The University of the Pacific Law Review (UPLR) and California Victims Resource Center (CVRC) will host its annual Pacific Law Review Symposium on Friday, February 21, 2025. The symposium will bring together legal scholars, practitioners, and advocates to explore the history, current developments, and future trajectory of the Victims' Rights Movement.

This year’s symposium, entitled “Victims' Rights Movement: Past, Present and the Future,” will run from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. PT at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law. The moderated discussion will be followed by a hosted reception. The event is free and open to the public.

The CVRC at McGeorge School of Law recently celebrated its 40-year anniversary, marking four decades of dedicated service to victims of crime. In recognition of this milestone, the symposium will provide a platform to explore the significant progress made in victims’ rights over the years and the challenges that remain.

"The Victims' Rights Movement has inspired a significant shift in our justice system over the past several decades, and scholars and practitioners continue to debate its successes and failures,” said third-year law student Kara Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of the UPLR. “As the California Victims Resource Center recognizes 40 years of service at McGeorge School of Law and beyond, this is the time and place to host a thoughtful conversation on the Victims' Rights Movement's past, present, and future."

Paul Cassell will deliver the keynote address at the symposium. Cassell is the Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and a distinguished professor of law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law. He specializes in victims’ rights, criminal justice reform, and criminal procedure. He is the leading voice in the national conversation on criminal justice reform, particularly regarding sentencing policies and the impact of excessive federal sentencing. In 2020, he was awarded the Ronald Wilson Reagan Public Policy Award from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The symposium will be moderated by McGeorge faculty, including Associate Dean of Scholarship and Justice Anthony Kennedy Professor of Law Leslie Gielow Jacobs; Robert Eglet Evidence Law Endowed Chair and Professor of Law Andrew Jurs; and Visiting Professor of Law Rachel Van Cleave.

Panelists include:

• Nadia Banteka is the Gary & Sallyn Pajcic Professor of Law at Florida State University College of Law.
• Paul Cassell is the Ronald N. Boyce Presidential Professor of Criminal Law and a distinguished professor of law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law.
• Mariam El-menshawi, ‘11, is the chief of the Office of Victims and Survivor Rights and Services at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. She previously served as the director and principal attorney of McGeorge's CVRC.
• Meg Garvin is a clinical professor of law and the executive director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute at Lewis & Clark Law School.
• Matteo Leonida Mattheudakis is a senior researcher of criminal law at the Department of Legal Sciences at the University of Bologna in Italy.
• Gian Marco Caletti is an adjunct professor at the University of Bologna in Italy.
• Erika Nyborg-Burch is a clinical professor and director of the Farmworker and Immigration Rights Clinic at the Florida State University College of Law.
• Kolis Summerer is an associate professor at the Free University of Bolzano in Italy.
• Michael Vitiello is a distinguished professor of law at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law.

Register for the event.