail (for more information, you can also see Cal Western’s Academic Policies in full). Continue reading “Dean Dizon Demystifies the Grading Curve”

In late June 2017, Tabrez Ebrahim, a Texas-raised patent attorney born in India, began his weeklong road trip from Houston, Texas, to San Diego, California. Just weeks later, he would begin teaching classes at California Western, marking the start of his first full-time teaching position.

Before pursuing a career in law, Prof. Ebrahim was a R&D engineer in Silicon Valley and attended Stanford University to attain his Master’s in mechanical engineering, as well as a graduate certificate in entrepreneurship.  He later earned both his JD and MBA from Northwestern University, before returning to his home state of Texas to eventually attain his LLM in Intellectual Property and Information Law from the University of Houston Law Center. Prof. Ebrahim also worked as a full-time patent attorney in Texas prior to joining the Cal Western faculty.

The Commentary sat down with Prof. Ebrahim to ask him about his journey, his experience at Cal Western, and his new IP elective course, Transactional Intellectual Property, that he will be offering in Fall 2018. Continue reading “New Elective This Fall: Q&A with Professor Ebrahim”