University of California, Irvine School of Law

06/12/2026

UCI Law in NYC is in full swing for summer 2026! Students recently visited The Frick Collection and had the opportunity to hear from alumna Kanome' Jones '24, an associate at Fenwick & West LLP in New York, who shared insights about her practice and career advice with current and incoming students.
Now in its seventh year, this immersive summer program — led by Professor Joshua Blank — continues to connect students, alumni and legal professionals through educational, professional and cultural experiences across New York City.

More events are still to come:
• June 16 – Virtual Roundtable with Francis Yang ('16), Senior Regulatory Counsel at Meta
• June 23 – Virtual Roundtable with Joseph Penko and Shalom Huber, Partners at Skadden
• June 28 – Tour of The High Line
• July 12 – Democracy Matters at the New York Historical Society

Details and registration information are available at law.uci.edu/nyc.

Images Description: Students visit The Frick Collection in New York City, pose inside the museum, and participate in a virtual roundtable with alumna Kanome' Jones ('24), associate at Fenwick & West LLP, as part of the UCI Law in NYC summer program.

06/11/2026

UC Irvine Law rising 3L Ray Zeng has won the championship at Legal Challenge IX, the annual international moot court competition hosted by the Games Industry Law Summit, a leading global forum for legal professionals working in the video game industry. 🏆

“Some of the hardest cross-border problems in intellectual property, contracts, and regulation get worked out in the games industry first,” said Ray Zeng. “To win Legal Challenge IX in front of practitioners from more than 50 countries — and to feel that a U.S.-trained, China-fluent lawyer belonged in that room — was everything I came to UC Irvine Law to build toward.”

Competing alongside teammate Han Pang, a law student at George Washington University Law School, and mentored by Tracey Tang (AnJie Broad Law Firm), Zeng’s team, Perceval, achieved the competition’s top prize after advancing through multiple rounds of written and oral advocacy. The team also earned the award for Best Memorandum for Claimant, while Zeng was recognized with the competition’s individual Best Oralist award.

As champions, Zeng and Pang were invited to attend the Games Industry Law Summit in Berlin, where they joined legal professionals from around the world to discuss emerging issues in gaming, technology, intellectual property and international business law.

🔗 Read more: https://news.law.uci.edu/2026/06/08/uc-irvine-law-rising-3l-ray-zeng-wins-international-moot-court-championship-earns-best-oralist-honors/

Image description: Ray Zeng, Han Pang and mentor Tracey Tang pose at the Games Industry Summit in Berlin after winning the Legal Challenge IX international moot court competition.

06/10/2026

In the episode, "Can You Pivot From Big Law To An Academic Career?" on The Legal Department podcast, Dean Austen Parrish discusses his transition from private practice to legal academia, his path to serving as dean of three different law schools and why teaching can be a natural progression for practicing lawyers.

The conversation also explores UC Irvine Law's new in-house counsel certificate program, "From Lawyer to Leader: The Road to the General Counsel Seat," and how law schools are preparing students and lawyers for a changing legal profession shaped by new technologies and evolving career paths.

Listen to the audio podcast: https://legaldepartmentpod.com/2026/06/09/can-you-pivot-from-big-law-to-an-academic-career-austen-parrish-dean-university-of-california-irvine-school-of-law-e95

Image description: Text reads: “Dean Austen Parrish joined The Legal Department podcast to discuss his transition from Big Law to academia, leadership in legal education, and how law schools are preparing students for a changing legal profession.” Displayed over a photo of the UC Irvine School of Law building.

06/09/2026

Dean Austen Parrish recently visited South Korea and Taiwan in April 2026 for a series of engagements at judicial institutions, universities and an international legal education symposium, building on UC Irvine Law's longstanding international partnerships and collaborations.

Hosted by the Association of Korean Law Schools (AKLS), Dean Parrish visited Korea both in his role as the immediate past president of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) and as dean of UC Irvine Law, building on an historic collaborative agreement signed by AALS and AKLS in January 2026. The visit provided several opportunities for Dean Parrish to describe innovations occurring at U.S. law schools and to learn more about developments in Korea.

“This was my third visit to Korea since joining UC Irvine, and the Law School’s collaborations, including through our Korea Law Center, are special,” said Dean Parrish. “I received such a warm welcome.”

Read more: https://news.law.uci.edu/2026/06/08/dean-parrish-legal-community-korea-taiwan/

Images description: Dean Austen Parrish engages with legal educators, judges, attorneys, students and institutional partners during visits to South Korea and Taiwan.

06/09/2026

The UC Irvine Law Community and Economic Development Clinic recently represented residents in the purchase of their mobile home park, Alisal Country Estates, for $12 million. The acquisition, completed on May 11, continues the clinic’s longstanding work of supporting community ownership.

The UC Irvine Law students who worked on the Alisal Country Estates closing were rising third-year students Amber Nelson, Alyssa Hamamoto, Tomas Chang, Ryan May, and Ray Zeng. Clinic students who worked on the representation in earlier semesters included Kevin Arreola, Amanda Hamilton, Kingsley Tony-Egbuniwe, Tyler Lowell, Ben Strehlow, Kelsea Clemente, and Ariana Keshishian. They worked under the supervision of UC Irvine Law clinical faculty Carrie Hempel, Adam Cowing, and Ana Marie del Rio.

CED began representing Alisal Country Estates, Inc. (Alisal) in spring 2025, and subsequent clinic teams have assisted Alisal in setting up a cooperative legal structure, drafting governance policies, and securing financing to make the purchase possible.

“Meeting residents in person made the work feel very real,” said rising third-year law student Alyssa Hamamoto. “It was rewarding to see how much this acquisition meant to the community and to know that our work could help residents preserve affordable housing and gain greater control over the future of their park.”

Images description: The Community and Economic Development Clinic team visits Salinas, California, as part of its work supporting the purchase of Alisal Country Estates.

Read more: https://news.law.uci.edu/2026/06/05/uc-irvine-law-community-and-economic-development-clinic-helps-salinas-farmworker-community-purchase-their-mobile-home-park/

06/09/2026

Join UC Irvine Law's 2026 Supreme Court Term in Review as distinguished faculty and legal practitioners discuss the Court's most significant rulings and what they may mean for the future of law and policy.

Moderated by Dean Austen Parrish, the panel features Profs. Mario Barnes, Courtney Cahill, Robert S. Chang, and Ji Seon Song, along with Paul Watford, Partner at King & Spalding.

📅 Tuesday, July 7 | 🕞 3:30–5:00 p.m. PDT
📍 Irvine Barclay Theatre + Livestream
📌 Free and registration is required. Register now: https://zotspot.uci.edu/law/rsvp_boot?id=1944989

Presented by TorkLaw.

Image description: UC Irvine Law’s 16th Annual Supreme Court Term in Review, July 7, 2026, featuring an image of the U.S. Supreme Court building and presented by TorkLaw.

06/05/2026

The Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality and Immigrant and Racial Justice Solidarity Clinic at UC Irvine Law filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of Vet Voice Foundation and the Korematsu Center in the case E.K. v. Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) pending in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

DoDEA provides pre-K-12 education to children of military personnel around the world. Following President Trump’s Executive Orders banning “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology,” DoDEA removed hundreds of books, curricula on gender, race, and sexuality, and cultural awareness celebrations from its schools. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of DoDEA students, challenges DoDEA’s censorship of books, curricula, and cultural celebrations under the First Amendment.

In October 2025, a district court in Virginia entered a preliminary injunction declaring DoDEA’s enforcement of executive orders resulting in classroom censorship unconstitutional. The amicus brief urges the Fourth Circuit to affirm the district court’s preliminary injunction.

https://news.law.uci.edu/2026/06/05/korematsu-center-amicus-brief-first-amendment-case/

Image description: Text reads: “UC Irvine Law Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality, and the Immigrant and Racial Justice Solidarity Clinic, filed an amicus brief in E.K. v. Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) pending in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.”

06/05/2026

Three teams from UC Irvine Law’s Ninth Circuit Appellate Litigation Clinic recently briefed and argued appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit — and by all accounts, the students rose to the occasion.

UC Irvine Law Class of 2026 graduates Victor Bao, Meng Diao, Carlos Fairbanks, Nicholas Liu, Nicholas O’Rilley and Solon Tan appeared before the Ninth Circuit under the supervision of Clinic Co-Directors Peter Afrasiabi and Kathryn Davis, and Michael Seplow of Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & Zeldes, LLP.

“The students all did an excellent job,” said Peter Afrasiabi. “The arguments are well worth watching — they demonstrate the advocacy training of the prior school year in real world deployment, and the use of the learnable advocacy and persuasion skills we focus so heavily on in the clinic.”
Watch the oral arguments: https://news.law.uci.edu/2026/06/05/uc-irvine-law-ninth-circuit-appellate-litigation-clinic-teams-argue-three-appeals-before-ninth-circuit-panels/

Image Description: Six UC Irvine Law students present oral arguments before Ninth Circuit panels as part of the Appellate Litigation Clinic.

06/04/2026

A cohort of UC Irvine Law students and recent alumni have secured highly competitive public interest fellowships to champion access to justice. Five recent graduates have been selected for competitive post-graduate fellowships advancing housing rights, immigrant justice, civil liberties, employment law, and education equity — and three current students were awarded coveted summer fellowships in workers’ rights — a testament to the school’s enduring commitment to public service.

Together, their selections reflect both individual excellence and UC Irvine Law’s deep institutional commitment to training lawyers who go on to serve those who need it most.

“We are incredibly proud of these graduates and our continuing students,” said Dean and Chancellor’s Professor of Law Austen Parrish. “They have worked hard to get here, and the organizations that selected them are fortunate to have them. This is exactly what UC Irvine Law is about — training skilled, committed lawyers who go on to do meaningful and impactful work.”

Read more: https://news.law.uci.edu/2026/06/04/uc-irvine-law-students-graduates-public-interest-fellowships/

Image description: Portraits of eight UC Irvine Law students and recent graduates selected for prestigious public interest fellowships.

06/03/2026

Professor Omri Marian was quoted in Bloomberg Law discussing two cryptocurrency tax cases that could shape how digital assets are taxed in the future.

“What they’re pursuing is tax exemptions in places where there is no tax exemption,” Marian said, noting that the cases could sidestep current IRS guidance.

Two federal court cases are serving as the testing grounds for when certain kinds of newly created cryptocurrency become taxable income, in an area where some legal observers say regulators haven’t yet established clear rules.