MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIR

Written by David M. Goldstein
Farmer Brownstein Jaeger Goldstein Klein & Siegel LLP San Francisco, California

Our Section has made tremendous progress since separating from the State Bar in 2017. In addition to continuing with our traditional publications, events, and programs, we adopted bylaws and other governing documents, formed Standing Committees, wrote our mission statement, crafted strategic plans, and implemented diversity programs. This past year we continued to move forward by making progress on five high-level priorities.

Membership: The Executive Committee engages in many activities that run like well-oiled machines, including our publications, events, and programs. But we need to continue to focus on delivering what our members want and developing broader and deeper relationships with our members. This year, our Membership Committee analyzed our membership and made significant strides in developing strategies focused on membership and our members. In the coming months, we will be reaching out to many of you and your firms, agencies, and companies.

UCL: In September 2021, we formed an ad hoc UCL Committee and tasked it with developing a strategy to increase and improve our UCL offerings. That Committee met regularly during the year, and in July 2022 the Executive Committee voted to make it a Standing Committee. The UCL Committee has been contributing content to our publications: Treatise, Competition, and E-brief, News and Notes. It has coordinated with the Education Committee on programming, including a UCL panel at the Golden State Antitrust and UCL Institute (GSI) on November 10, 2022. And the UCL Committee will host a half-day UCL Institute and reception on January 12, 2023 in Los Angeles.

Education: Many of us thought that as soon as Covid allowed, we should hold more in-person programs and CLE programming focused on thought-provoking topics. This includes in-person events such as GSI and the Antitrust Lawyer of the Year Award, Celebrating Women in Competition Law, the UCL Institute, and

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networking events for members or those interested in becoming a member. Our plan for 2022-2023 will follow that path with a return to in-person programs and events, and a refreshed on-line CLE catalogue.

New and Young Lawyers: It can be intimidating and challenging for new and young lawyers to enter a new practice area and develop connections to practitioners. We have had a young lawyer serve as our representative to CLA’s New Lawyers Committee (formerly the Young Lawyers Committee), but we felt that was not enough to accomplish our goals. This year we formed a New Lawyers Committee to work on strategies to make our practice area more interesting, exciting, and welcoming to new and young lawyers. The New Lawyers Committee has created a webpage to learn about antitrust, the UCL, and our Section: https://calawyers.org/section/antitrust-unfair-competition-law/for-new-lawyers. This committee will coordinate with our other committees and CLA’s New Lawyers Committee to develop pathways to join our practice area.

Governance: We adopted a new structure for the Executive Committee. In the past, the Executive Committee had a Chair, Treasurer, Secretary, and as many as 10 Vice Chairs. This year, we eliminated all but two of the Vice Chair positions. Now, the Treasurer and Secretary also have the Vice Chair title and role. Other Executive Committee members serve as Chairs or Vice Chairs of a Standing Committee or another committee, or simply as members of the Executive Committee. We also enlarged the pool of Executive Committee members eligible to serve as Chair, and now you can apply to join a Standing Committee on a rolling basis rather than only in January each year.

We undertook these big picture priorities in addition to our usual activities. Among other things, we (1) published a new edition of the Treatise in January 2022 and just sent the January 2023 edition to the printer; (2) published two editions of Competition; (3) sent the monthly E-brief, News and Notes; (4) hosted part 1 of 2021 GSI in November 2021 and continued with part 2 in May 2022; (5) honored Dan Wall of Latham & Watkins as our 2021 Antitrust Lawyer of the Year; (6) hosted Celebrating Women in Competition Law; (7) put on several other exciting programs and panels; (8) awarded our second Inclusion and Diversity Fellowship to Marshall Fern of California Western School of Law; (9) provided comments on proposed changes to CLA’s diversity policy; and (10) wrote CLA’s antitrust compliance policy. And we had great fun doing it all!

Next up, GSI is November 10, 2022, in the Julia Morgan Ballroom. Following GSI, we will host our 2022 Antitrust Lawyer of the Year reception and dinner, honoring Elizabeth Pritzker of Pritzker Levine LLP. We hope to see you there!

Thank you to our Executive Committee members who are rolling off after contributing so much of their time and effort to the Section: Robert Connolly, Abiel Garcia, Steve McIntyre, Rob McNary, Ian Papendick, and our new lawyer representative Mandy Chan. Special thanks to Paul Riehle, the Section’s representative to CLA’s Board for the past four years.

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I want to welcome Dominique Alepin (Chair), Jonathan Levine (Vice Chair and Treasurer), and Belinda Lee (Vice Chair and Secretary), who will lead the Executive Committee this year. And welcome also to Jill Manning, who is the Section’s new representative to CLA’s Board. This is a terrific group to lead the Section and represent us on CLA’s Board.

Finally, I want to thank the members of the Executive Committee, our Advisors, and all of the Section’s many members who contribute their time and effort to support our publications, programs, and events. Most of us joined the Section to become part of California’s Antitrust and UCL community—and what a wonderful community it is! No matter how vigorously we represent our clients on opposite sides of the v., our community practices with professionalism, courtesy, and respect. My year as Chair—working closely with both co-counsel and opposing counsel in cases—confirmed how wonderful it is to practice antitrust and unfair competition law in California. Thank you for the honor and privilege of serving as Chair this past year.

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