Kate
Bloch

Kate Bloch is a Professor of Law and holds a Harry & Lillian Hastings Research Chair.  Her scholarly interests include criminal law, procedure, and practice, the intersection of virtual reality and criminal justice, as well as legal ethics and education. She is a recipient of the Rutter Award for Excellence in Teaching and the UC Hastings 1066 Foundation Faculty Award for scholarship. In 1997, California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George appointed Professor Bloch to the Judicial Council Task Force on Jury Instructions. As a member of its Criminal Instructions Subcommittee, she helped draft the CALCRIM instructions, which now serve as the official instructions for use in criminal trials throughout California. For over a decade, Professor Bloch has been working with colleagues in the U.S. and at UC Hastings’ partner law school, L’École Supérieure Catholique de Droit de Jérémie (ESCDROJ), to help ESCDROJ establish what is believed to be the only operating in-house law school legal aid clinic in Haiti. In 2018, the U.S. Embassy in Haiti awarded paired grants to UC Hastings and ESCDROJ. These grants are designed to advance clinical legal education in Haiti, and Professor Bloch directs substantive implementation of the UC Hastings grant.

Professor Bloch received her undergraduate education at Washington University in St. Louis as an Arnold J. Lien merit scholar. Before departing Washington University, she completed an M.A. in French. During her student days in St. Louis, she was invited to join Phi Beta Kappa and played on an intramural inner tube water polo team. Once in California, Professor Bloch attended Stanford Law School, where she was a Senior Note Editor on the Stanford Law Review. Following graduation and the California Bar, Professor Bloch clerked as a Court Law Clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In that role, she had the privilege of working with a number of judges, including The Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Prior to joining the UC Hastings faculty, she represented the People of the State of California as a Deputy District Attorney for the County of Santa Clara.