For the Record
‘Give it your all,’ Holton advises graduates
Commencement speaker Anne Holton, who has devoted her career to serving as an advocate for Virginia’s families and children, encouraged 165 graduates to give back to the community. “Find work that you love and then give it your all,” said Holton, who served for many years as a legal aid lawyer at the Central Virginia Legal Aid Society.
 |
|
 |
|
| Commencement speaker Anne Holton (top) and student speaker Tim Boykin, L’11 (left), addressed new graduates. | |
Holton reminded graduates that there are opportunities for public service throughout the legal profession. In 1998, she was appointed to the bench as a juvenile and domestic relations district court judge in Richmond. Holton became first lady of Virginia when her husband, Timothy M. Kaine, was elected governor in 2002. Today, she is a child welfare consultant with the Annie E. Casey Foundation. “You can do a lot of things in life, but you don’t have to do them all at once,” Holton said in an interview preceding the speech.
Student speaker Tim Boykin told his classmates that life is a sprint and in a profession that’s sure to have stressful and demanding times, it will be vital to occasionally take steps back “and think about what’s important in your life. Hopefully, it will involve some of the people next to you today.”
John F. Preis, faculty speaker, advised graduates to consider non-lawyer-like ways of thinking about the world. “If you do so, I think you’ll find that your life will be richer for it,” he said. “For example, instead of thinking like a lawyer, you could think like the Romantics,” and allow experiences and emotions, not logic or reason, to dictate thoughts.
Stanley Hammer of Richmond received the T.C. Williams Law School Scholarship Award, presented for significant contributions to legal scholarship. Mike Mariani of Bayside, N.Y., was chosen by the faculty to receive the Public Interest Law Association Pro Bono Award for his extraordinary commitment to public interest work. Holly Trice of Chesterfield, Va., won the Nina “Ricki” Kestin Service Award, presented to the graduate who has contributed most significantly to the school, the community, and the legal profession.
And the faculty selected Isaac McBeth of Kenosha, Wis., as winner of the Charles T. Norman Award as best all-around graduating student.
News
School of Law ranks 13th for judicial clerkships
Twenty-one percent of the School of Law graduates in 2009 were awarded judicial clerkships, tying the school for No. 13 on a recently released U.S. News & World Report specialty ranking of 187 American law schools. Five percent of Richmond’s same law class secured federal Article III clerkships, serving judges with life appointments to U.S. circuit and district courts, which tied for No. 30 in that ranking.
The law school’s location in a state capital near the nation’s capital and a federal judicial hub contributes to clerkship opportunities for its graduates and current students. The city of Richmond is the third-largest center for courts in the nation, seat of the Supreme Court of Virginia, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and the Virginia Court of Appeals.
“Our graduates have a notable record of securing among the highest percentage of judicial clerkships in the country,” said Kristen Binette, associate director of the law school’s Career Services Office. “They are to be applauded on another impressive clerkship achievement.” (For a current listing of clerkships see Student News.)
News
Yvonne McGhee new executive director of VBA
Yvonne McGhee
Yvonne C. McGhee, L’87, is the new executive director of the Virginia Bar Association (VBA), Virginia’s largest voluntary bar association of 5,000 lawyers and judges. McGhee, who assumed her position in June, is responsible for executing the board’s strategic plan and supervising the seven-member staff at the Richmond office.
McGhee had served as executive director of the 2,000-member Fairfax Bar Association and Fairfax Law Foundation since 2000. Previously, she served as pro se programs director for the 26th Judicial District Trial Court Administrator’s Office in Charlotte, N.C. She also worked as program director for the Fairfax Bar Association and as managing attorney for Baker, Brown & Dixon in Austin, Texas.
Virginia Bar Association President Pia Trigiani, L’83, said: “Yvonne McGhee possesses a unique and impressive background that combines legal experience and association management with a record of success in membership expansion, program development, legislative advocacy, board relations, and volunteer recruitment and support.”
McGhee recently earned the Certified Association Executive designation from the American Society of Association Executives and currently serves as vice president of the National Association of Bar Executives.
Symposium
JOLT program focuses on
e-discovery
The School of Law’s Journal of Law and Technology (JOLT) hosted a symposium March 3, “Electronic Discovery in a World of Cloud Computing, Data Hoarding, and Social Networking,” held in conjunction with the publication of JOLT’s Annual Survey.
Among the six presenters was Chief Magistrate Judge Paul Grimm for the U.S. District Court of Maryland, who has published some of the most important opinions on e-discovery during the past five years.
“Technology is becoming increasingly important in every aspect of life and in particular in the legal community,” said Hamilton Garnett, L’11, JOLT’s symposium and solicitations editor.
Stephen Rancourt, ’06 and L’11, JOLT’s Annual Survey editor, said JOLT wanted to build a symposium and survey that would be practical and relevant for the average practitioner. “How can an attorney who doesn’t deal with e-discovery every day utilize the new rules and case law to their advantage in building litigation?” Nearly 150 practitioners registered for the symposium.
In 1995, JOLT (jolt.richmond.edu) became the world’s first law review to publish exclusively online. Today it ranks among the top five cited law and technology journals in court opinions.
Debate
‘Is Obamacare Constitutional?’
The Federalist Society sponsored a debate April 21, “Is Obamacare Constitutional?” between Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute and Joe Morrissey of the Virginia House of Delegates. Professor Kevin C. Walsh was the moderator.
The debate centered on whether or not the individual mandate in the recently passed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (nicknamed “Obamacare”), which requires individuals to buy insurance, is beyond Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
“What this is about,” said Shapiro, editor-in-chief of Cato Supreme Court Review, “is whether Congress has the power to do it according to the Constitution. Never … has the U.S. government required citizens to engage in economic activity.”
Morrissey, a Democrat, said that the word Obamacare is “a dismissive term,” and that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is only affordable if the individual mandate is preserved.
Margaret Harker, president of the Federalist Society at the school of law, said the debate was highly relevant and timely. “Much of the legal and policy arguments on the important matter have already taken place here in Richmond.” (For more on the topic, see Walsh’s article Health Care: Why Jurisdiction Matters in this issue.)
Event
Duke Energy chief envisions energy future
James E. Rogers, Duke Energy’s chairman, president, and CEO, presented “Creative Cooperation: The Roadmap to our Energy Future,” April 18 at the Robins School of Business, where he was introduced by former Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.
Making access to power universal was the electric industry’s aim in the last century, said Rogers, whose company supplies about 4 million customers in the Carolinas and the Midwest. This century, the focus is on clean energy, efficiency, a modernized power grid, and more. And the U.S. will need a portfolio of different energy sources, said Rogers, possibly including renewables, nuclear, natural gas, and coal. “I’m betting on all the technologies,” he said.
Environmental law professors Joel Eisen and Noah Sachs were part of a roundtable discussion before the address, which was co-sponsored by the School of Law, the Robins School of Business, and the Jepson School of Leadership Studies. Prior to Rogers’ appearance, students in Eisen’s Energy Law and Law of Climate Change courses studied Duke Energy’s climate change strategy and prepared background on 12 projects that the company is undertaking to meet its greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets.
Gift endows Summer Stipend Program for public interest work
As the availability of paid public interest summer internships has decreased over the last few years, the School of Law has stepped in to fill the financial gap though its Summer Stipend Program. Since its inception in 1994, the program has grown from supporting six students in public interest summer placements to awarding more than $200,000 to about 116 students this summer. A recent gift from Judge Frederick P. Stamp Jr., L’59, H’06, ensures this program will continue to thrive through the establishment of the Stamp Public Law Fellowship.
Summer stipends enable law students to gain valuable experience and provide legal services through federal and state agencies, prosecutors’ and public defenders’ offices, legal aid offices, and nonprofit organizations. The average stipend award is $2,000, with plans for the amount to increase in future years.
The summer stipend program is an important priority of the law school, and has been a principal focus in fundraising, said John G. Douglass, who just stepped down as dean. “It’s a kind of support that pays dividends in so many ways,” Douglass said.
 |
| U.S. District Judge Frederick P. Stamp Jr., L’59, and H’06, recently hosted a dinner honoring his present and former law clerks, including (from left) Georgia Smith Hamilton, L’03, Jaime B. Wisegarver, L’10, Ellen Firsching Brown, L’93, Mosby G. Perrow IV, L’04, and Lea Weber Ridenhour, L’96. |
Douglass says Stamp, a former trustee of the University and a longtime supporter of the law school, was one of the earliest proponents of efforts to offer stipends to students in public interest summer placements, especially judicial placements. “The current gift in many ways is an effort to endow long-term the kind of program he has been supporting all along,” Douglass said.
This summer, in addition to funding more traditional placements, stipends will support students working with the International Justice Mission in Zambia, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Virginia Conservation Network, and the Kansas Children’s Service League.
Building undergoing
$2.5 million renovation
The School of Law building is undergoing a $2.5 million improvement and renovation project. Much of the work is taking place this summer and includes:
- Redesigning the clinic area to create a modern law office environment
- Improving the Downunder space and adding storage for student organizations
- Creating conference spaces for student organizations on the third floor
- Converting room 114 into a 50-seat partially tiered classroom and a 16-seat conference/seminar room with video conferencing capability
- Upgrading courtroom presentation technology in the Moot Courtroom as well as refurnishing and recarpeting
- Moving some of the library collection into compact shelving, and in existing stack space creating a new 50-seat room for presentations, meetings, colloquies, and legal research classes.
In addition, the usable space in the courtyard will be expanded, and new landscaping will enhance the exterior appearance.
“When work is complete, every teaching space in the law school will have been renovated within a four-year period,” said John G. Douglass, who just stepped down as dean. “My thanks to the many alumni and friends whose generosity have made this possible, and to the faculty, staff, and students who serve on our Building Committee for their hard work on the design and conception of the project.”
Green Award honors
Chief Justice Hassell
Leroy R. Hassell Sr., chief justice of the Virginia Supreme Court, was honored posthumously in March with the William Green Award for Professional Excellence at the annual Scholarship Luncheon. The Green Award is the law school’s highest honor, named for one of three original professors in 1870 in what was then the department of law.
“The late chief justice led a life of tremendous accomplishment,” said former Dean John G. Douglass, who became friends with Hassell when both were first-year students at Harvard Law. They later practiced together at McGuireWoods in Richmond. Hassell was appointed a justice at the age of 34, and in 2003 became the court’s first African American chief justice. The chief justice served as adjunct faculty in the law school 1994–2010.
George Martin, a partner at McGuireWoods and also a personal friend of Hassell’s, accepted the Green Award. Martin and Hassell met as first-year students at the University of Virginia, and even then, Hassell was a man of purpose, telling Martin that he would graduate from Harvard Law and be appointed a justice. “He was a remarkable individual,” said Martin.
 |
| Former Dean John G. Douglass (from left), Justice Harry L. Carrico, William F. Dudley, L’11, and George Martin, a partner at McGuireWoods, at the Scholarship Luncheon. |
William F. Dudley, L’11, recipient of the Cantor & Cantor Scholarship and the Marks & Harrison Scholarship, presented the student testimonial. “Your generosity has not only touched me … but also helped change the dynamic of my family,” he said. Dudley said he is the second member of his family to receive a college degree, and the first to earn a professional degree. He was raised by a single mother in a rough neighborhood in Portsmouth, Va. “Your generosity will not go unrewarded,” said Dudley, who intends to return to Portsmouth to practice law and help the disadvantaged. “Thank you for brightening my horizons, my family’s horizons, and my community’s horizons.”
Students again tops
in Legal Food Frenzy
The law school, for the third year in a row, was the top school in the 2011 Legal Food Frenzy, donating the equivalent of 152,790 pounds of food to the hungry. That’s 318 pounds per student.
In the 2010 competition, the School of Law brought in 96,326 pounds of food, or 215 pounds per person, more than double the totals in 2009.
The Legal Food Frenzy raised more than 1.6 million pounds of food for the state’s food banks in a competition among 177 Virginia law firms and legal departments coordinated by the attorney general’s office, Virginia Food Banks, and the Young Lawyers Division of the Virginia Bar Association.
Virginia Tech massacre survivor screens Living for 32
Colin Goddard, who survived the shooting massacre at Virginia Tech that killed 32 students and faculty members, brought his acclaimed documentary, Living for 32, to the law school on March 17. The film chronicles Goddard’s recovery from four bullet wounds and his work with the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence as an advocate for gun control legislation.
 |
| Colin Goddard brought his acclaimed documentary, Living for 32, to the law school. |
“We live for the 32 murdered on April 16, 2007, at Virginia Tech, and for the 32 people who are murdered with guns every day in America,” Goddard said. Goddard, who was halfway through a nationwide tour at the time of his appearance, said bringing the film back to Virginia was important. “It hits home here,” he said. Undercover footage shows that Virginia is among the easiest places in the country to buy a weapon at a gun show without a proper background check. Still, Goddard said, the Brady Campaign has stopped nearly 2 million transactions from taking place.
Goddard, 25, made a conscious choice not to be a victim, although it was two years before he could share his story. “It doesn’t have to be how you are remembered,” he said. “It’s a part of my life but it doesn’t have to be the rest of my life.”
Marstiller closes book
on huge legal victory
Last fall, after working for nine years on a case against Forest Pharmaceuticals Inc., Philip S. Marstiller, L’69, closed the book on the biggest legal victory of his career as the drug company paid $313 million to settle criminal and civil charges that it illegally marketed and distributed certain drugs. On March 4, 2011, the company pled guilty to various federal crimes and forfeited $14 million in assets. It’s the largest settlement in Virginia’s history, and one of the larger health-care settlements ever in the United States.
 |
| Philip Marstiller |
In the case, the Marstiller Law Firm represented a former salesman who became a whistleblower when he was fired from Forest Pharmaceuticals after questioning some of its marketing practices. Though the plaintiff talked to other, larger law firms about his case, Marstiller was the only one willing to take it on.
Marstiller has built his practice at the Marstiller Law Firm on representing individuals, especially executives who have been retaliated against for exposing fraudulent conduct of their employers in violation of the False Claims Act.
“My heart has always been with the individual,” said Marstiller, formerly a partner with Hazel Thomas (now Reed Smith). “I enjoy litigation against Fortune 100 and 500 companies, and I relish the competition when there are four or five lawyers on the other side. It is especially satisfying to expose corporate fraud.”
With the Forest case, Marstiller met his match, as he determined he was facing much more than a run-of-the-mill wrongful termination claim. “Once I determined Forest had contracts with the federal government I realized … we had a potential qui tam case under the False Claims Act,” he said. When Marstiller learned the federal government would intervene in the case, he became cautiously optimistic his client could win.
“This case caps my career but I have no intention of retiring,” Marstiller said. “I firmly believe you should live your life quietly while quietly helping others to reach their dream.”
Shift from overspending to innovation, Kaine urges at symposium
The United States needs to shift from an overspending strategy to an innovation strategy, said former Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine in the opening address at the annual Allen Chair Symposium, “Emerging From the Great Recession.”
“We had a growth model that relied on overspending,” Kaine said, citing ballooning government deficits along with rising household debt and declining savings. The innovation model starts with talent expansion, and includes getting the immigration balance right, aggressive globalization with effective exports, and the promotion of new industries, including alternative energy.
Kaine, senior distinguished lecturer on law and leadership studies, was the keynote speaker at the symposium April 6, at which business leaders, attorneys, scholars, and government officials gathered to address the economy. Kaine, a Democrat, had just announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate.
The afternoon session focused on bankruptcy and liquidation, and included a presentation on fundamental changes in business bankruptcies resulting from adjustments in the secured credit market by David G. Epstein, the George E. Allen Chair in Law. Epstein is the author of several books and numerous articles, and is an elected member of the American College of Bankruptcy and the National Bankruptcy Conference.
Rabbi turned lawyer Myron Berman dies
When Myron Berman retired as a rabbi, he turned to law as a second career, graduating from the University of Richmond School of Law in 1993 at the age of 65. For about a decade, he practiced law in Northern Virginia as an advocate for abused and less-fortunate children. Berman, who led Temple Beth-El in Richmond from 1965 to 1993, died in April at the age of 83.
“While Myron Berman could easily have enjoyed a relaxing retirement, he instead chose to continue to use his talents to make a difference in the lives of others,” said Professor Ann M. Hodges. “His extensive experience and deep compassion helped to educate his fellow students as well as the faculty. We at the University of Richmond School of Law are indeed fortunate that he became one of ours.”
Family law scholars’ book examines legal polarization, culture
Family law scholars Naomi Cahn and June Carbone discussed their book Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture in February as part of the Family Law Speaker Series, co-sponsored by the law school’s National Center for Family Law, Family Law Society, and Law Students for Reproductive Justice.
 |
| Professor Meredith Harbach (center) with legal scholars and authors June Carbone (left) and Naomi Cahn. |
Cahn, a professor at George Washington Law School, and Carbone, a professor at University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, studied how different types of family forms have arisen in this country, leading to political polarization that pits “red” states with traditional values against “blue” states with more modern attitudes.
By analyzing statistics on teen births, the average age of marriage, and divorce and abortion rates by state, Cahn and Carbone demonstrate how electoral maps correlate with demographic maps. They explore how societal pressures and changing economic realities influence regional ideologies and voting patterns in the United States.
“Red Families v. Blue Families, which was released in spring 2010, made a big splash, not just in legal academic circles, but also in the popular media,” said Professor Meredith Harbach, who invited the duo to speak at the law school. “Given the current polarization of our national politics, and the continued emphasis on the ‘culture wars,’ this work is timely, provocative, and revealing.”
Cahn and Carbone shared statistics showing that blue states have fewer teen mothers, lower divorce rates, and emphasize personal responsibility. Red states have higher teen birth and divorce rates and emphasize traditional values. Cahn and Carbone believe these differences form the root of the regional cultural and political divide over issues such as abortion, same sex marriage, and contraception.
