Berkeleyan

All she asked was why his character took four years to graduate

28 April 2004

Peg Skorpinski photo

Students studying cosmology at Berkeley ponder deep questions about the birth and eventual fate of the universe. Those studying philosophy explore humanity’s essential nature and vexing moral questions. And those coming to grips with what Samuel Johnson called “the last result of human wisdom” — the grand edifice of the law — address similarly weighty subjects during their three-year ordeal by text and statute.

Most of the time, anyway. Legal introspection was in short supply, however, during last week’s visit to Boalt Hall by actor Peter Gallagher, aka Sandy Cohen on the hit TV show, “The O.C.” On that show, Cohen, a Boalt graduate, works as a public defender in Orange County, a place unlike Berkeley in ways that themselves warrant contemplation. The purpose of Gallagher’s visit was to attend the presentation of the Sandy Cohen Public Defender Fellowship — a $1,000 grant raised by members of The O.C. at Boalt, a group of the show’s most devoted fans — to Jason Balitzer. The summer grant will enable Boalt student Balitzer to work in the real-world office of the Orange County public defender.

For information about The OC at Boalt — including the organization’s purposes (which center on popcorn and the ritual viewing of a certain weeknight TV drama) and MP3 files of songs written and performed by Orange Crush, the group’s “official rock band” — visit oc.boalt.org.