Seven King Hall Alumni Win 2016 California Lawyer of the Year Awards
Seven UC Davis School of Law alumni have been honored with California Lawyer magazine's annual "Lawyer of the Year" (CLAY) awards. 2016 honorees include:
- John Buse '92, Senior Counsel and Legal Director with the Center for Biological Diversity, and Adam Keats '97, a former attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity who is now with the Center for Food Safety, were honored for their work on Center for Biological Diversity v. California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which set a new standard for considering greenhouse gas emissions from proposed settlements;
- Monique Olivier '97, a Partner at Duckworth Peters Lebowitz Olivier in San Francisco, was honored for her work in medical malpractice;
- John Pingel '09, Associate at Reed Smith in San Francisco, was honored for leading the legal team that successfully litigated a nationwide class action challenging the federal government to comply with regulation specifying a 10-day deadline for officials to determine whether immigrants in U.S. custody have expressed a valid "reasonable fear" of torture or persecution if deported to their country of origin;
- Steven Rice '83, Chief Counsel with the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association in Pasadena, was honored for his work on Godoy-Ramirez v. Lynch, a case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted relief to a transgender woman who feared death if deported;
- Neil Sekhri '87, Of Counsel at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher in San Francisco, was honored for his work as part of the legal team that conceived an innovative path that complied with the California Environmental Quality Act while streamlining the process to build a stadium that will enable a National Football League team to relocate to Los Angeles;
- Joseph M. Yaffe '94, a Partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Associates in Palo Alto, was recognized for his work on the complicated $37 billion sale of Broadcom Corporation to Avago Technologies.