The University of California, Berkeley School of Law is launching a new center on consumer law with a $3.5 million donation from high-profile plaintiffs attorney Elizabeth Cabraser, a 1978 graduate of the school.

The Berkeley Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice will be the first consumer law center housed at a top-tier law school, according to Berkeley officials.

“I believe that we can create a pre-eminent university-based center on consumer law and that it will make a huge difference in people's lives,” said law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky in an announcement of the new center. “I am deeply grateful to Elizabeth Cabraser for making this possible.”

The center will focus on research and analysis, with the goal of furthering policy changes in consumer law. It will file amicus briefs in consumer law cases, produce white papers, and advise lawmakers and regulatory agencies on ways to benefit low-income consumers. The center will also create more opportunities for Berkeley law students to gain experience in consumer law. Additionally, it will co-host a first-ever conference of consumer law clinics from across the country and convene consumer law scholars.

Cabraser, a partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, is one of the biggest names in the plaintiff's bar. She has secured billions in cases against tobacco, pharmaceutical and oil industry defendants.

“Consumer law is at work all around us, every day,” she said in an article about the new center on the law school's website. “But it's almost invisible in law schools. This center will actively help protect people in the modern marketplace.”

Cabraser has also taught consumer law at Berkeley, as has Ted Mermin, the co-founder of the Public Good Law Center who will become the interim director of the new center in April.

“While modern consumer law has been around for more than a century, there's never been an academic hub at a leading school with the mission of figuring out what it encompasses and what it can accomplish,” Mermin said. “That's a real void we're eager to fill.”

Berkeley has been building up its consumer law programming over the past decade. It began offering a course in consumer law in 2008, and now has five such classes. Students in the school's Consumer Justice Clinic defend clients in debt-collection lawsuits and bring litigation against entities that prey on immigrants who don't speak English.