November 7, 2017

Chief Campus Counsel

I am pleased to announce that Andrea Gunn Eaton has been appointed UCI’s new chief campus counsel. She begins her appointment Monday, Dec. 4, 2017.

As chief campus counsel, Andrea will advise and counsel on a broad range of complex legal matters, including those involving labor and employment, land use and environmental law, the First Amendment, business transactions, international and research collaboration initiatives, health law, privacy and records management. She also will provide sound, timely advice on university policy and governance.

Andrea comes to UCI via California State University, where she has diligently served in the Office of General Counsel since 2005. Currently, she is university counsel for California State University, Dominguez Hills and assistant vice chancellor & chief counsel for business and finance. In this role, Andrea has been the resource attorney on the California Environmental Quality Act, land use, bonds and financing, and construction.

Prior to her time with the CSU system, she was a senior associate in the labor and employment practice group for Seyfarth Shaw LLP. She also was an associate at Matheny Sears Linkert & Long LLP, where she focused on general employment and civil litigation. While serving as a National Association for Public Interest Law fellow with the Texas Civil Rights Project, Andrea led public education efforts and litigation regarding peer-to-peer sexual harassment and litigated cases related to constitutional law, civil rights and civil liberty issues, such as Title IX and the First Amendment. In 2011, she received the Guardián de Justicia award from the Hispanic Bar Association of Orange County for her work on Martinez v. Regents of the University of California (2010), upholding AB 540.

Andrea earned a J.D. at Tulane University Law School, where she was the assistant director of its legal assistance program, an executive board member of Tulane Women in Law and president of Tulane’s Public Interest Law Foundation. She received a bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Santa Barbara.

I am grateful to the search committee and its chair, Ramona Agrela, associate chancellor and chief human resources executive, for their dedicated efforts and vital contributions to the search process. My personal thanks, along with the gratitude of the entire university, are extended to Diane Geocaris, who so ably served for 27 years as our previous chief campus counsel.

Andrea brings a wealth of knowledge, prowess and experience in issues facing higher education institutions, and we look forward to her becoming a member of the Anteater family. Please join me in welcoming her to UCI.

Chancellor Howard Gillman