UC Berkeley’s chief lawyer killed by hit-run driver in North Bay

Attorney Christopher Patti. Attorney Christopher Patti. Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close UC Berkeley’s chief lawyer killed by hit-run driver in North Bay 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

UC Berkeley’s chief lawyer died in a hit-and-run accident while cycling over the weekend in Sonoma County, and police are hunting for the driver, officials said.

The loss of Christopher Patti, 59, hit the Berkeley campus hard.

“I speak for the Berkeley community in saying how grief-stricken we are at Chris Patti’s untimely death,” UC Chancellor Carol Christ said in a statement Monday. “He was an extraordinary colleague. He loved the university and he had a deep core of integrity that motivated everything he did.”

Patti was killed around 8:45 a.m. Sunday after pulling his bike over on the right shoulder of Highway 116 west of Guerneville to look at his phone, California Highway Patrol officials said. At the same time, a man behind the wheel of a BMW lost control of his car as he entered a curve just west of Summer Crossing, the CHP said. The car slid across the road and slammed into Patti, witnesses told investigators.

The man kept driving westbound and then turned around and headed back toward Guerneville, police said. Investigators identified him as Jonathan Ritter, 28, of the Rio Nido/Monte Rio area. They are calling him a person of interest, but had not contacted him by Monday afternoon.

Patti was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency responders.

On Monday, Christ described Patti as “smart and compassionate” and “everything you wanted the counsel of the campus to be.”

Before becoming the top lawyer at UC Berkeley, Patti worked as an attorney for the UC president’s office from 1990 to 2010.

He graduated from Dartmouth College and earned his law degree from the University of Virginia Law School.

He is survived by his wife and two sons.

Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @evansernoffsky