ACS San Diego: 2026 Annual Dinner and Awards

Join the ACS San Diego Lawyer Chapter for its 2026 Annual Dinner featuring ACS President Phil Brest.

We are also thrilled to announce the 2026 Awardees:

• 2026 Howard Wayne Awardee: Heather L. Rosing, Founding Partner, Rosing Pott & Strohbehn.
• 2026 Roberto Alvarez Awardee: William J. Aceves, Chief Justice Roger Traynor Professor of Law, California Western School of Law

The program will also feature:

• Jodi Cleesattle, Judge-Elect, Superior Court of San Diego County; 2024 President, California Women Lawyers; 2023-2025 Co-President, Tom Homann LGBTQ+ Law Association; Supervising Deputy Attorney General, California Department of Justice; Former Member, ACS Advisory Board

Dinner will be provided. Please note any dietary restrictions when you register below. In addition to purchasing a ticket for the program, we hope that you consider donating to ACS using the donation link here. Any amount you can give helps us support the next generation of progressive leaders and strengthen the foundation for a sustained, progressive path to the bench.

Thank you to our sponsors:

Champion: Eric Isaacson & Susan Weaver, and Len Simon

Partner: Law Offices of Emily E. Howe, Kurzban Kurzban Tetzeli & Pratt, Michelle Camacho Law; and Ted Holmquist

Friend: Jeff Chinn, Johanna Schiavoni, and Pan Asian Lawyers of San Diego

Public Interest Partner: California Western School of Law and Legal Aid Society of San Diego

If you are interested in sponsoring the Dinner, please contact Peggy Li at pli@acslaw.org.

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Biographies

William J. Aceves is the Chief Justice Roger Traynor Professor of Law at the California Western School of Law. Professor Aceves has combined teaching, scholarship, and legal advocacy in his 28-year career at California Western. He teaches civil procedure, constitutional law, critical race theory, and human rights law. His scholarship addresses civil rights and human rights, and he has been published in leading law reviews, including the Harvard Law & Policy Review, which is the legal journal of the ACS. Professor Aceves serves on the national boards of the American Civil Liberties Union and the International Law Association (American Branch). He has previously served on the national boards of Amnesty International USA, the Center for Justice & Accountability, and the International Law Students Association. He is an elected member of the American Law Institute.

Professor Aceves has served as counsel to numerous civil rights and human rights organizations as well as U.N. officials in cases involving the domestic application of international law. These cases have addressed many difficult issues that our country has confronted in recent years, including immigration restrictions, the prohibition against torture, and the excessive use of force by law enforcement. Professor Aceves has also appeared before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Migrants, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

A commitment to helping others began early. “Difference was something I confronted throughout my life,” says Professor Aceves, who was raised in Los Angeles and lived in a predominantly white neighborhood. “English was my second language. In my neighborhood, on the bus, and at school, I routinely saw inequality and discrimination. I quickly discovered how economics, culture, and race generate both opportunities and obstacles.” These early experiences have informed his lifelong commitment to social justice and human rights.

Phil Brest took the helm at ACS in January of this year after spending nearly a decade helping to build a more progressive federal Judiciary. From 2023 to 2025, Phil served as Senior Counsel in the White House and Special Assistant to President Biden, leading the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to vet, nominate, and confirm federal judges. Thanks to Phil’s work, President Biden appointed 235 Article III judges—the most by any President since Jimmy Carter.

Before joining the Biden Administration, Phil was the Senate’s point person on judicial confirmations, serving as Chief Nominations Counsel for then-Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin. Phil proudly led the Senate’s efforts to confirm now-Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, as well as dozens of circuit and district court judges, including many here in the Southern District of California.

Phil has deep ties to California. He attended Stanford Law School, clerked for former Justice Tino Cuellar on the California Supreme Court, and spent four years working for the late Senator Dianne Feinstein, including as her Judiciary Committee Staff Director.

Phil is eager to engage with the San Diego legal community, to talk about his vision for ACS, and to highlight the many ways that ACS members, friends, and supporters can help ensure the Constitution works for all of us.

Heather L. Rosing is a Founding Partner of Rosing Pott & Strohbehn. Ms. Rosing serves as leader in the Complex Litigation and Professional Liability Department and the Discipline Defense, Ethics, and Risk Management Department. A Certified Specialist in Legal Malpractice Law, Ms. Rosing has developed a nationwide reputation as a skilled litigator in complex and multiparty matters, particularly those involving issues of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, professional negligence, malicious prosecution, civil conspiracy, RICO, and aiding and abetting. In addition to her litigation practice, Ms. Rosing is a deeply experienced risk manager, providing advice to hundreds of law firms, legally related organizations, directors and officers, professional fiduciaries, accountants, and other professionals in the areas of ethics, conflict of interest, disqualification, duties to third parties, unauthorized practice of law, fee agreements, fee sharing, privileges, fiduciary duties, and professional responsibility. She previously served as General Counsel of a previous firm.

Ms. Rosing was recognized as the #1 SuperLawyer in San Diego in 2024 and 2025, and one of 18 lawyers honored as “Lawyer of the Decade” by the Daily Journal in January 2021. In 2024, she also received the California Women Lawyers’ Judith Soley Lawyer as Citizen Award for her commitment to service in the arenas of diversity and gender equality. In 2021, the San Diego legal community came together at the annual Red Boudreau Trial Lawyers Dinner to recognize Ms. Rosing with the Daniel T. Broderick III Award, which honors the highest standards of civility, dedication, and professionalism in the practice of law. In 2022, she received the David H. Bartick Award for Civility and Professionalism from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. Ms. Rosing is the Chair of the ABA Standing Committee on Lawyers Professional Liability, which hosts the biannual National Legal Malpractice Conferences. She served as an appointed advisor to the Rules Revision Commission of the State Bar of California, which recommended wholesale revisions to the Rules of Professional Conduct (adopted in large part by the California Supreme Court in 2018), and as an appointed member of the Mandatory Insurance Working Group of the State Bar. Ms. Rosing was also appointed to serve as the co-vice chair of the Civility Task Force, which is a joint effort among the California Lawyers Association (CLA), the State Bar, and the California Judges Association (CJA). In addition, Ms. Rosing is the current co-chair of the CJA’s Judicial Fairness Coalition, which focuses on education about the judicial branch and the importance of judicial independence. She also served as an appointed member of the ABA Standing Committee on Specialization, which accredits specialty certification programs for lawyers in particular fields of law offered by private organizations.