Alumna Wafa Hoballah, ’87, specializes in international law and immigration law, representing clients across the globe in business, commercial, and corporate law. She earned an LLM degree in 1987 from McGeorge School of Law.

Hoballah is originally from Lebanon. She serves on McGeorge’s International Board of Advisors. She said the board is a great fit for her because she is an international professional and can relate to international people and practices. Hoballah said she met her closest friends and many of her colleagues through McGeorge School of Law.

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Learn more about McGeorge’s International Board of Advisors.

McGeorge School of Law alumnus Iván Morales earned a JD degree in 1996 and an LLM degree in Transnational Business Practice in 1997. Morales was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He currently lives in Miami, but has lived in multiple cities across the globe. While at McGeorge School of Law, Morales felt at home on campus. He said the school gave him a broad sense of what he could do career-wise. He also said McGeorge has faculty that were experts in the areas of the law he was interested in.

Morales started his career with Gomez, Acebo & Pombo in Madrid, Spain before joining Shearman & Sterling in New York. He also worked for Linklaters’ practice in New York and Visa International as its Head of Legal Services and Government Relations for Latin America. Later, Morales became the General Counsel of the Somos Group, a Latin American Entertainment Group based in Miami, Florida. He established iCorporate Consulting, LLC in 2013.

Morales serves on McGeorge’s International Board of Advisors. He enjoys connecting with fellow alumni and continually improving the university and law school.

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Learn more about McGeorge’s International Board of Advisors.

Cassaundra Kassis, ’23, was drawn to McGeorge School of Law because of the school’s emphasis on legal writing and oral advocacy. Kassis is a member of the school’s Moot Court Honors Board and Womxn of Color Collective.

Kassis served as a law clerk for the California Victims Resource Center on campus and as a legal intern at American Gateways, which is a nonprofit organization in Texas that provides immigration legal services. After graduation, Kassis hopes to find a position as in-house counsel for a nonprofit organization.

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The University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law’s Pre-Law Boot Camp is designed for entering first-year law students who want to get a jump start on the skills needed to be successful in law school. Throughout the Pre-Law Boot Camp, the attendees will learn about legal writing, including how to engage in a proper legal analysis. Attendees will also be exposed to first-year courses and a series of hands-on learning activities.

Questions? Contact Timothy Peterkin, Director of Academic Support, at [email protected].

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Lauren Layne, ’10, serves as the president of the McGeorge School of Law Alumni Association Board of Directors. Layne is a partner at Baker Manock & Jensen, PC in Fresno, where she chairs the firm’s Business Department and leads the firm’s Water Law and Public Agency practice groups.

In addition to her service with the law school, she is currently serving as the President of the Alumni Association Board of Directors for her undergraduate institution, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

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Learn more about McGeorge’s Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Public Legal Services Society at McGeorge School of Law recently honored members of the McGeorge School of Law community for their public service at an event fundraising for summer grants. PLSS is a student organization that helps law students pursue careers in public service.

In this video, six students discuss how the PLSS Summer Grant Program at McGeorge School of Law helped them pursue public interest jobs:

  • Ilana Shoyket – United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 
  • April La Torre – Office of the Public Defender in Hawai’i 
  • Alek Kocher – California Department of Water Resources 
  • Elizabeth Griswold – Sacramento County Office of the Public Defender 
  • Kirsten Weber – Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office 
  • Angela Fuentes – Sacramento County Office of the Public Defender 

 

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In this video, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Experiential Learning, Mary-Beth Moylan, discusses the importance of the Joseph R. Lasser Part-Time Student Summer Tuition Scholarship.

The scholarship is for part-time law students who are required to take summer courses and face significant financial barriers to paying for those summer units. The scholarship is named, in honor of the late Joseph R. Lasser (1923-2011), a generous individual who cared deeply about access to higher education. Priority for the scholarship is given to students who cannot borrow through the subsidized federal student loan program.

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Alumnus Bryan Freedman, ’90, is one of the most influential entertainment litigators in the country. He co-founded Freedman + Taitelman, LLP in Los Angeles. In this video, Freedman discusses how he recently established a scholarship for McGeorge School of Law students interested in pursuing careers in entertainment law.

In an interview conducted by first-year law student Maya Alexandria, Freedman discusses the scholarship he established, how he got his start in the legal field, and how McGeorge empowered him to pursue his passion in entertainment law.

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McGeorge School of Law second-year law student Lyndsay Anderson advocates for clients through the school’s Homeless Advocacy Clinic. Photo by Victoria Ambriz.

As a later in life, “nontraditional” law student, my decision to go back to school had everything to do with knowing exactly what I wanted to do with my law degree; I wanted to dismantle the systems and knock down the barriers that contribute to the oppression of millions of people nationwide, particularly those experiencing poverty. Interning at the Homeless Advocacy Clinic (HAC) has given me the tools, knowledge, and confidence required to engage in public interest work long term.

My experience has been slightly different from most other students in that I spent my rising 2L summer and the entire 2L year in the Clinic. I was initially drawn to HAC because of its philosophy which promotes the importance of client-centered and holistic representation. One of HAC’s goals is to address the barriers faced by people experiencing homelessness. Working towards this goal, I assisted clients with issues ranging from obtaining social security benefits to criminal record expungement. It’s been truly eye-opening (and maddening!) to see how dysfunctional and counterproductive the systems that are in place to help people are.

HAC offers a unique student experience, and as soon as I started, I was given my own caseload. I had two amazing supervising attorneys, Professor Ron Hochbaum and Tori Larson, but was responsible for my cases and clients from start to finish. I managed all client communication, legal research, writing, client counseling, and appeared in court and hearings, when necessary. Managing my own caseload, I had full autonomy. I was scared and nervous at first, but it ended up being one of the most rewarding experiences working at the HAC. It provided me with an immense opportunity to learn how to navigate complex legal and bureaucratic issues, as well as how to connect with clients from all walks of life.

I am most grateful for the skills I gained during my time in HAC that extend beyond the law. HAC instills in all students the importance, and often difficulty in, building trust with clients. Many of our clients are unhoused, or in transient living situations, and have negative interactions with the legal system. Their relationships can be temporary, so it’s important to be a consistent, reliable presence in their lives. I really valued creating relationships with clients that went beyond their legal issues. I have spent almost a year working with a couple of my clients, and I know the continuity of our relationship enabled me to be a better advocate on their behalf.

During my year in HAC, my co-interns and I were fortunate enough to have seminar sessions on Trauma-Informed Lawyering. Our clients are so much more than their legal issues, and learning how to approach clients with a trauma-informed lens helps ensure students are the best advocate for their clients we can be. I am confident the skills I learned from trauma-informed lawyering will translate well into all areas of law and is not something I would’ve ever been exposed to through the general law school curriculum.

I loved my time in HAC, and feel fortunate I had the opportunity during law school to experience real client interaction, manage my own cases, and gain an understanding of how valuable a good lawyer-client relationship can be. The best part was being surrounded by classmates and supervising attorneys/mentors who created a supportive, creative, and positive problem-solving environment. Most importantly, I know that HAC is doing and will continue to do what is possibly the hardest legal work out there; advocating for unhoused people and people oppressed by poverty in our community and seeing them as more than just “clients.”

By Lyndsay Anderson, a second-year law student at McGeorge School of Law.

McGeorge School of Law third-year law student Ismael Perez is a Certified Law Student in McGeorge’s Homeless Advocacy Clinic. Photo by Victoria Ambriz.

I began working as a Certified Law Student for the Homeless Advocacy Clinic (HAC) in August 2022 and instantly realized the importance of the work we were doing for people experiencing homelessness. HAC’s Supervising Attorney Ron Hochbaum and Staff Attorney Tori Larson explained to me and the other law students that HAC embraced a holistic approach to representing its clients. That meant we also assisted our clients with the other issues they face on top of helping them with their legal issues. The HAC assists people experiencing homelessness or individuals who are housing insecure with legal issues, such as obtaining social security benefits, fighting their tickets, and providing criminal record remedies. Besides that, we also assisted our clients with countless other issues they faced.

I quickly discovered the importance of the holistic approach as I began to represent my own clients and handle their cases. Many times, my clients called upon me to help them with their life and day-to-day issues. Many of my clients suffer from physical and/or mental health problems that make normal day-to-day tasks even more difficult for them. I would assist clients by scheduling medical appointments, calling public entities like the welfare office or the Superior Court, getting transportation set up for them to make it to appointments, standing in line at the food bank so that they could have food, and applying or checking what services they were eligible for. The work I was doing made me realize that what I was providing was life-changing for my clients.

These activities could have been tedious at times for a legal representative, but I realized that doing this work meant that my client could get the treatment they desperately needed to function properly or have food or shelter. Without these services, it would be hard for my client to even focus on their legal issues as they are more worried about their basic human needs. Being able to assist my clients and provide these services for them helped build trust, which led to better legal representation.

Public work and volunteering have been interests of mine since I was an undergraduate student. I am doing so much fulfilling work that I am extremely grateful for at this level of my educational career. Many times, our unhoused neighbors are discriminated against and blamed for their life circumstances. I am proud of the work I have provided and what it means for my clients, but I am even more excited for HAC’s continued success and all the lives that will be touched by McGeorge students in the future. The 120 hours that each student spends at the Clinic per semester is no big feat for a law student, but it could mean the world to HAC’s clients.

By Ismael Perez, a third-year law student at McGeorge School of Law.