This interview originally aired on December 2, 2025.
Wendy Todd: [00:00:00] You are listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 University and Listener Supported Radio, and this is Berkeley Brainwaves, a show that airs every other Tuesday from 9 to 9:30. Bringing you stories from the Cal community. I’m your host, Wendy Todd, and today I have first year law student, and previously my mayor in San Anselmo, California.
Alexis Fineman. Welcome to the show, Alexis.
Alexis Fineman: Thank you so much for having me, Wendy.
Wendy Todd: We first met when you were asked to step in to fill a vacancy on the San Anselmo Town Council, and that was back in 2019. I remember you as an inexperienced politician at the time and um, but then you ran in 2020 and you were vice mayor in 2021 and eventually mayor in 2022.
And I know you put a lot of time into learning about a whole bunch of different topics. Um, what I remember most about you is you asked the best questions in all those different public hearings that I attended. So you did a lot of work around green projects and, uh, thinking about environmental sustainability, and you dealt with a lot of small town project, uh, projects and politics.
Um. So I appreciate your leadership and hanging in there with endless town council meetings, um, and the very last town council meeting, uh, last year. People expressed so much gratitude for you, your service, your leadership, the heart and soul you brought into being an elected official. So when I heard you were now a first year law student at Cal I was really excited to get to know why you became a law student and what you’re learning and what part of the world you’re gonna change, what, what world problems you’re gonna tackle. Uh, so let’s get to it. Um, first of all, what are you most proud of that you accomplished as a councilwoman in San Anselmo?
Alexis Fineman: Well, first of all, thank you for that kind introduction and I’ll just say that I’m so glad that we got to know each other a little bit through small town politics, um, and that we get to have this conversation today. I think what I’m probably most proud of, um, in terms of like, like professionally, my time on council was the work that I did to really try and operationalize our climate action plan. So many towns and cities across California and actually across the nation have these climate action plans. They’re sort of, uh, they’re formally adopted, but very aspirational documents, uh, that really inventory sources of local greenhouse gas emissions, and then strategies and tools to reduce those sources.
Um, but oftentimes these caps, as they’re called, are adopted, um, unceremoniously or maybe ceremoniously, and then they sit on a shelf. And so a lot of what I tried to focus on during my time in office, which was about five and a half years between the appointed and the elected term, um, was how do we get the, the plan off the shelf and there are a couple of ways that we sort of approach that. One is it needs to be a living document that our town staff we’re very hardworking, um, and have full plates are using on a day-to-day basis. So working with, um, some members of staff and our town manager, we, uh, created some new expectations around the kind of, um, analysis and, um, referencing process for the cap that would be brought before council for any number of staff report items.
So if something is, you know, a, plan to redo the irrigation at a park is coming before council for approval. There’s gonna be some sort of analysis in there saying, “Hey, this relates to our, you know, water conservation goals because we’re using, you know, this kind of irrigation and this kind of turf and X, Y, Z.”
Um, so really trying to bring it kind of to the front of the, the decision making process in that way. Um, another big, big piece was even though it’s sort of everyone’s responsibility to, to work on climate projects, we did uh, actually hire a climate officer. We partnered up with our neighboring town of Fairfax ’cause we’re both small jurisdictions tackling the same problems.
Um, and we’re actually able to bring a full-time staff member between the two towns to, to really be sort of an inside person bringing expertise and, um, and, and energy to the, the climate action work across departments. So that was a really. Something I’m quite proud of. And then probably the, the third category was, um, uh, creating like designated earmarks in our budget.
First for Climate Action Fund. Um, and then for specifically an active transportation fund. Um, you know, where if you fund it, like it will, it will happen. Um, and so having buckets of money set aside that, um. Know, could be used and deployed throughout the, the year on various, you know, infrastructure projects or rebates or whatever, you know, kind of programming it.
It was, um, was a really helpful way of, you know, taking some, taking some action steps and not having to worry quite so much about the price tag as, as things came up. ’cause we’d already been planning and budgeting for it. So I would say those are probably the, the things I’m most proud of all in this kind of collective bucket of, you know, trying to operationalize this, this aspirational, um climate action plan.
Wendy Todd: Wow. So you, you have a lot of, you know, power and influence and authority when you sit on a council. Um, why did you decide to leave a position of power and come be a student at Cal?
Alexis Fineman: Oh my gosh, that’s, that’s a much more personal question. I, I think, um, I would say, I mean, it was a great honor to serve, um, in the roles that I held on council, but, um, you know, fundamentally it just was not the best.
It just wasn’t the best fit for me. Um, and I think it’s always good to practice walking away from power. I wish, I wish we, I wish we practiced that more as a, as a, you know, society. Um, uh, before things become too entrenched as parts of our identity or things we feel entitled to. But really I, um, I think I learned from being on council that I really enjoyed sort of working with law and statutes and kind of the sort of invisible infrastructure of, um of our world in that way, but I would much rather be doing it from a position of expertise and, uh, behind the scenes on a, on a team that’s really mission driven, um, versus from a, from a position, uh, as an elected official.
Wendy Todd: Mm-hmm. And so what was the application process like to. Or even the whole process.
Right. Did you have to take tests? What do you, how do you get into law school at Cal?
Alexis Fineman: Yeah, so I, um, my application process was, I would say maybe a little bit extended. I think it was about two years from the time I really started thinking I wanted to apply to actually, you know, getting to be here in law school.
And it started with taking the LSAT, which requires a lot of studying. Um, certainly quite a lot of studying for me. And, uh, you know, took that a couple of times. Once the LSAT was done, I started working on essays and resumes and there’s any number of, you know, supplemental essays. And I think Berkeley even had a requirement to do a video essay last year that they sort of dropped mid, mid cycle because nobody wants to submit a video of themselves talking.
But I, I did. Um, and the questions are really, I mean, they want to, you, you have to, I think what they’re looking for is a sense that applicants know why they want to. Be a law student and it’s not just like, oh, it seems like a good idea. I don’t know what else to do. Um, and I felt like as an older, as an older applicant, um, ’cause I’m, uh, I am an older applicant, which is hard to believe ’cause I don’t feel that old.
Um, I. You know, it was a lot easier having had work experience both in the council and then also my kind of day job, professional experiences to get a sense for what I was looking for, um, in a law school from a law degree, what I wanted to bring to a law school community. Um, and in some ways, you know, I was writing my essays all of last fall and into the winter the same time that I was winding down my term on council.
And it was a nice little coda because as you can imagine, a lot of the experiences from being on council were the fodder for the, the essays. And so I got to have a little bit of a, you know a bow tied around some of those experiences and, and, um, dig deep into how we actually felt about them.
Wendy Todd: Mm-hmm. So you not only got into law school, but you also were accepted into the Berkeley Laws Leadership Academy.
So maybe you can speak to what, what that is.
Alexis Fineman: Yeah, absolutely. The, um, leadership Academy is a relatively new program out of the law school. I think it’s in, its where, it’s the second cohort of Leadership Academy Scholars. It’s a group of, um, 10 students from the, uh, from, from each class. So we have a group of one Ls that’s first year law students, and then group of two Ls, the inaugural cohort.
And we, um, essentially are. Um, put into community to, to really think about what leadership looks like, um, in this kind of critical moment in time. And, you know, what it might mean to be a leader in a professional space, maybe a formal position of leadership, but also there’s so many kind of informal or less visible way, um, ways of being a leader in, in a professional space or in a community space.
Um, and so the idea is to have programming and a community to kind of support exploring some of those, um some of those archetypes, I suppose.
Wendy Todd: Mm.
Alexis Fineman: Um, but it is a very new program. They’re sort of just getting, um, getting set up in terms of what it actually looks like. Um, but we have a little mixer tonight, which will be fun.
Wendy Todd: Great. And what do you, what do you wanna get out of this experience of, what do you wanna give, what do you wanna get at law school?
Alexis Fineman: Um, oh my goodness.
I mean, I, I think… I really want to… I really wanna understand the law. Um, that’s just the basic, the basic gist of it and, and really understand it with the sort of overarching goal of understanding how it can be used to advance, um, decarbonization climate accountability, climate, environmental justice.
Um, that’s changing rapidly because of the changes in the sort of federal, um, federal administration that are. Ongoing and the kind of questions about the judiciary right now. Um, but I think that law at its core is a little bit scrappy in the sense that you’re kind of dealing with what’s available all the time.
You know, policy is very aspirational. You have a, you have, you might have the perfect policy on paper and you’re shopping it around trying to get adopted. Law is sort of like you’re working with the fact patterns that present themselves and the legal structures that already exist. So I think there’s some opportunities to, to still be strategic with the law, um, from a climate perspective.
Um, I am, so that’s kind of the, the, the professional, you know, goal, what I’m hoping to get out of my time at, at Berkeley. I think, uh, being in community with people who really care about the work that they’re doing and who, who have similar sort of public interest aspirations, whether it’s, you know, um, um, criminal or family defense or immigration or civil rights or gender justice, um, it’s, it’s just really lovely to be with people who are so dedicated and passionate about these causes that are, you know, of tremendous significance to all of us. And that’s been quite refreshing compared to, compared to some of the conversations that, you know, characterize local politics, for example. Um, if I can be so bold as to say that. So it’s really lovely to be in, in community, um, and I think in terms of what I’m hoping to, to kind of contribute to the Berkeley law community, um, I mean, I’m certainly hoping
to be able to pull from some of my experiences in the workforce and in local, you know, politics. And I don’t know exactly what that looks like yet because I’m still very, very new as a law student.
Um, but hopefully in a way that’s like constructive in a sort of legal community, whether it’s in an academic setting or, you know, maybe for some of the student projects that, that, um, students lead initiate. So we’ll see.
Wendy Todd: And are most of the students. Like public interest law students here, or do some students come with a lens toward doing corporate law or other types of law?
Alexis Fineman: I would say, uh, there’s a lot of like data and reporting that law schools do about, you know, sort of where students go after graduation. And for almost every law school, I think the majority go into more corporate work. Um, but Berkeley, because it is a public, um, you know, a public law school with a public mission and because it’s, you know, in Berkeley and um, has a lot of great programming for public interest stuff, I think is, is a good place to be for doing public interest work. Public interest um is a very broad term. I think it’s a little bit undefined in some ways. Um, but it can be anything from, you know, doing, um, working for kind of, you know, big nonprofits that you might imagine that are kind of at the forefront of these impact litigation, uh, initiatives to, um working maybe for a private law firm, but that only represents certain kinds of, of plaintiffs like, um, you know, union members or kind of employees and employer disputes. Uh, or it could be working in some cases for the public sector as a local government attorney or, you know, working for the state or, you know, in theory the feds.
Um, but, but, uh, it’s, it’s a pretty broad term and I think that there is a lot of energy and interest in law as a tool for good, um, amongst, amongst Berkeley law students. But by the numbers, it’s probably still a minority of students, um, who go into sort of the public interest public sector roles.
Wendy Todd: Hmm. And is there a particular attorney or lawyer or initiative that you look up to or that’s your North Star in thinking about, um, climate justice and the way they’ve been able to use the law to save and preserve our environment?
Alexis Fineman: Oh gosh. I mean, I think some of the really interesting and exciting, um, lawsuits or kind of legal theories that are kind of moving through courts are some of the work that Our Children’s Trust is doing under the leadership of Julia Olson up in Oregon. These are the suits where the kids are suing various levels of government, state, federal, um, just over this idea that, you know, we have a constitutional right to a healthy environment, to a, to a clean, um, a clean planet or a planet that supports, you know good quality of life. Uh, and governments have sort of violated, violated that trust. Um, and I think that that is exciting to me in part because like from just a moral level, it feels so true whether or not from a legal level it, you know, these cases, however they turn out, they’re gonna turn out. But it’s, it’s really speaks to the part of, you know, the, there’s been a dereliction of duty Absolutely from the structures that are in theory supposed to, um, protect, protect. Our collective trust. Um, so I think those are, those are really interesting. Um, someone who comes to mind, um, would be Abigail Dillon, who’s a, the head of Earth Justice, who’s a Berkeley law alum. Earth Justice, of course, is, you know, at the forefront of so many high profile suits, um, that really, again, get to the core of climate justice and public health, um, as well as, you know, wildlands and, and spaces and, and sovereignty for, um, indigenous peoples.
And then I would also have to say Michael Gerard, who’s, um, a law professor at Columbia who’s done incredible work leading the Saban Center. Um, and in particular as a council member I was, uh, relied heavily on the, what used to be called the Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization project that he initiated now is called the Model Climate Laws Initiative, which is a database of essentially everything that you can be doing from a policy level at all levels of government to decarbonize.
So those are a couple that come to mind.
Wendy Todd: That’s great. If you are just joining us, you’re listening to Berkeley Brainwaves on KALX, A show that brings you stories from the Cal community. Today I’m talking with Alexis Feinman, the first year law student who was once mayor of my town in San Anselmo California. Um, what about, uh what’s helping like you navigate, uh, student life at Cal and being a first year law student, that’s a big shift from being a, working in a professional life, having, you know, lots of town council meetings and now here you are. What’s, are there supports in place that help law students adjust?
Alexis Fineman: I would say yes.
I think one of the biggest supports is the mod structure at Berkeley Law, which when you’re a first year law student a one L, you’re basically placed into a cohort of about 30 people, and you take all of your first semester classes with that same group of 30. So having the mod structure is. Basically like having a little built-in group.
Everyone has the same professors, the same assignments. You’re kind of moving through the physical space of campus in the same way ’cause you’re going from class to class. And that’s been really lovely and a great way to get to know people. Um, academically, there’s, you know, academic skills, uh, workshops and sessions, and I think in general a very, um, collaborative environment towards academic excellence.
We’re not known as being a school that’s particularly competitive, at least in terms of, you know, getting the, getting the grade in part because we actually don’t have a formal grading system. We have a system of. Pass and fail and high pass and all that kind of stuff. Um, and so it takes some of the pressure off, I think, and that’s been quite nice.
Uh, I would say the adjustment to student life has been a welcome one for me personally. Um, I send like one email a day and that’s priceless. It’s a lot of reading, but, but, um, all of the other pieces of having, you know, kind of administrative duties, um, have sort of fallen away and I’m really, really enjoying that.
Wendy Todd: That’s great. If there was anything you could have done differently to prepare for this first year, would you have done anything different?
Alexis Fineman: Oh, gosh, that’s a great question. Um, I mean, I think sort of the standard advice is if you can take some time off before starting law school, even in between working and starting law school, certainly in between college and starting law school, but if you’re working, if you can take a little time to yourself and just, um, relax and unwind, that’s a good thing to do.
And I was able to do that and, you know, like read for pleasure, which is sort of feels like something that there’s no time for anymore. Um, and, and travel and spend time with, um, friends and family and loved ones. I think that’s probably the best preparation. Mm-hmm. Um, for, for most people heading into law school.
Wendy Todd: Mm-hmm. Is there, has there been anything surprising?
Alexis Fineman: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the, one of the biggest surprises in terms of actually like learning the law is that there’s this whole branch of, you know, we, we think of law, like at least when I thought of law as a, as a. Um, you know, small, small time policy maker, I would often think of like ordinances or statutes or regulations, kind of like these rules on paper coming from a higher authority that, you know, people are supposed to adhere to.
And certainly that is a whole there, you know, there are whole branches of law that are sort of like things coming from the government that you can or cannot do. Uh, or must or must not do. And um, there’s actually a whole body of law called the common law, which is just judge made law that’s evolved sort of organically over time.
That’s kind of operates, um, in tandem with sort of the statute or kind of regulatory bodies of, of law, statutory bodies of law. And it’s kind of this nebulous, like funky thing because it’s just kind of, it has like a kind of a life of its own. So a lot of torts are actually coming from common law.
There’s certainly statutory torts. Um, you know, a lot of like con like the way that contracts disputes are, are. Admin, like are handled, come from this sort of body of law that’s like, it’s not really written down. I mean, there are, you know, there are recordings of it, but it’s not coming from like the government per se.
And that is super, super weird. It’s something we’ve inherited from the, um, English system of law, which is, uh, just fascinating to think like, you know, yeah, we really come from a colonial history in terms of where our, like legal structures come from. So that’s been really surprising and kind of cool. And weird.
Wendy Todd: And scary?
Alexis Fineman: Scary. Although I have to say like, you know, it’s very inefficient ’cause you have like the common law and the sector law and all this kinda stuff. But in a, in a time, like right now where there’s like real questions about, you know, like the government and what it is or isn’t going to do, um, it’s, it feels a little bit like, oh, it’s nice that we have this sort of like weird backup, like parallel, redundant thing going on.
I don’t quite know how it all plays out again. Like I don’t really know anything about law as a one L. Um, but it’s, I’m like, okay. You know, plus one for redundancy. Mm. It’s good that we have some multiple systems in place.
Wendy Todd: You know, it’s interesting ’cause recently I. Had hurt. I, well, my thought was, oh, the lawyers are gonna save us. They’re gonna save democracy. ’cause the more we can keep, you know, keeping the federal administration, you know, on the up and up through lawsuits, then we’d be okay. And then somebody said, we’re not gonna lawyer our way out of this. And so I’m just curious when you think about, um just the, you know, just your lens around climate justice really um, where do you see law being able to make an impact or not? Like, are there limitations? Because I, I was hoping that the lawyers were gonna save us. So what do you think?
Alexis Fineman: Oh yeah, I don’t think anyone, group of people’s gonna save us. You know, I think it’s just like this really systemic dysfunction that, or you know, some might say like it’s functioning how it was intended to, but the sort of, you know, we’re in a very systemic, the, a lot of systemic issues are coming to a head.
And so I think the system needs to change, be changed, and be changed from all, from all angles. Um. A big question that I’ve had, I don’t know if I should say this out loud, is like, should I be focusing more on international climate law? Like, is there, are there gonna be more interesting legal, um, theories that are advanced successfully on an international stage?
Um, you know, in terms of, in terms of impact litigation? Uh, I, I don’t know, but it is a thought that’s buzzing in the back of my, in, in the back of my head. I think, um, you know, for now I’m just focusing on absorbing as much as possible. Mm-hmm. Um, things never quite, you know, there’s always unintended consequences, good and bad, um, of any sort of decision or outcome.
And I am, I’m just sort of gonna go through the motions and then, you know, hopefully. Find meaningful work doing climate environmental justice law, and listen to people who know a lot more than I do and have their finger on, on the pulse in a way that I just don’t right now. But, um, you know, I think there’s always room for strategy.
There’s always room for creativity and very few things are, are kind of absolute and determined at the outset. So that’s kind of just, you know, one foot in front of the other for now.
Wendy Todd: That’s great. And what you were saying earlier, there are certain movements and initiatives and people that are making progress, and so sometimes we don’t get to hear enough of that and those opportunities.
And certainly an international law might be a. An opportunity and take me with you. No, just kidding. Um, what advice do you have for listeners that may be thinking about law school eventually, or, um, I, I, I’m asking this because I think if I was gonna redo my life over again, I would’ve gone to law school.
Um, but yeah, so I just wanna give people an opportunity to think about like your journey and like how you decided to do it? What, what kind of the calculations that people can think of when they wanna consider law school?
Alexis Fineman: Yeah. Well first of all, it’s not too late. People, um, of all walks of life come to law school and have, you know, great experiences as a student and then, you know, lawyering in the real world.
Um, and it would be great to be a class, be classmates. Um, just gonna put that out there.
Wendy Todd: (Laughter) Thanks.
Alexis Fineman: Um, I think. I do think it’s important to work for a couple years. You know, I worked, I’m on the, I’ve had a longer time in the workforce than, than most students. Um. Which again seems so silly ’cause I haven’t been in the workforce for that long.
Um, but I really think it, it’s helpful to step away and have some, um, perspective coming from undergrad. I will say that actually when I was a freshman in college, I thought maybe I wanted to be, um, to, to be a lawyer to go to law school. And I had an internship my freshman summer at the San Francisco Bar Association doing, um, in their justice and diversity center doing like this housing negotiation project for people facing eviction.
And I was, you know, just like filing papers essentially, but in court and whatnot. Um. I kind of left feeling like that wasn’t exactly, I mean, I cared a lot about the work, but it wasn’t really, I couldn’t see myself like doing that work day to day. And so I kind of just pivoted in like a totally different direction.
And I think that what I would, um, and I think it’s good that that happened. Like it’s good that I pivoted and I kind of explored and like cut my teeth, you know, on all kinds of other things. Um, but what I realized when I look back on the experience was it was really like one snapshot into what lawyering and legal work can look like.
There’s so many different types. There’s so many ways to be a lawyer, and so many ways that you can work on legal problems with a law degree that, you know, a summer in a, you know, in a courthouse is not going to show you. So I think, um, talking like, really trying to think about like what the, the, the whole scope of what lawyering can look like, um, before you decide to come to law school would just maybe, like, that’s, that seems like a good thing to do.
And it wasn’t perspective that I necessarily had, ’cause I just had this one very limited sort of insight, um, and realized like day to day that it wasn’t work that I was called to, even though it was a cause that I really cared about.
Wendy Todd: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And do you, can you picture yourself after law school and what that looks like?
Run for president, maybe?
Alexis Fineman: No, never.
Um, I mean, I, I think it’s really important for me to work, um, on a team of people that cares deeply about the work. And, you know, I was, in addition to being on, on council, I also like worked for a, um, a climate and sustainability nonprofit based out of San Rafael, called SEI and like the experience of working on a team where it was like, we’re just starting from the same place and we’re trying to get to the same place and we can disagree and like have interesting strategic conversations about how to get there, but like we all really care and we’re gonna show up and we’re gonna like trust each other to, to like move forward as a team.
I love that. And so for me, I think a big draw of being like working at a nonprofit is getting to be with a group of people. Who you have that sort of like built in, just like camaraderie with. Um, so I would say like nonprofit work is really interesting. There’s some sort of plaintiff work that’s also quite interesting.
Um, actually like when, when I was the mayor we worked with, uh, we were approached by a firm called Sher Edling, and really all they do is like climate litigation on behalf of local agencies who are struggling to clean up, like environmental pollution. Like for us it was PCB contamination from Monsanto.
And um, you know, for others it’s like the heat, heat domes and like flooding and all kinds of stuff. And they’re like, that is a cool. What a cool firm. Mm-hmm. And I’m so grateful that they reached out to us because that was really eyeopening. I was like, oh, like you can get paid to sue Monsanto.
Wendy Todd: Mm-hmm.
Alexis Fineman: That’s cool. Um, so, so I think it’s just finding like a really values aligned niche. Hopefully a smaller team where there’s room to be sort of creative and strategic. Um, but I’m really open to what it, to what it looks like. I’ve been surprised. I was never my, you know, most of what I’ve done to date has really been sort of like by accident, um, stumbling into things or falling into things or being pushed a little bit into things, including, including counsel.
Um, and I would say that, you know, I just, I’ve been very humbled by experience of like, oh, that wasn’t what I thought I was gonna be doing, and now I’m doing it and we’re gonna go for it. So I’m, I’m very open-minded.
Wendy Todd: Yes. And I appreciate that, uh, about you and I think that’s a great way to live actually.
Well, thank you so much for making time to talk with us about your experience. Really appreciate hearing, um, all that you’ve been up to.
Alexis Fineman: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.
Wendy Todd: You’ve been listening to Berkeley Brainwaves on KALX 90.7 fm. Thank you to our guest, Alexis Feinman. This show will be archived as a podcast on the KALX website.
