Stephen Haydon J.D. ’97

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Earning exceptional marks in the School of Law is only one facet of Stephen Haydon’s academic success story. Older than most students, Haydon brought a unique viewpoint to the classroom, having run a successful private investigation agency prior to returning to law school. From his very first semester, he manifested the promise of excellence to come, bringing an aura of maturity and poise to his first year’s experience.

Haydon wrote an outstanding paper on full application testing, a technique aimed at better detecting and understanding rental discrimination. A second paper on the subject examined the legal community in California that engages in fair housing litigation, carefully analyzing the practical incentives behind the attorney’s selection of cases and the reason why so few cases are brought. These two papers are rated as ‘outstanding’ by Professor Rick Sander, the law school’s nationally-known scholar in the area of housing discrimination. Haydon has also completed scholarly works on the reform of the auto insurance industry and race discrimination in public accommodations. The latter paper appeared in the April issue of the UCLA Law Review. While it is a significant accomplishment for a student to complete even one published article while in school, it is almost unheard of for a student to complete four.

Haydon devotes significant amounts of time to volunteer work in the fair housing area. For the last five years, he has served on the board of the Westside Fair Housing Council. Now, with the necessary legal background, he also co-chairs the Council’s Litigation and Legal Education Committee.

Haydon served as a teaching assistant, student representative to the Clerkship and Teaching Committee and student representative to the Faculty Appointments Committee, wherein students interview candidates applying for teaching positions at the law school and provide written evaluations to the voting faculty.

Haydon is the second law student ever chosen for the teaching fellowship in the UCLA Collegium of University Teaching Fellows. The CUTF provides teaching fellowships to fifteen graduate degree candidates through a university-wide, competitive application process. As a result of this selection, he developed and taught an undergraduate course on anti-discrimination law, tracing its development from the Civil War (Dred Scott decision) to the present.

As chief articles editor of the UCLA Law Review, Haydon was the lynchpin of that publication this past year, regularly putting in 40 to 50 hours a week reviewing and editing law professors’ scholarship.

In sum, Stephen Haydon is an exceptional and prolific scholar, an outstanding student in the classroom and an excellent teacher.