
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Consistent with the College’s mission and strategic plan and the vision of its Chancellor & Dean, Dean Ratner’s priorities include:
Creating a cohesive student experience from admission through graduation that prepares students for professional success; Adapting the curriculum to anticipate technological and other changes in the practice of law; Collaborating with faculty and staff to develop innovative teaching methods, courses, and co-curricular programming; Supporting faculty research and faculty and staff professional development; Integrating faculty, students, alumni, and the wider community in which UC Hastings is situated; Promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion; and Fostering a culture of continuous and evidence-based self-reflection and improvement. Dean Ratner joined the UC Hastings Faculty in 2012 after teaching at Harvard Law School as a visiting lecturer and then as a visiting assistant professor from 2009 to 2011. He teaches civil procedure, legal ethics, and the business of law practice, and produces scholarship at the intersection of those fields.
While at UC Hastings, Dean Ratner has received multiple awards for his teaching and scholarship, including Student Choice Award for Professor of the Year (twice) and the Rutter Award for Teaching Excellence, as well as the Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize for Scholarship in Professional Responsibility awarded by the AALS Section on Professional Responsibility.
Dean Ratner was a litigator at the San Francisco-based plaintiffs’ firm Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, where he was a partner for ten years and where he prosecuted product liability, environmental, mass personal injury, consumer, and human rights actions. Among other high-profile matters, he prosecuted and settled Holocaust-era slave labor, looted asset, dormant bank account and unpaid insurance claims against European companies, producing global settlements in those cases worth more than $7.5 billion.

He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1980 specializing in monetary economics and econometrics. He was formerly a professor of Economics at the University of Southern California and has held executive positions with McDonnell Douglas, FlightSafety International, and FlightSafety Boeing during a fifteen-year span in the aviation business. He also held a position with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors developing forecasting tools, and has advised banks, investors and financial institutions.
From 2000 to 2006, he was the Managing Principal of Deep Blue Economics, a consulting firm he founded. He has been the recipient of the Korda Fellowship, USC Outstanding Teacher, India Chamber of Commerce Jubilee Lecturer, and he is a Fulbright Scholar. He has published over 100 scholarly and popular articles on monetary economics, economic forecasting and analysis, labor economics, and industrial organization and he is the author of two books on monetary economics and exchange rates.

He has published over a dozen research articles in Journal of Forecasting, International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of International Money and Finance, etc. He also published op-ed articles in Los Angeles Times and other newspapers. He developed the City Human Capital Index and the Los Angeles City Employment Estimate. He has been cited in the local, national and overseas media frequently including Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Time, Bloomberg, CBS Money Watch, Al Jazeera, U-T San Diego, LA Daily News, LA Daily Breeze, Straits Times, NBC, ABC, CNBC, CNN, and NPR, as well as various Chinese and Korean media. Yu has been invited as a speaker for various events, including the annual Woo K. Greater China Business Conference and National Association for Business Economics.
Yu received his bachelor’s degree in finance from National Taiwan University in 1995 and was an analyst in Fubon Financial Holding in Taipei from 1997 to 2000. In 2006, he received his Ph.D. degree in economics from the University of Washington where he was also an economics instructor and won two distinguished teaching awards. In 2006, he worked for the Frank Russell Investment Group for Treasury and corporate yields modeling and forecasting. From 2006 to 2011, he served as an assistant and an associate professor of economics at Winona State University where he taught courses including forecasting methods, managerial economics, international economics, and macroeconomics.


Professor Ellias’ current research focuses on the governance of large bankrupt firms and the role played by activist investors. He is also studying agency costs in distressed firms more generally. His research interests include corporate bankruptcy, corporate governance, contract law, empirical methods in social science and law and economics.
Professor Ellias received his J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2008 and his A.B. from the University of Michigan in 2005.


Samantha has been recognized by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business since 2011, in the area of Banking & Finance. According to the 2017 edition of Chambers, one client praised that she is “the best financing attorney we have encountered anywhere, she is simply amazing,” while another client commented that “she can be very creative, so if you have a complex issue then she can step back and figure out a way to address it.” In a prior edition of Chambers, a client commented that “she is super-responsive, enormously practical and the most proactive lawyer we have encountered.” Samantha was also recognized in the 2013-2019 editions of U.S. News and World Report, Best Lawyers®, as a leading banking and finance lawyer. The 2016 edition of The Legal 500 U.S. recognized Samantha in the area of Commercial Lending, and the 2015 edition recognized her in Bank Lending, commenting that she “provides practical guidance and great results.” Prior to relocating to San Francisco, Samantha was repeatedly recognized in the Los Angeles Business Journal’s “Who’s Who in Law” as one of the top 10 corporate attorneys in Los Angeles.
