Dear Friends,

Last week, we welcomed to Charney Hall our new class of JD students. They are truly remarkable in every way: they have the highest median LSAT score in the history of our law school; they come from all walks of life and reflect the wondrous diversity of divine creation; they all earned an unconditional scholarship by virtue of our innovative Pledge Scholarship program, and they all have a great strength of character and an eagerness to use their talents and their legal education in the service of and with their clients and communities. We are so grateful to Dean Caitlin Jachimowicz and our admissions team for attracting these wonderful students to our community, and we are grateful to each one of our students for entrusting us with their life-long journey in the law. 

They began their journeys at Santa Clara Law with a deep, powerful, and joyful orientation program, centered on their formation as respectful and responsible legal professionals. Tremendous thanks go to Dean Nicole Maxwell for her vision, leadership, and hard work in orchestrating their entire transformative experience and to the Law Student Services team. Thanks as well go to our incredible Law Student Services team, Law Administrative Services professionals, faculty, staff-educators, administrators, current students, alumni, Technology, Office of Academic and Bar Success, Office of the Dean, Alumni Relations, and university partners for providing wrap around support for all of the newest members of our learning community.

Our orientation program culminated in our Convocation ceremony, in which our entire legal community gathered together to express and live out our collective gratitude, reflection, purpose, and the shared values that connect us on a human level. We were joined by Howard Charney, our Distinguished Innovator in Residence; Fr. Matthew Carnes, S.J.; and University Provost Jim Glaser. Judge Risë Pichon, our Distinguished Jurist in Residence led our 1L students in the Oath of Professionalism, and Dorian Daley, Chair of our Law Advisory Board, shared powerful and sage remarks on expectations, importance, and integrity in the law school journey. Our 2026 student-elected SBA Co-Presidents, Connor Fehrenbach and Justin Zumel, encouraged students to embrace change and seek to realize their dreams through the pursuit of justice. 

In addition to our 1L students, we also welcomed five new outstanding full-time faculty members to Santa Clara Law, each with a distinguished record of scholarship, teaching, professional accomplishment, and public service. 

Brandon Honoré is joining Santa Clara Law as an Assistant Professor of Law. His scholarship focuses on property and public law, combining interdisciplinary qualitative, quantitative, and geospatial analyses with doctrinal interpretation to reveal systemic injustices and propose reforms.

Erika Douglas is joining Santa Clara Law as an Associate Professor of Law and as Co-Supervisor of the Privacy Law Certificate. Her scholarship focuses on the interactions between antitrust, data privacy, and regulation.

Megan Crane is joining Santa Clara Law as a Clinical Professor of Law and as the new Legal Director of the NCIP, leading its post-conviction innocence litigation efforts, supervising its staff attorneys, and teaching its law clinic.

Tania Valdez is our new Albert J. Ruffo Assistant Professor of Law. Her scholarship is dedicated to the study and practice of immigration law, highlighting the inadequacies of protections for noncitizens in the current era of aggressive immigration enforcement. 

Sejal Patel is our new Senior Fellow. She has been practicing law for over 25 years, starting her career in the U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division/ Fraud Section and in the Domestic Violence and Sex Office Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office. She has also had a solo practice out of Boston, through which she represented many defendants at the trial and appellate levels in the Massachusetts state and federal courts. 

We are blessed that faculty of this caliber and character have chosen to make Santa Clara Law their home. Their arrival is a testament to how we are rising together as we continue to enrich our curriculum, expand our scholarly community, and further our mission of developing competent, conscientious, and compassionate lawyers. 

As our newest faculty colleagues and students already have realized, we are not just a law school. We are a transformative learning community built on an ethic of loving kindness. We are joined together by a common creed, common calling, and common covenant. We believe that each person is beautifully unique, but every one is created in the image and likeness of God and therefore has infinite worth and must be treated with equal dignity and respect. We are called by our Jesuit, Catholic Mission to care deeply for each other–to practice cura personalis; to show each other the way to the common good; to walk with the poor, the marginalized, and those whose human dignity has been violated in a mission of reconciliation and justice; to collaborate in the care of our common home and the universal destination of goods and services, and to accompany each other in the creation of a hope filled future.

We are woven together in our powerful relationships by a sacred covenant—a sacred and enduring interpersonal and intergenerational promise—to treat each other and all who we encounter with loving kindness.

With warm regards and great gratitude,   

 

Michael J. Kaufman
Dean and Professor of Law
Santa Clara University School of Law