UAAA Public Service Award
Cecilia Castellanos entered the University of Arizona College of Law in 1970 and graduated in December 1972. She also graduated from the University of Arizona with honors in 1967, with a major in Government and Political Science.
After college, she was hired by Mountain Bell in their business office. A jury notice and serving on an eminent domain jury sparked her interest in the law.
Her first law job was with the U. S. Department of Justice in the Civil Rights Division in Washington, D.C. After marrying law school classmate John A. Lohse (UA '69 and College of Law '73), she relocated to San Francisco where John became an FBI Special Agent, and Cecilia began a 6-year stint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as Trial Attorney and later Chief of the Administrative Hearings Unit.
After the birth of their two boys, Cecilia started a private law practice in Oakland, specializing in education law and also working as hearing officer for various public agencies in the Bay Area.
In March 1997, she was appointed to the Alameda County Court as the first Latina ever elected or appointed to that bench. As an attorney and a judge, she has been active in many community organization in the Bay Area.
She served as President of the California Latino Judges Association from 2000 to 2001. She retired in 2015 but still sits as a Temporary Judge.
On a personal note, Cecilia (Judge Castellanos) was born and raised in Chihuahua, Mexico, coming to this country at age 11. Her son Evan Daniel Lohse received a B.A. in 2002 and a Master's Degree from the University of Arizona in 2009 and teaches high school in Phoenix. Her son Allen Patrick Lohse is an attorney for Lyft in San Francisco.
Brett Dunkelman ('80)
LCA AwardBrett graduated summa cum laude from the University of Arizona College of Law in 1980, where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Arizona Law Review.
Following graduation, he clerked for Judge William P. Copple of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona and then Justice William H. Rehnquist of the United States Supreme Court.
Immediately following his clerkships, he worked for two years practicing antitrust litigation at a large San Francisco law firm. From 1984 through the present, Brett has practiced antitrust and intellectual property litigation at Osborn Maledon in Phoenix. During the 1990s, Brett taught various intellectual property courses at the College of Law as a professor of practice.
He played a critical role in establishing and building the Rehnquist Center. More recently, Brett assisted the College of Law in navigating the legal issues relating to the implementation of the GRE as an alternative to the LSAT in the admissions process.
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