Kicking off 2025, the University of California, Irvine School of Law stands as a national leader in legal education, scholarship, and advocacy, with its faculty, staff and administrators serving in prestigious roles across major academic, professional, and legal organizations. From guiding influential editorial boards and spearheading interdisciplinary initiatives to chairing national committees and advising global policymaking bodies, the UC Irvine Law community plays an active role driving improvements and innovations in law and legal education.
In holding these leadership roles, our faculty are at the forefront of major changes occurring in the academy and the legal profession. Many of the roles are focused on advancing excellence within and beyond the classroom, including leadership positions related to clinical and experiential education, legal writing and research, library services, academic support and the bar exam. Faculty also hold leadership roles connected to several areas of academic scholarship — including alternative dispute resolution, business law, civil rights, criminal justice, consumer debt, diversity and equity, environmental justice, freedom of speech, human rights, indigenous law, international and comparative law, labor law, the legal profession, privacy law, socio-legal studies, and tax law and policy. The broad range of roles underscore not only the Law School’s commitment to academic excellence and interdisciplinary innovation, but more broadly to active engagement with the communities we serve, with several supporting nonprofit and public interest organizations.
“We are proud to celebrate the remarkable leadership of our faculty and staff,” said Dean and Chancellor’s Professor of Law Austen L. Parrish. “Their contributions to prominent organizations reflect not only their individual expertise and personal dedication but also embody the values that define our community.”
2025 Leadership Highlights
- Sameer Ashar, Clinical Professor of Law: Board of Editors, Clinical Law Review; Advisory Board Member, The Action Lab; Advisory Board Member, Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice; Member, Labor Law Group
- Amy Atchison, Acting Director of the Law Library: Treasurer, Legal Information Preservation Alliance; Secretary, Artificial Intelligence Caucus, American Association of Law Libraries; Member, Scholarship Committee, Southern California Association of Law Libraries (SCALL)
- Swethaa Ballakrishnen, Professor of Law: Editorial Board Member, Law & Social Inquiry; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Law & Society Review; Editorial Board Member, Journal of Professions and Organization; Board of Trustees, Asian Law and Society Association; Fellow, American Bar Foundation
- Mario Barnes, Chancellor’s Professor of Law: President, Law & Society Association; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Law & Society Review; Secretary of the Fellows, American Bar Foundation; Member, The American Law Institute
- Mary Basick, Assistant Dean of Academic Skills: Chair of the Law School Council, State Bar of California; Co-Chair, Online Presence Committee for the Association of Academic Success Educators (AASE)
- Joshua Blank, Professor of Law: Chair, Teaching Taxation Committee of the American Bar Association Tax Section, after having served as Vice Chair of the committee for the past two years; Executive Committee Member, International Fiscal Association (IFA)-US; Fellow, American Bar Foundation; Fellow, American College of Tax Counsel
- Alejandro Camacho, Chancellor’s Professor of Law: Board of Directors, Center for Progressive Reform; Review Editor, Editorial Board, Frontiers in Climate, Climate Law & Policy; American Law Institute Member Consultative Group, Restatement Fourth of Property; Fellow, American Bar Foundation; Member, The American Law Institute
- Robert S. Chang, Professor of Law and Sylvia Mendez Presidential Chair for Civil Rights: Steering Committee Member, Race Center Network; Board of Directors, Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Faculty; Civil Rights Committee Member, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association; Member, The American Law Institute
- Rachel E. Croskery-Roberts, Professor of Lawyering Skills: Immediate Past President, Association of Legal Writing Directors; Chair, AALS Section on Teaching Methods; Treasurer, AALS Section on Women in Legal Education; Fellow, American Bar Foundation
- Joseph F.C. DiMento, Distinguished Professor of Law: Executive Committee Member, AALS Section on Animal Law; Fellow, American Bar Foundation
- Veena Dubal, Professor of Law: General Counsel, American Association of University Professors; Executive Committee Member, AALS Section on Labor Relations and Employment Law; Board of Trustees, Law & Society Association; Advisor, The Phoenix Project; Advisory Board Member, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC); Board Member at the following organizations: Law & Political Economy Blog, Public Rights Project, Worker Info Exchange.
- Natascha Ryan Fastabend, Executive Director, Graduate Tax Program: Member and Liaison for the Young Tax Lawyers Group, Executive Committee for the California Lawyers Association Taxation Section
- Christine Francis, Associate Director of Academic Skills: Member, Programming Committee for the Association of Academic Success Educators (AASE)
- Cristina Gapasin Tortal, Assistant Dean for Admissions & Student Financial Servies: Member, LSAC Assessments Committee; Member, Thrive Scholars Law Advisory Council; and Founding Member, Law School Womxn of Color Collective
- Evelyn Goessling, Electronic Resources and Metadata Law Librarian: News & Social Media Coordinator, Librarian’s Association of the University of California (LAUC); Member, Programs Committee, LAUC Irvine Division (LAUC-I)
- Liam Gillen, Director of Admissions: Communications Chair, AALS Pre-Law Education and Admission to Law School Section
- Andrew Gold, Professor of Law: Co-organizer, North American Workshop on Private Law Theory; Co-organizer, Fiduciary Law Workshop; Member, The American Law Institute
- Kevin Haeberle, Professor of Law: Program Fellow, Columbia Law School & Business School Program in the Law and Economics of Capital Markets
- Dalié Jiménez, Professor of Law: Editorial Advisory Board Member, Law & Society Review; Affiliated Faculty, California Policy Lab; Fellow, American Bar Foundation; Member, The American Law Institute
- David Kaye, Clinical Professor of Law: Independent Expert of the United States to the European Commission for Democracy Through Law (Venice Commission); Board of Directors/Trustee, ARTICLE 19; Academic Member and Former Board Chair, Global Network Initiative; Advisory Board, De|Center; Life Member, Council on Foreign Relations
- Ben Kwak, Associate Director of Admissions and Pipeline Initiatives: Career Officer, Law School Admissions Minority Network
- Sung Eun (Summer) Kim, Professor of Law: Executive Committee Member, AALS Section on Business Associations
- Annie Lai, Clinical Professor of Law: Board Member, Just Futures Law; Advisory Board Member, Liberty Fund
- Dana Lee, Assistant Professor of Law and Mohannad and Rana Malas Scholar in Islamic Legal Studies: Chair, AALS Section on Islamic Law
- Stephen Lee, Professor of Law: Fellow, American Bar Foundation; Member, The American Law Institute
- Christopher Leslie, Chancellor’s Professor of Law: Contributing Editor, Antitrust Law Journal (peer-reviewed academic journal of the ABA Section on Antitrust Law); Advisory Board Member, American Antitrust Institute
- Elizabeth F. Loftus, Distinguished Professor of Psychological Science; Criminology, Law & Society; Cognitive Science; and Law: Advisory Board Member, Arbitration Sciences Limited; Lifetime Corresponding Fellow, Royal Society of Edinburgh; Editorial Board Member at the following journals: Journal of Criminal Psychology; Memory, Mind & Media; Experimental Psychology; Psychology, Crime & Law; Elected Member at the following organizations: National Academy of Sciences; American Academy of Arts and Sciences; American Philosophical Society
- Beth Maoui, Assistant Director of Career Development, Private Sector: Immediate Past-President, San Diego Legal Recruitment Association (SDLRA)
- Omri Marian, Professor of Law: United States National Reporter for the 77th Congress of the International Fiscal Association (IFA)
- Susan McMahon, Professor of Lawyering Skills: Board Member, Journal of the Legal Writing Institute
- Carrie Menkel-Meadow, Distinguished and Chancellor’s Professor of Law: Associate Editor, Negotiation Journal, Harvard Program on Negotiation; Life Fellow, The American Law Institute; Fellow, American Bar Foundation; Member, Academy of Civil Trial Mediators; Member, Board of the International Center for Prevention and Resolution of Disputes (CPR); Theatrical Producer, Fountain Theatre
- Alison Mikkor, Professor of Lawyering Skills: Board of Directors, Association of Legal Writing Directors; Editor, Journal of Legal Education
- Ashley Newton, Acquisitions and Metadata Law Librarian: Compiler, Newsletter Committee, Southern California Association of Law Libraries (SCALL)
- Austen L. Parrish, Dean and Chancellor’s Professor of Law: 2025 President, AALS; Deans Steering Committee Member, AALS 2025 Annual Meeting; Board of Directors, Public Law Center; Board of Directors, AccessLex Institute; Fellow, American Bar Foundation; Member, The American Law Institute
- Jessica Pierucci, Research Law Librarian for Foreign, Comparative, and International Law: Member, Scholarship Awards Jury, American Association of Law Libraries (AALL); Member, Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Special Interest Section Publicity Committee, AALL; Member, Library School Liaison Committee, Southern California Association of Law Libraries (SCALL); Member, International Research Group Awards Committee, American Society of International Law (ASIL)
- R. Anthony Reese, Chancellor’s Professor of Law: American Law Institute Associate Reporter, Restatement of the Law, Copyright; Member, The American Law Institute
- L. Song Richardson, Chancellor’s Professor of Law: Board Member, Citizens and Scholars; Member, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s Consensus Study Committee titled “Advancing the Field of Forensic Pathology: Lessons Learned from Death in Custody Investigations;” Board Member, AAC&U (American Association of Colleges and Universities); Fellow, American Bar Foundation; Member, The American Law Institute
- Ezra Ross, Professor of Lawyering Skills: Editorial Board Member, The Second Draft; Fellow, American Bar Foundation
- Kenneth W. Simons, Chancellor’s Professor of Law: American Law Institute Chief Reporter, Restatement Third of Torts: Intentional Torts to Persons; Member, The American Law Institute; Editorial Board Member, Criminal Law and Philosophy: An International Journal
- Ann Southworth, Professor of Law: Executive Committee Member, AALS Section on Empirical Study of Legal Education and the Legal Profession
- Jane K. Stoever, Clinical Professor of Law: Co-Chair, Communications Committee, AALS Section on Clinical Legal Education, Chair-Elect Secretary, UC Irvine Academic Senate
- Shauhin Talesh, Professor of Law: Executive Committee Member, Law and Society Association; Board of Trustees, Law and Society Association; President, Big West Conference Council; General Editor, Law & Society Review; Executive Committee Member, AALS Section on Insurance Law; Fellow, American Bar Foundation
- Heather Tanana, Visiting Professor of Law: Chair, AALS Section on Indian Nations and Indigenous Peoples; Indigenous Law Committee Member, American Bar Association Section on Environment, Energy, and Resources (SEER); Environmental Justice Taskforce Member, American Bar Association
- Colleen Taricani, Assistant Dean for Communications: Executive Board Member, AALS Section on Institutional Advancement
- Emily Taylor Poppe, Professor of Law: Editorial Board Member, Law & Social Inquiry; Editorial Advisory Board Member, Law & Society Review; Reporter, Uniform Transfers to Minors Act Committee, Uniform Law Commission
- Christina Tsou, Head of Public Services: Co-Chair, Newsletter Committee, Southern California Association of Law Libraries (SCALL)
- Ari Waldman, Professor of Law: Founder and Chair, Law & Technology Theory and Methods Workshop Series; Chair, Privacy Law Scholars Conference; President, Privacy Law Scholars Foundation; Editorial Board Member, Law, Technology, and Humans (peer-reviewed journal); Board Member and Compliance Officer, Cyber Civil Rights Initiative; Chair of the Board, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC); Program Committee Member and Co-Host, West Coast Sexuality, Gender, and Law Conference; Member, The American Law Institute
- Christopher A. Whytock, Professor of Law: Member, The American Law Institute; Member, U.S. Delegation to the Hague Conference on Private International Law, Working Group on a Convention on Jurisdiction in Transnational Civil or Commercial Litigation; Member, U.S. State Department Advisory Committee on Private International Law; American Law Institute Adviser, Uniform Law Commission Conflict of Laws in Trusts and Estates Drafting Committee; American Law Institute Associate Reporter, Restatement of the Law Third, Conflict of Laws; Research Team, Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation project on The Review of Regulation 650/2012 in Matters of Succession: Application, Assessment, and Proposals for Amendments
- Nasreen Zia, Director of Student Financial Services: Member, National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators; Member, UCI Asian Pacific Islander (API) Staff & Faculty Association; Advisory Board Member, AccessLex Institute Max Program; Executive Policy Committee Member, AccessLex Institute