Frank Menetrez M.A. ’91, Ph.D. ’96, J.D. ’00

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Frank Menetrez is no stranger to the rigors of UCLA. Having entered graduate studies with a Chancellor’s Fellowship in 1987, he earned his Ph.D. in philosophy and was subsequently hired by the department as a lecturer to teach introductory and advanced undergraduate courses in logic and the philosophy of action.

To the dismay of the department, he later left academic philosophy to try his hand in the UCLA School of Law. As Barbara Herman reflects, “Frank showed a rare talent for philosophical work – not just a clear mind and high intelligence, but that special gift for seeing the real problem in a tangle of traditions and arguments that separates those who might make progress in the quest for philosophical understanding from those who will forever be students of the subject.

He has taken the tools learned in philosophy and applied them wellto law. With a cumulative GPA exceeding 4.0, Menetrez holds the top ranking in his graduating class and has earned the American Jurisprudence Award for the highest grade in four different classes. While maintaining a stellar academic record, he serves as the editor-in-chief of UCLA Law Review.

Shining in most every class he has taken, he is constantly urged to return to the academic realm after his clerkship and practice. Peter Arenella remembers that when Menetrez took his seminar in advanced criminal law theory, “by the end of the seminar, I was treating him more like a younger faculty colleague than a student because I knew I could learn from Frank as well as teach him…Frank has remarkable analytical skills, superb judgment, great intellectual curiosity and a mind as subtle as it is sharp.”