SANTA CLARA, Calif. – May 20, 2010
Linda Wuestehube and Erik Kaeding will be honored as the outstanding graduates at Santa Clara Law Commencement this Saturday.
Wuestehube, a part-time fourth year student, will receive Santa Clara Law’s Inez Mabie Award, given to “the graduating student who best represents the type of student Santa Clara University School of Law is most proud to graduate by reason of demonstrated qualities of scholarship, community leadership, and a sense of professional responsibility.” The award is sponsored by the Mabie Family Foundation.
When she entered Santa Clara Law, Wuestehube was selected by the administration to be a Santa Clara Law IP Fellow, a prestigious honor that includes a grant up to full tuition and is given to a handful of applicants who show enormous promise and have a demonstrated interest in high tech or IP law.
A single mother who lives more than an hour’s drive from SCU, Wuestehube spent her long commutes listening to podcasts of law school classes, including some classes in which she was not registered. A candidate for the High Technology Law Certificate, she previously earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Princeton, and during law school served as a research assistant for Michelle Oberman, who called her “the best research assistant ever.”
This past Spring, her paper “U.S. Patent Applications and Export Control Regulations: Seven Habits for Highly Effective Offshore Outsourcing” won the grand prize in the San Francisco IP Law Association’s second annual writing competition, which included $2500 and publication in the spring edition of the USF Intellectual Property Law Bulletin.
On the Dean’s List, Wuestehube ranks in the top 10 percent of her class, and the High Tech Law Institute designated her as one of 6 winners of the ABA-BNA Award for Excellence in the Study of Intellectual Property Law in 2009. The recipient of an Emery Merit Scholarship and a Public Interest and Social Justice Scholarship, Wuestehube has won other awards including a Witkin Awards for Academic Excellence in Legal Analysis, Research, and Writing; a CALI Excellence for the Future Award in Torts.
She has served in many leadership roles at the law school including as Comments Editor for the Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal; Session Leader in Civil Procedure for the Academic Success Program; Part-time Student Representative for the Health Care Law Society; member of the Intellectual Property Association; member of the Biotechnology Law Assocation, and participant in Honors Moot Court.
“Linda is a shining example of the truly remarkable talent we have at the law school,” said Eric Goldman, associate professor and director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara Law. “Her technical expertise is off the charts…She has taken full advantage of the law school experience—she’s a top academic performer, has taken a leadership role in the journal, she’s been a research assistant, she’s gotten involved in student groups, she’s won a writing competition. She’s exactly the type of person we hoped to recruit through the IP Fellows program.”
Erik Kaeding received the ALI-ABA Scholarship and Leadership Award, given “in recognition for being the graduate in this law school who best represents a combination of scholarship and leadership, the qualities embodied by the ALI-ABA parent organizations, the American Law Institute and the American Bar Association.”
Kaeding, who ranks in the top 10 percent of his class and on the Dean’s List, received a Public Interest and Social Justice Scholarship and numerous awards during law school, including the Best Brief Award, Appellate Advocacy; five CALI Excellence for the Future Awards, including Appellate Advocacy; Constitutional Law I; Legal Analysis, Research and Writing; Pleading and Civil Procedure; and Sexuality and the Law. He also has received five Witkin Awards for Academic Excellence including Administrative Law, Constitutional Law II, Contracts, Remedies, and Sexuality and the Law.
As a 2009 recipient of a Justice John Paul Stevens Public Interest Fellowship, Kaeding went to India to conduct legal and policy research and to help draft memoranda on behalf of Indian farmers in efforts to promote biodiversity and sustainable agricultural practices. Also during law school, he spent a summer abroad at The Hague, and served as a commissioner on the Disability Advisory Commission for the City of San Jose.
A candidate for the Public Interest and Social Justice Law Certificate, Kaeding served as research assistant to Patricia Cain, the Inez Mabie Distinguished Professor of Law at Santa Clara Law. Calling Kaeding “one of the best students I have ever had,” Cain said “he is passionately concerned about public issues and studiously researched most of them until he is clear about his own position. And then he becomes an advocate.” Cain also praised “the unique combination of his intelligence, his passion, his quest for truth, and his incredible compassion.”
ABOUT SANTA CLARA LAW
Santa Clara University School of Law, founded in 1911 on the site of California’s oldest operating higher-education institution, is dedicated to educating lawyers who lead with a commitment to excellence, ethics, and social justice. One of the nation’s most diverse law schools, Santa Clara Law offers its 1,000 students an academically rigorous program, including graduate degrees in international law and intellectual property law; combined J.D./MBA and J.D./MSIS degrees; and certificates in intellectual property law, international law, and public interest and social justice law. Santa Clara Law is located in the world-class business center of Silicon Valley, and is distinguished nationally for its top-ranked program in intellectual property. For more information, see lawscuedustage.wpengine.com.
ABOUT SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its 8,377 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, and engineering, plus master’s and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master’s universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.
