Betsy
Candler

Betsy Candler has been a member of the faculty at UC Law SF since 2016. She regularly teaches Constitutional Law I and II and Mediation Clinic. Before joining the UC Law SF faculty, Candler was the inaugural Director of the Berkeley Law LL.M. Legal Research and Writing Program for international students. At Berkeley Law, she also taught Intro to U.S. Law and a mediation course. Candler also teaches Intro to U.S. Law with the Berkeley Law-Tel Aviv LL.M. Program. She has been a certified mediator since 2012, focusing on community mediations, restorative justice, and organizational facilitation.

Candler spent her first ten years of legal practice as a criminal defense attorney. She litigated numerous jury trials and appeals in California and Georgia. She worked as defense counsel for capital trials and direct appeals in Georgia, served as an assistant public defender in both Georgia and California, and represented individuals sentenced to death in California in state post-conviction habeas proceedings.

After her work as a criminal defense attorney, she transitioned to teaching and mediation. Candler began teaching at Berkeley Law in 2012. She served on the Board of Directors and as a panel mediator for SEEDS, a Berkeley-based community mediation center. She has mediated a wide variety of matters, including police complaints, employment discrimination, housing discrimination, public accommodations discrimination, landlord/tenant, family law, and contract disputes. She received her J.D. from the University of Minnesota School of Law where she was a member of the Journal of Law and Inequality, a student board representative to the Minnesota Justice Foundation, and a member of Lambda Law (now “OutLaw”).