Virginia Law & Business Society Welcomes New Students

Virginia Law Weekly September 11, 2024

Jason Vanger '27
Staff Editor

Virginia Law & Business Society (VLBS) held its kickoff event on Thursday, September 5, over sandwiches in Caplin Pavilion. Founded in 1981, VLBS is a student-run organization devoted to corporate law and business. Emily Eason ’26, President of VLBS, introduced the organization and noted upcoming events, such as lunch-and-learns with law firms beginning in October, dinner with 1L Representatives, and a social with students at the Darden School of Business later in the year.

Following Eason’s brief introduction, representatives introduced several student organizations related to corporate law and business. The Virginia Law Emerging Companies and Venture Capital Society (ECVC) provides opportunities for students interested in emerging companies and venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, and private equity. Speakers highlighted mentorship opportunities, speaker events and panels, and networking and social events. ECVC also runs the Transactional Law Competition each year, in which teams of students compete in a simulation of negotiations over a proposed merger agreement.

Law, Innovation, Security & Technology (LIST) focuses on technology law, including prominent issues such as artificial intelligence, privacy, cybersecurity, and financial technology. LIST aims to educate students about issues in the field, provide practical skills and experience, and connect students with mentors and resources. It also works closely with Virginia’s LawTech Center, which promotes research on policy and regulation of technology, the use of data to study legal texts, and the impact of technology on the legal profession. Speakers noted that LIST will hold its first General Body Meeting on Thursday, September 12 and that it is looking for 1L Representatives to spread awareness among the Class of 2027.

The Plaintiffs’ Law Association at the University of Virginia (PLAVA) informs the university community about firms that work on plaintiffs’ law and supports students looking to work in the field. Plaintiffs’ lawyers are those who regularly represent plaintiffs in litigation, often relying on contingency fees. Speakers pointed out that plaintiffs’ law can be a good opportunity for students interested in litigation, allowing them to gain experience quickly while promoting justice, adding that the field contains a variety of large, mid-sized, and small firms. They recognized that the area is not necessarily emphasized by the Office of Private Practice, but said that PLAVA helps to assist students interested in pursuing it. Upcoming events include a Kickoff Meeting, a Litigation Panel, a screening of the documentary No Accident which details the prosecution of those involved in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, and a joint panel with Virginia Law Women (VLW).

Virginia Law & Business Review (VLBR) is one of the nation’s leading journals in corporate law and business. VLBR publishes issues three times each year, with articles covering areas such as antitrust, bankruptcy, commercial law, corporation law, finance, and other regulatory issues. Aside from publishing scholarship, VLBR provides professional development opportunities for members, including attendance at an annual symposium exploring an emerging area of law and business. It also hosts social events, including, in the past, happy hours and dinners. Along with UVA’s other student-run journals, VLBR will take part in the Unified Journal Tryout in the Spring. It will also host interviews for Managing Board positions in April 2025.

Rivanna Investments is an investment management fund run by students at UVA Law, who manage a slice of the school’s endowment. Since its founding in 2010, Rivanna has grown its initial capital investment of $100,000 to over $350,000. In addition to managing its fund, Rivanna aims to give students an opportunity to learn about and practice financial concepts. 1Ls will be able to apply for an analyst position, where they will be trained in financial concepts and then evaluate current positions and new opportunities, or in roles focused on managing relationships with alumni and law and asset management firms. Applications for the analyst position will be open from September 9 to September 16. Representatives from Rivanna added that they look to include a mix of students with and without experience in finance. In addition to investment management, Rivanna provides networking opportunities, including trips to New York City and Washington, D.C.

VLBS and affiliated organizations in the law and business fields will continue to host events throughout the year. Interested students can reach out to contacts at the various organizations’ executive boards, join organization mailing lists, or follow through social media.

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nnk2gn@virginia.edu

Solum and Barzun Discuss Originalism’s History, Merits

Virginia Law Weekly September 11, 2024

Andrew Allard '25
Editor-in-Chief

Last Thursday, September 5, the Federalist Society at UVA Law hosted a talk, dubbed “Originalism 101,” with Professors Lawrence Solum and Charles Barzun ’05. The pair discussed the origins of originalism, its variations, its merits and flaws, and its impact on judicial decision-making.

Professor Solum began by tracing the emergence of contemporary originalism to the rise of administrative agencies and the expansion of federal power during the New Deal era and under the Warren Court. “There were decisions that many judges, scholars, and lawyers felt were inconsistent with the text of the Constitution. That gave rise to a conservative backlash,” Solum explained.

As part of that backlash, conservative legal scholarship emerged criticizing living constitutionalism, including by Robert Bork and William Rehnquist. But, ironically, it was a critic at Stanford, Paul Brest, who coined the term “originalism” in his article The Misconceived Quest for the Original Understanding. “Brest, by naming the theory, created originalism as a movement . . . people reacted to Brest’s critique with defenses of originalism,” said Professor Solum.

But defenders of originalism did not always agree with each other. “Originalism is a family of theories. It’s not a single theory that all originalists agree on,” Solum explained. While nearly all originalists share two foundational ideas—that constitutional meaning is fixed when a provision is enacted and that fixed meanings should bind constitutional actors—there is no single view on how to conduct originalist legal analysis.

For example, original intent originalists argue that the Constitution means whatever the Framers intended for it to mean. Original public meaning originalists, on the other hand, argue that the Constitution was a public document and should be understood as it would have been understood by the public at the time of ratification.

The latter view gained momentum in the 1980s when then-Judge Antonin Scalia advanced the theory in discussions with President Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department, which was developing a constitutional theory for the administration. “That caused a major shift in originalism and the emergence in the 1990s of what’s now called new originalism.” Around that same time, originalists such as Scalia and later Clarence Thomas were elevated to the Supreme Court.

“In the 20-teens, many more originalists were appointed to the federal bench . . . There are now dozens of judges on the United States Courts of Appeals and District Courts who identify as originalists, and some of the Supreme Court justices are originalists to some degree,” said Solum. The Court is not “consistently originalist,” Solum continued, citing the Dobbs majority opinion as “thoroughly non-originalist.” Nonetheless, Solum acknowledged that the Court is “dramatically more sympathetic to originalism than [it] was in the ’50s and ’60s.”

Professor Solum lastly touched on living constitutionalism, one of the principal rivals to originalism. Solum noted that there are several varieties of living constitutionalism, ranging from legislative supremacy—making Congress, rather than the judiciary, the primary authority on constitutional meaning—to common law constitutionalism, allowing the Supreme Court to amend constitutional law through the common law process.

In response, Professor Barzun explored some of the common criticisms of originalism. Firstly, critics often object that meaning cannot be fixed in the way the originalists claim. “These kinds of skeptical objects are oftentimes hard to respond to. It’s fairly easy if you’re philosophically sophisticated enough to show the difficulty with any coherent account of meaning.” While such arguments can be philosophically persuasive, Barzun said, it ultimately proves too much. “If you don’t think that we can fix meaning in any way . . . then what’s the point of being here?”

A stronger criticism, says Barzun, is that originalism doesn’t accurately reflect the views of the founding generation. “If you look at the founding, they weren’t originalists . . . The idea of a constitution itself was fundamentally different than what we think of today. When they talked about the Constitution, they weren’t talking about a document . . . It is the entire tradition, it’s a culture, it’s a set of practices that hold the country together . . . If our whole point is to do what was original, then that seems to be a big problem.”

Originalists have responded to this criticism on normative grounds—even if the Founders didn’t think of constitutions that way, we should now. For example, Justice Scalia argued this position on rule-of-law grounds—people need predictability to organize life and defend freedom. Others advance an argument based on democratic theory: The Constitution is an expression of popular will, so we should obey it.

But Barzun expressed skepticism toward both of these responses. He argued that the U.S. Constitution may not really provide predictability and structure. Instead, courts create constitutional structure through their decisions.

The democratic theory justification can also be criticized because the polity at the time of the founding was unrepresentative. Most of those voting on the ratification of the Constitution were white, propertied men. “It doesn’t seem all that democratic today, right? . . . That’s probably the most stock of stock objections to originalism. But one reason why it’s a stock objection is because it’s, in a sense, a powerful one.”

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tya2us@virginia.edu

SCHOLAR WARS: VLR Online Piece Sparks Twitter Mob

Virginia Law Weekly September 4, 2024

Garrett Coleman & Andrew Allard '25
Executive Editor & Editor-in-Chief

It turns out that legal academics are on social media much more than we previously thought. So much so that the Virginia Law Review and UVA Law Professors Saikrishna Prakash and Aditya Bamzai made the virtual front page on Above the Law.[1] After their essay on the executive removal power was published in Virginia Law Review Online,[2] Professor Julian Davis Mortenson at the University of Michigan Law School took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to voice his concerns in a series of frustrated posts.[3]

Mortenson alleged that Prakash and Bamzai had repeatedly misrepresented his position on the powers inherent in the executive. In relevant part, Prakash and Bamzai’s essay contends:

Although Mortenson has never discussed removal in his articles, he has similarly argued, on the one hand, that the “executive power” was an “empty vessel” and, on the other, that it included “law execution”; might have included “appointments”; and embraced a set of “disaggregated” powers.

But it does not take great brilliance to identify the deep tension in the twin claims that the “executive power” was an “empty vessel” and, at the same time, might have included “law execution,” the “power to appoint assistants,” or other “disaggregated” powers. One claim or the other must give way.[4]

This “empty vessel” was explained by Mortenson in his article, The Executive Power Clause.[5] Not wanting to provoke his ire on X, we think this paragraph provides sufficient context for what Mortenson meant when using that phrase:

When Article II vested “the executive power,” it conveyed the authority to execute the laws. This power was an empty vessel that authorized only those actions previously specified by the laws of the land. . . . Either way, the conceptual gist of executive action was implementation of instruction and authority that came from elsewhere. Make no mistake: the presidency thus created was a massively powerful institution. Just not one with a free-floating foreign affairs power, a residual national security authority, or indeed any other power not specifically listed in the Constitution.[6]

While this reads like common academic parlance to us, the conversation on X was anything but. Before we begin, we would like to note that this article could not include every post or every bit of context. We welcome any challenge on X @LawWeekly. With that said, the first salvo came from Mortenson on Saturday evening:

Mortenson’s thread continued, with increasing zeal:

A Boston University School of Law professor, Jed Shugerman, joined the conversation to side with Mortenson:

The rest of Shugerman’s thread detailed an alleged slight from Prakash and Bamzai. As Shugerman puts it, he organized a conference on executive power in 2022, invited Prakash and Bamzai, but was stood up by Prakash and caught off guard by an unannounced forthcoming article from the two professors in the Harvard Law Review. Shugerman criticized Prakash and Bamzai’s “anti-collegial” decision not to share their drafts in advance of the panel, as other participants had. Shugerman subsequently issued an apology, saying that he was “stepping back” from the discussion on X.

There were also defenders of Prakash and Bamzai. Professor William Baude of the University of Chicago Law School and our very own Professor Richard M. Re joined the battlefield:

Off of X, Baude wrote a more detailed piece about the academic debate, available in The Volokh Conspiracy.[7]

Wound up in this “tweetstorm” was an implicit critique of the law review system, juxtaposed against the peer-review process more common in other academic fields. Professor Milan Markovic of Texas A&M School of Law chimed into the debate to opine on the structural weaknesses of student-run journals:

Professor Jacob Charles, a Second Amendment scholar at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law, seconded Markovic’s criticism of student-run journals, citing District of Columbia v. Heller as a product of gaps in the law review process.

In response, Professor Robert Leider of the Antonin Scalia Law School jumped in to defend student-run journals:

But Professor Jack Rakove of Stanford University’s political science department would not take this lying down:

As authors, we are split on the actual merits of Mortenson’s critique. But we are united in a morbid curiosity about this Saturday-night tweetstorm and a sense that X may be a less-than-ideal forum for academic debate. Whatever the resolution to this debacle, we hope that it will be reached in a gentler exchange.

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jxu6ad@virgina.edu; tya2us@virginia.edu

[1] Joe Patrice, Law Professors Call Out Colleagues Over Persistent Misrepresentations, Above the Law (Aug. 27, 2024). https://abovethelaw.com/2024/08/law-professors-call-out-colleagues-over-persistent-misrepresentations/.

[2] Aditya Bamzai & Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash, How to Think About the Removal Power, 110 Va. L. Rev. Online 159 (2024).

[3] See Patrice, supra note 1. For the rest of this article, we took screenshots of the relevant X accounts, the handles of which are all visible. To the best of our knowledge, all these Xs (tweets?) remain published.

[4] Bamzai & Prakash, supra note 2, at 168 (footnotes and citations omitted).

[5] Julian Davis Mortenson, The Executive Power Clause, 168 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1269 (2020).

[6] Id. at 1367.

[7] Will Baude, Executive Power Scholarship: A Three Level Problem, The Volokh Conspiracy (Aug. 28, 2024), https://reason.com/volokh/2024/08/28/executive-power-scholarship-a-three-level-problem/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter.

Stop asking if it's my first rodeo. It's not.

Virginia Law Weekly September 4, 2024

Nicky Demitry '26
Production Editor

To the new 1Ls who are not from here, welcome to Virginia! We are entering the best time of the year for pretty much anything outdoors. And while the vineyards, breweries, and scenic hiking trails are excellent places to spend time as the weather cools down, autumn also happens to be the tail end of rodeo season in Virginia. And if you haven’t been to a rodeo, it might be a good time to do so. You never know if someone is going to ask if this is your first rodeo, to which you must be able to confidently reply, “Actually, no, I have been to exactly one (1) rodeo, thank you very much.”

The 2024 Rockfish River Rodeo kicked off at Blue Toad Hard Cider this past Saturday, which is about forty-five minutes outside of Charlottesville in the heart of local vineyard and distillery territory. Blue Toad itself is nestled in Rockfish Gap, which is a wind gap set in the Blue Ridge Mountains, also called Afton Mountain. And if you’re wondering what a wind gap is, it’s a gap where there used to be a river (or some other form of waterway) but that is now dry due to stream capture. Another notable local wind gap is the OG Virginia and Tennessee Railroad crossing out in Bedford County. It is absolutely not worth visiting unless you want to buy meth. Look at us learning!

Rockfish River Rodeo is on the smaller side, which is a relief for me and makes it an ideal first-timer rodeo, as the upcoming Max Meadows Pro Rodeo and the Orange County Rodeo[1] put on in part by the Bureau of Land Management are massive events and can be overwhelming. I have also personally found that smaller rodeos center the well-being of the animals involved appropriately, which is something that can often be missing at bigger commercial rodeos. My favorite part of this year’s rodeo was the absolute unbothered nature of the bulls tasked with bucking off their various cowboys and cowgirls. Immediately upon unseating their rider, every single bull immediately stopped bucking, did the cow equivalent of yawning, and then walked itself back into the chute with quite literally no urging from the folks tasked with bull guidance/rider safety.

The two cowboys on horseback waiting with lassos eventually ended up lasso-ing a bull already headed back inside, just because it was near the end of the event and they seemed to be like, “We should do this, right? Kinda feels weird if we don’t.”

The bull who got lasso’d truly seemed mystified as he paused his walk back to the chute, looked at the rope, looked at the cowboy, and then continued to walk off. And for the mini bull riding portion, where kids try their hand at bull riding, at least two of the bulls just stood there nonplussed as rodeo staff performed an energetic interpretive dance in an effort to induce bucking. There is something delightful about a tiny figure in boots and a cowboy hat sitting firmly atop an equally small cow, both stock-still, while everyone around them hoots and hollers before throwing up their hands and giving up.

This may not be what the rodeo planners necessarily wanted out of the bull riding portion of the event, but it does mean that the bulls were not being induced to buck with any of the coercive or cruel tactics employed at other types of animal shows. If there’s one thing farm people can agree on, it’s that horses, cows, and all other forms of livestock are going to do what they’re going to do, and that frequently means doing the opposite of what you might be asking them to do. While I don’t miss the endless manual labor of living on a farm, I do miss ornery, opinionated animals and the unhinged ways in which we form co-existent relationships (“Go change, you can’t wear those coveralls around Tug, he hates the yellow and he’ll bite.”) that are based on mutual symbiosis and loving irritation rather than subservience. And hey, if we wanted mindless servitude, we’d just go into a profession that wholeheartedly endorses working 80-hour (or more) weeks as peons for enormous faceless multinational corporations!

This particular rodeo is put on by Ashton Beebe, owner of Indian Summer Guide Service,[2] who I met during a particularly fun day spent gallivanting around local vineyards on horseback, which is another off-the-beaten-path activity here in Virginia I highly recommend. You don’t need horse experience, and it’s such a fun and unique way to learn about Virginia's history, wine, and also some of the more relevant environmental and agricultural conversations currently happening in Virginia. It is my firm belief that we as law students really need to touch grass every once in a while, and there’s no better way to touch grass than in the company of grass’s number one aficionados (horses, it’s a horse joke, idk).

So if you ever wanted to drink a Coors Banquet whilst watching events such as Mutton Busting (children riding/wrestling/engaging in tactical warfare with sheep), bull riding, and cattle roping, it may be time to put a rodeo on your schedule before we head into the dark times of winter and finals.

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ncd8kt@virginia.edu

[1] https://visitorangevirginia.com/blm-bull-rodeo/.

[2] https://www.indiansummerguideservice.com/about/.

A Welcome from Dean Kendrick

Virginia Law Weekly August 29, 2024

Leslie Kendrick
Dean of the Law School

Welcome to the new school year! You are the very first students I get to have as Dean, and I am honored to take on this role with you. As I have been thinking about what good wishes to send you for your year, I have found myself recalling the things that remain constant, from my time as a student to yours.

Every fall, when I have lunch with my Torts students, I ask what drew them to UVA. A few days ago, I asked some new 1Ls the same thing. What I hear every year is exactly what my classmates and I would have said more than 20 years ago.

They say that this seemed like a place they could live as well as learn. That an alum had raved about it. That current students—you—were genuinely kind and welcoming.

What’s uncanny is that every year, new students accurately describe this place when they have just arrived, even before they have taken their first class.

How can this be? It is an ongoing marvel to me. The only explanation I have is that our students and alumni authentically convey what UVA is about, through act and deed. Admitted students are not dumb (obviously). If a law school tried to manufacture a culture, they would not buy it. They pay attention to what you are saying and doing. And what they see in you cannot be faked.

What we have here is special, but it has its challenges. I’ll mention one, which I talked about with our 1Ls at orientation.

At some point in your life, you have probably had neighbors. With neighbors, you might tread carefully: you might steer clear of hot-button topics and stick to the weather. Because these are folks you have to live with, possibly for a long time.

Now imagine you had lots of neighbors. About 1,000. And not only did you live in close proximity, but you also worked at the same place. Also, you socialized together constantly. Also, you were in the same book club, meeting for hours each week and covering the most sensitive topics of the day. Also, there were often visitors to the neighborhood—high-profile and polarizing visitors—whom some neighbors loved and some hated. Also, even if you moved, you would still see these neighbors for the rest of your life, professionally and socially.

Who in the real world lives like that? Nobody! That’s a lot of pressure to put on one set of relationships! But that is you and your classmates in law school. You are each other’s residential, intellectual, social, extracurricular, and professional compatriots, all at the same time.

Never again are you likely to do so many things with the same people with the same openness. Later, you will exercise more control over whom you live and socialize with. You will choose how much to mix your social and professional lives. Your workplace will be mission-focused and unlikely to involve watercooler discussions of everyone’s most strongly held beliefs. In other words, your life will have more boundaries. And as Robert Frost said, “Good fences make good neighbors.”

So go easy on yourselves—and on each other. Consider all the relationships you have with your classmates, and remember that they are your neighbors, for now and for life. When a tree falls in your yard, it’s nice to have a neighbor with a chainsaw. When the neighbor’s party is loud, it’s nice to cut them some slack, knowing they will do the same one day. We can all be that kind of neighbor—or we can be the kind that wind up in property casebooks, litigating over boundary lines and spite walls. Whoever wins, everybody loses.

This leads me to two further thoughts, one about the Law School and one about you.

We who work at the Law School are all here, in one way or another, to support you in becoming legal professionals and colleagues. All of us are in this process together, and your success is our success. Every time you meet a deadline, write a sharp brief, congratulate a peer on a triumph, or help a classmate in need, you are living out the habits and values that will make you a great lawyer. And that, ultimately, is what we are all here to help you become.

Similarly, broadly speaking, policies and norms at the Law School exist for two main reasons: (1) to reflect the standards you will be held to as legal professionals and (2) to enable you all to live and work together, accomplishing the primary thing you are here to do: your legal education and professional development.

My own responsibility is to help with exactly that. As a sentient human being on this earth for forty-mumble years, I have lots of opinions. I would guarantee that every one of you disagrees with me about at least one deeply held, core belief. That does not in any way affect my regard for you, and I hope it will not affect yours for me. My job is not about my personal opinions. My job is to serve you as professionals and the Law School as an institution. I will work hard to do that.

More importantly, here’s the point about you: although law school is challenging, if you invest in this community, you can have one of the best experiences of your life. Being connected to your classmates in so many ways can be hard, but it can also be incredible. It can mean relationships deeper than any others. It can mean finding your life partner, or your best friend.

The constant refrain I hear from our alumni—and it echoes what I hear from new 1Ls—is how much they loved law school. Even though their later lives are marked by more maturity, more stability, and more boundaries, they say law school had a magic that later stages of life do not. This is the upside of the unique environment you find yourselves in, the alchemy that all of you, together, produce.

Welcome to the school year. It is full of possibilities, for you as an individual and us as a community. Let us be the best that we can be: neighbors whose differences are an essential source of their strength. In a world riven by so many divisions, our challenge is greater than ever. I often say that the Law School does not have magic dust to make all the world’s problems disappear when you enter the door. Sometimes I wish it did. But the truth is, the Law School’s magic dust is how much you, like your predecessors, commit to being good neighbors to each other. As challenging as it sometimes is, that is the real magic of this place. I, for one, would not trade it.

A Letter from Two Refugees in Legal Limbo

Virginia Law Weekly August 29, 2024

Nur Kabir & Khair Ullah
Guest Writers
Introduction by Andrew Allard
Editor-in-Chief

Editor’s note: Thank you to Nur Kabir and Khair Ullah for submitting this guest piece and Ann Bayliss for coordinating its publication. Mr. Kabir and Mr. Ullah’s letter does not reflect the views of the Virginia Law Weekly or its editors.

In the spring of last year, the Law Weekly received an unexpected guest piece from across the globe. Ann Bayliss, a member of the Charlottesville community with ties to the Law School, contacted us with an intriguing story. For three years, she has corresponded with two Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh, Nur Kabir and Khair Ullah. Bayliss suggested publishing their story to increase awareness among future Virginia lawyers of the human rights abuses faced by the Rohingya.

Many readers have likely read about the ongoing persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar, particularly after news broke of renewed attacks on Rohingya fleeing Myanmar this summer. But students may be unfamiliar—as we were—with the complexities of international law that contribute to the Rohingyas’ uncertain legal status.

We shared the letter with Professor Camilo Sanchéz, the director of the Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, who noted UVA students’ “rich history” of applying their legal skills to human rights issues. “I would recommend students check out the work of the Burmese Democratic Futures Working Group. This group brings together UVA faculty, Burmese democratic advocates, and leadership from various non-profits to explore the history and current state of non-violent democratic movements in Myanmar.”

The letter from Mr. Kabir and Mr. Ullah follows:

Law students of the University of Virginia, we are two Myanmar nationals from the Rohingya community writing to you from Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

We were just setting out on our careers after passing the final exam necessary to matriculate into higher education when a genocide occurred on August 2017 in Myanmar, and we write because, although our lives were spared, we remain in legal limbo seven years later.

Thanks to the intervention of Bangladesh and the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights, we are relatively well off compared to refugees within Myanmar and elsewhere. We have even survived uncertain legal situations before. To explain how we got here, it is necessary to know a little bit about how the problem facing the Burmese Rohingya began.

Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh.
Source: Khair Ullah

Evidence from European explorers, missionaries, and trading companies from the 1600s to the early 1800s documents the presence of Muslims in Arakan, predating British colonization in 1824. One of our elders, Muhemmed Hussain, explains: “It is said in Arakan, the Rakhine and the Rohingya were brothers. Two races from the same place. One believes in Buddhism and one believes in Islam. We Rohingya were here since long before 1823. Our fathers, Grandfather [sic], great grandfathers, children, and grandchildren were all born here.”

From 1824 to 1937, Burma was a “province” of British India. Burma formally obtained independence on January 4, 1948. The 1947 Burmese Constitution stated that people who resided in Burma on its independence day were citizens. So, to determine whether we are citizens or not, it is needed to start from 1947, not hundreds of years ago. That is the right way. As Elder Aman Ullah points out, “We need to understand that we all belonged to Burma since the day of independence.”

On March 2, 1962, General Ne Win seized power in a military coup. And in 1964, he excluded the Rohingya language from Burmese Broadcasting Service (BBC). Ten years later, Ne Win’s military government started to draft a new constitution. It legalized discriminatory policy against Rohingya but was not recognized by the international community and was known as “black law.” However, it was declared the national constitution in 1982. What the military government did to us with the pen harmed us more than their physical attacks.[1]

By 2014, we were obliged to say that we were Bengali instead of Rohingya in the national census. No Rohingya Muslim candidates could run for parliament. In 2017, our unclear legal status legitimized attacks against us as a group. Neighbors turned their backs as the military burned our homes and killed anyone who did not leave.

By the grace of God and the goodwill of the Bangladeshi government, we found shelter where we now live. International groups allied with the United Nations have helped us build temporary shelters, set up schools and houses of worship, and work, or rather, volunteer.

One of us volunteered not just for a month, a summer, or a year, but for two years–even longer than the international teams, who got paid. Once again, unclear legal status holds us back. Without the rights given to other refugees, we cannot even have bank accounts.

Although Bangladesh saved us, it is not a party to the 1951 Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees and has not yet signed it. Convention-signing countries agree to “give sympathetic consideration to assimilating the rights of all refugees with regard to wage-earning employment.”[2]

Granting us refugee status would allow us to repay our host country for all that they have done. Of course, we also dream of reclaiming our Myanmar citizenship. You lawyers of the future can surely understand our plight. Would any of you one day help us win the opportunity to work and live as citizens again?

A proverb of ours is “Zou Háilé Háiyóm, Hímmót No Háráiyóm,” which means, “Even if we have to eat powdered rice, we will never lose our guts.” We will persevere through thick and thin.

Thank you for sending hope in our direction, as we wish you good luck with the fall semester!

[1] For more details, please visit Ekkhaale.org.

[2] CPRSR Article 17.

Judge Roger Gregory Receives Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law

Virginia Law Weekly April 17, 2024

Andrew Allard '25
Editor-in-Chief

In a profound moment of humility and gratitude, Judge Roger L. Gregory of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals accepted the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law last Thursday. The medal—previous recipients of which include Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, as well as Robert Mueller ’73 and Loretta Lynch—recognizes Judge Gregory’s remarkable journey of public service, beginning here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Pictured: Judge Gregory
Photo Credit: UVA Law

“When I received the letter saying that I would be the recipient of this incredible medal, I was glad that I was on level ground because I was about to faint,” said Judge Gregory. Judge Gregory noted that it was especially an honor to be at “Mr. Jefferson’s school.” Praising the Law School for its contributions to legal scholarship, Judge Gregory noted that he and Dean Goluboff first met at a panel on constitutional law. “She’s a working dean . . . She was waxing eloquently on constitutional law. I was taking notes.” Judge Gregory also noted that, thanks to his three daughters, “I didn’t go to the University of Virginia, but a lot of my money did.”

The story of Judge Gregory's ascent to the bench is etched with the indelible marks of history. He was raised in Petersburg, Virginia, where he attended a segregated public high school until the 11th grade. He later attended nearby Virginia State University as a first-generation college student, where he graduated summa cum laude. Judge Gregory then attended law school, receiving his J.D. in 1978 from the University of Michigan Law School, for which, said Dean Goluboff, “we forgive him.”

Judge Gregory went on to work in private practice and eventually established his own firm with Lawrence Douglas Wilder in 1982. He was then nominated to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals by two presidents—first by President Bill Clinton in a recess appointment, and later by President George W. Bush after the first appointment expired. Clearing the Senate with a near-unanimous vote, Judge Gregory became the first Black judge to serve on the Fourth Circuit, and he remains the only judge appointed to a federal appellate court by presidents from both major parties.

From 2016 to 2023, Judge Gregory served as Chief Judge of the Fourth Circuit. During his tenure as Chief Judge, Gregory wrote the majority opinion in International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump,[1] upholding an injunction against President Trump’s travel ban that restricted admission of refugees from seven majority Muslim countries. Judge Gregory also highlighted two death penalty cases that the Court reviewed, ultimately resulting in a reduced life sentence for one defendant and exoneration based on actual innocence for the other. “After seventeen years on death row, he was released . . . All cases are important, but those ones stand out,” Judge Gregory said.

Reflecting on the honor bestowed upon him, Judge Gregory evoked the intertwined threads of history and memory. Situated in the former capital of the Confederacy, Judge Gregory’s chambers in the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. U.S. Courthouse are a poignant symbol of change juxtaposed against the grim echoes of history. Judge Gregory noted that from his window, he can see Thomas Jefferson’s state house and a statue of Barbara Johns, a civil rights activist who, as a high school student, helped to initiate one of the consolidated cases in Brown v. Board of Education.

Judge Gregory thus sits at a complex intersection of our nation’s history—a history that has undoubtedly shaped his view of the Constitution. Judge Gregory noted that, since the beginning of the Republic, the question of who are “We the People” has perplexed legal thinkers. “People that looked like me would not be so if we were textualists or originalists,” Judge Gregory said. Noting the importance of adhering to the Constitution, he continued, “The good thing about that is also the bad thing about that . . . Everybody has a different view of what that means.”

But for Judge Gregory, the struggle over constitutional meaning is itself important. “Text without context is pretext,” Judge Gregory said. “The Constitution must be interpreted with contextual sensitivity to changing circumstances so that it imposes reasonable requirements in such circumstances,” he continued, citing Justice Joseph Story, who served on the Supreme Court alongside Chief Justice Marshall.

“Constitutionalism is a blessing because we adhere to the Constitution, but it can be a curse if we engage in distorted constitutionalism,” Judge Gregory said, pointing to John C. Calhoun’s constitutional defense of slavery and Chief Justice Taney’s opinion in Dred Scott. “I love the Constitution . . . but there's nothing talismanic about these words unless they're in the heart.”

Asked how his life has affected his jurisprudence, Judge Gregory recalled a friend who spent much of his adult life in prison due to substance abuse. Now recovered and out of prison, he helps guide others through prison and addiction. “From diabetes, he’s now almost blind . . . and he said ‘I’ve never seen clearer in my life than I see now today,’” Judge Gregory said, choking back tears. “That’s how we’ve got to see the Constitution.”

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tya2us@virginia.edu

[1] 883 F. 3d 233 (4th Cir. 2018).

Lambda Celebrates 40th Anniversary with a Gay-la for the Ages

Virginia Law Weekly April 17, 2024

Brent Rice '25
Staff Editor

This past Friday, Lambda Law Alliance proved that Feb Club isn’t the only time they know how to throw a good party. Over 210 students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends of the Law School’s second-largest affinity organization gathered at the Kimpton The Forum Hotel for a night of merriment and celebration as the club rang in its 40th year of existence and paid tribute to three persons who have had an outsized impact on the LGBTQ+ community both locally and nationwide.

The night began with a reflection on LAMBDA’s humble beginnings, founded in 1984 as the Gay and Lesbian Law Students Association and comprised just enough students to fill a dining room table. By spring 1997, GALLSA had grown to 15 members and changed its name to BGALLSA to include bisexual students. Later, somewhere around 2001, the organization changed its name to LAMBDA in an effort to avoid forcing its members into defining themselves with labels of their sexuality. Today, LAMBDA’s membership consists of more than 130 self-identifying queer students.

In her introductory remarks, Dean Risa Goluboff took the time to reflect on the aforementioned growth of the club and also to share a staggering statistic about the current 1L class—that is, nearly 20% of them self-identify as queer. Goluboff closed her remarks by extending to LAMBDA an official welcome to middle-age and wishes for many more successful years to come.

Next, Jennifer Hulvey, the former director of financial aid at the Law School and current senior advisor to the same office, took the stage to share a few touching interactions she has had with students over the years alongside some additionally exciting statistics about the University’s Queer Alumni Network (QVA), which has provided over $350,000 in scholarships to LGBTQ+ students over the years. Hulvey, a past recipient of the Alvarez-Coughlin award which seeks to honor those who have made “extraordinary efforts on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community by creating an open, supportive, and welcoming environment for diversity at the Law School, the University as a whole and beyond,” helped transition the evening to the presentation of the award to three very worthy attendees in the audience.

Photo Credit: Lambda Law Alliance & Reilly Swennes ’25

Scott Migliori ’12, the 2020-21 honoree whose acceptance of the award had been delayed due to Covid, was the first person of the evening to be presented the award. Migliori was the first openly transgender student at the Law School. Despite expressing great pride over the growth of the LGBTQ+ community at UVA Law, Migliori, who is currently considering leaving Florida over concerns for his family’s safety, reminded the room that there is still important work to be done.

Luis Alvarez, Jr. ’88, President and CEO of the Law School Foundation and one of the namesakes of the award, introduced the next recipient, Susan Baker-Manning ’98. Baker-Manning, who worked in Big Law after graduating from UVA, talked about finding ways to make an impact and serve your communities no matter your role. As a Partner at Morgan Lewis, she led large impact litigation matters, including representing some of the largest businesses in the country in an amicus brief to the US Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges. Baker-Manning currently serves as the General Counsel of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Next, the award’s other namesake and long-time LAMBDA advisor, Professor Anne Coughlin, introduced the evening’s final recipient of the Alvarez-Coughlin award, Cordel Faulk ’01. Faulk served UVA Law from 2009 to 2020, first as Director of Admissions and later as Assistant Dean and Chief Admissions Officer. Many of the evening’s speakers took the time to address special thanks to Faulk and testified that the growth of LAMBDA that we had gathered to celebrate was the direct result of Faulk’s work to make UVA Law a more welcoming and inclusive place.

To close out the evening, world renowned drag queen Jackie Cox took the stage and serenaded the crowd before inviting the audience to join her on the dance floor.

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wrf4bh@virginia.edu

Perspectives on Stablecoins

Virginia Law Weekly April 17, 2024

Noah Coco '26
Managing Editor

On Tuesday, April 9, Law, Information, Security, and Technology (LIST) hosted practitioners at the forefront of stablecoins for their event titled “Women in the Digital Assets Industry: Different Perspectives on Stablecoins.” The practitioners each discussed their experiences at the financial, legal, and regulatory frontier of this burgeoning technology and industry.

Professor Julia Mahoney, who is currently teaching a Monetary Constitution class, kicked off the discussion with a broad introduction and survey of stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies whose values are pegged to some external reference point. The most common of these external reference points are other fiat currencies – currencies backed by the government that issued them rather than a physical commodity like gold or silver[1]—but stablecoins may also be pegged to commodities, and others maintain their value through algorithmic formulae.

Pictured: Flavia Naves, Meagan Griffin ’13, Lisa Schroer, & Professor Mahoney
Photo Credit: UVA Law

According to Professor Mahoney, what sets stablecoins apart from other cryptocurrencies is their greater potential to serve as a medium of exchange. As the name suggests, many stablecoins are reliably pegged to their external reference points and effectively eliminate the wild price fluctuations that have so far been endemic to cryptocurrencies more broadly. Price stability is achieved by maintaining sufficient reserve assets backing the stablecoins, which are often overcollateralized to protect against fluctuations in the prices of the underlying reserve assets. As price-stable mediums of exchange, stablecoins can circumvent the “iron grip” of sovereigns by providing an alternative financial infrastructure beyond national financial regulators and private financial intermediaries.

On the other hand, stablecoins do not come without skeptics. Mahoney cited academics and regulators alike who have expressed concern over the adoption of this innovative yet still nascent technology. One common criticism is that stablecoins are recreating the Civil War-era phenomenon of widespread circulation of private bank notes. In this modern context, however, the “banks” issuing the stablecoins are so far unregulated and prone to destabilizing bank runs that could provoke government intervention. Federal regulators like Gary Gensler, Commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission, share similar sentiments and have so far taken aggressive stances against the industry.

The remaining practitioners proceeded by reflecting on their own roles amidst the financial innovation and accompanying regulatory uncertainty surrounding stablecoins.

Lisa Schroeer, Senior Director & Analytical Manager, Cross Analytic Practice Expertise Team at S&P Global Ratings, began by discussing these trends from a private ratings perspective. Lisa, a self-proclaimed “unlikely DeFi’er” who started her career at the Federal Reserve before transitioning to her current employer, says, as she sees it, the primary goal of rating agencies is providing transparency and minimizing asymmetric information for financial assets. With respect to stablecoins, she has been assessing the ability of stablecoins to maintain their pegs by examining the assets backing them. Quality of reserve assets, asset liquidity, and overcollateralization are key features she looks at in determining whether stablecoins can reliably keep their pegs. This analysis is difficult when stablecoin issuers keep relatively less transparent records,[2] or when stablecoins are backed by assets of less stable value, like other cryptocurrencies.

Flavia Naves, Commissioner of the Wyoming Stable Coin Commission and Of Counsel at Hathaway & Kunz, LLP, next spoke about stablecoins from the state regulatory perspective. Naves noted that stablecoins are still “wizardry” to regulators, who know very little about the technology and are equipped with an outdated toolset of old laws to regulate the industry. Throughout the history of banking, regulators have constructed banking guardrails and internet guardrails as more transactions and payments began to occur online, but she says that the industry still lacks appropriate “blockchain guardrails” to deal with the newest financial innovations in crypto and stablecoins. Although the correct regulatory response is still debated, she notes that states have been more active in regulating the industry to date than the federal government. Her own Wyoming Stable Coin Commission is a product of recent state legislation establishing the Commission and empowering it to create what would be the United States’ first government-issued stablecoin backed by US dollar reserves.[3]

Megan Griffin ’13, Of Counsel in the Global Fintech & Payments Group at Paul Hastings LLP, further elaborated on state stablecoin regulatory schemes that she has encountered in her practice. She noted that states are the primary regulators for non-banking, non-depository institutions, the category that stablecoin issuers fall into. That regulatory structure complicates the stablecoin industry because the “interlocking web of state banking departments” lacks uniformity in their approach to cryptocurrencies broadly, and stablecoins in particular.

For instance, most regulations of cryptocurrency at the state level derive from money transmitter statutes, which have traditionally applied to the issuance of payment instruments, instruments of prepaid value, and remits between two parties, but that are now being used to regulate cryptocurrency exchanges, even when they do not even touch fiat money. Some states have labeled stablecoins as cryptocurrencies, which under their respective state statutes excuses them from regulations governing underlying asset reserves (implicitly acknowledging that cryptocurrencies somehow hold intrinsic value). Other states label stablecoins as cryptocurrencies, but under their respective statutes they do regulate the underlying reserves. Still other states recognize stablecoins as a store of value, a category which also subjects them to regulations of the underlying reserves. The lack of uniformity makes compliance with state regulations difficult for stablecoin issuers, who often must engage counsel at earlier stages than other technology startups.

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cmz4bx@virginia.edu

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp.

[2] Like Tether, one of the most widely used stablecoins.

[3] Castelluccio et al., Wyoming Adopts Stable Token Legislation and Lays the Foundation for a Government-Issued Stable Coin, Mayer Brown (May 5, 2023) https://www.mayerbrown.com/en/insights/publications/2023/05/wyoming-adopts-stable-token-legislation-and-lays-the-foundation-for-a-government-issued-stablecoin.

Strong Showing from UVA Law in 41st Softball Invitational

Virginia Law Weekly April 10, 2024

Garrett Coleman '25
Executive Editor

The 41st Annual North Grounds Softball League Invitational began last Friday evening, with the first pitches delivered by guests of honor Dean Risa Goluboff and the family of Tessa Wiseman ’24. Teams from Georgetown Law and Florida State Law won the Co-Rec Championship and the Open Championship, respectively.

Pictured: UVA Law's CoRec Blue
Photo Credit: Katie Barbella '25

The weekend was not only about softball, but also incorporated a strong charitable component. On this point, Tournament Director Sally Levin ’24 said, “Besides bringing law students from across the country together for a fun weekend of softball and socializing, the great purpose of the Invitational is to raise money for our charitable partner, ReadyKids. ReadyKids is a local non-profit that provides counseling, family support, and early learning opportunities to children in Charlottesville. Our team visited ReadyKids in the fall, and it was clear how many important services they provide in their nurturing spaces. Our partnership with ReadyKids goes back many years, when Professor Schragger served as the president of the board, and is now stronger than ever. Presenting our donation check to ReadyKids is one of the highlights of the weekend.” This year’s donation came out to $40,000.

When the playoffs came around, this reporter was thrilled to follow the elite CoRec Blue team from UVA Law. Before the first game Sunday morning against the University of Connecticut Huskies, I found myself an excellent perch from which to listen to the players warm up. One Husky said of CoRec Blue, “This is their JV team . . . we have to win.” Unfortunately, the Huskies’ finest came up short, 15 to 7. The highlight of the game was an early grand slam from Sam Meyer ’24. The team’s other Sam, Quinan ’25, also had an excellent throw from deep left field to get out the Husky who was running home. This reporter thinks that play made up for his earlier at-bats.

Next team up to the slaughterhouse was Yale. During the game, one of my anonymous sources overheard this from a Yalie outfielder: “Dude, they’re trying too hard. It’s intramural softball, and they’ve got ten dudes who can hit .500.” While we were not sure what metric this student was using, it is fair to say that the Blues had over ten players who had a home run percentage of over .500. The Columbia students on the bench voiced similar concerns, accusing many UVA players of using performance enhancing drugs. Perhaps the Blues were trying too hard, as the final score came out to 24 to 1.

In the quarterfinals, the Blues faced off against Charleston Law, who put up the best fight so far. Daniel Dunn ’25 was a brick wall at third base, catching several low line drives. Andrew Becker ’24 continued his fantastic day with a grand slam, sailing far beyond the center fence. Quinan and Becker continued to secure the left and left-center outfield. And Midge Zuk ’24 dominated on the diamond with several line drives and a big catch in deep right field. I was able to see this one up close and personal as I picked up Becker’s home run ball, which the field monitor refused to authenticate.

Tragedy struck when the Blues met the Georgetown Aiders and Abattors, who had previously defeated UVA’s other team, CoRec Gold. The GULCers kept a one run lead through three innings, with both teams fielding beautifully. But the Blues answered in innings four and five, scoring seven runs. With massive homers from Dunn and Cooper Lewis ’24, steady line drives from Sadie Goering ’24, and effortless fielding from shortstop Matan Siskind ’25, the Blues looked unstoppable. Unfortunately, an eight-run rally in innings six and seven secured the win for Georgetown. Their steady line drives into the outfield kept runners moving consistently. While disappointed, the players of CoRec Blue and their many fans behind home plate kept their chins up and left the diamond with collegiality intact.

From sources who wished to remain anonymous, this reporter did learn of some hiccups in the event. There were multiple hospitalizations from injuries–nothing too serious, thankfully, but to be expected when law schools continue to spurn KJDs. A non-UVA player was ejected for yelling at an umpire. And a certain D.C. school even had an illegal bat confiscated from them. Our noble lawyers would do well to remember that there will be sharp practices once we leave these honor-bound Grounds.[1]

While the bleachers were replete with chirping, some of it migrated online. The Harvard Law School softball page on Instagram posted this message after their elimination: “And, thank god we’re not Yale, who lost 46-0 today.” After seeing Yale in the playoff round against the Blues, this reporter is confused as to where the Harvard students got that information and would be happy to consult on any future libel actions. The HLS Softball account also posted about their new accolade: Ivy League Champion at the UVA Law Softball Invitational. While this is also disputed, I would like to invent an even newer accolade in light of the most recent rankings: UVA Law wins the T4 Championship.

Congrats to the winning teams and thank you to all the event’s organizers for a well-run and enjoyable weekend in Charlottesville. Field Monitors were constantly running between games and putting in the necessary behind-the-scenes work, thanks to the guidance of our other Tournament Director, Grace Stevens ’24. It was an excellent showcase of our wonderful town, talented school body, and uniquely collegial spirit.

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tq77zz@virginia.edu

[1] This was before the final rounds, and I am unfortunately quite confident that the Aiders and Abettors corrected the honest mistake immediately.

Professor Cahn's New Book Tackles Growing Wage Gap

Virginia Law Weekly April 10, 2024

Andrew Allard '25
Editor-in-Chief

In the United States today, more women hold bachelor's degrees than men, and that gap continues to widen.[1] Why, then, is the wage gap increasing for women with college degrees? In a new book, Fair Shake: Women & the Fight to Build a Just Economy, Professors Naomi Cahn, June Carbone, and Nancy Levit claim to have found the culprit: the winner-takes-all economy.

Last Tuesday, Professors Cahn and Carbone introduced their book to a crowd of students. As they explain, the “winner-takes-all” (WTA) economy allows corporate leadership to consolidate resources for their own benefit, often through illegal or unethical means. For everybody else, high-stakes bonuses are doled out based on short-term metrics that are “impossible to meet without cheating,” Professor Carbone explained.

This system, the professors argue, has allowed toxic leaders to thrive at the expense of workers’ health and quality of life. Such businesses, sometimes described as having “masculinity contest cultures,” are characterized by low trust, high stress, and zero-sum competition. “When you create that kind of environment, you drive women out,” said Carbone. “These high-stakes bonus environments are counterproductive [and] are associated with greater fraud, distrust, higher turnover, lower morale, and lesser productivity.”

The professors recalled an interview with a woman who had been fired from her job as an office manager at a dentist’s office at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The unnamed interviewee, whose teenage son was taking care of her newborn child, had to stay home when her son caught COVID-19.

“We went in thinking—oh, a dentist. Small office, the dentist needs his manager, can’t do without her—he was in a rock in a hard place. We found out: no. Private equity in New York made the decision to fire her,” said Professor Carbone. This story, Carbone explained, illustrates the spread of the WTA model. “It’s not about the dentist. It’s not about the needs of the dental office. It’s about their focus on quarterly earnings and the need to show a constant earning sheet . . . It’s violating arguably new regulations passed to protect workers during Covid, and they don’t care.”

Not only is the growing gender gap a potential problem for the legal equality of women, but also, as Professor Cahn explained, these same trends can be observed in the legal profession. “Although more than half of all law school grads are women, the number of women in senior leadership roles at U.S. law firms is far less than half. 22 percent of equity partners were female in 2020, 15 percent in 2012,” said Professor Cahn. And the percentage of women among the highest-paid attorneys in law firms has decreased from 8 percent in 2005 to just 2 percent in 2020.

Professor Carbone is nonetheless optimistic that the disadvantages of these systems are leading investors to switch to more open business models. “In corporate America, there’s actually greater recognition of the business case for diversity . . . . While diversity doesn’t guarantee good practices, the lack of diversity is almost always associated with bad practices.” This change in thinking has motivated changes in business practices, like the NASDAQ’s new disclosure requirement for diversity in corporate boards, added in 2020. “It’s not about being woke, and it’s not about DEI,” said Professor Carbone. “It’s about a tell.”

Professor Cahn similarly expressed optimism about the possibility of change. “There are already changes happening in corporate America . . . . Your generation is already emphasizing the importance of work-life-family balance.” Professor Cahn suggested that an increase in men taking family leave may also help, as maternity leave is a major contributor to the wage gap.

Stressing the availability of viable alternatives, the professors also noted that the mid-century predecessor to the modern winner-takes-all paradigm was characterized by values now seen as feminine. The so-called “Company Man,” emblematic of the era, had a collectivist approach to work. Whereas then, employees bragged “My company is better than yours,” today, instead we brag “My bonus is bigger than yours,” explained Professor Cahn. “There was a feeling of community . . . . The values associated with community and cooperation, today seen as feminine values, in earlier times were seen as male values.”

The trio of professors began working on the book in 2016 when they still believed then-candidate Hillary Clinton might soon be president. “One of the nice things about the eight-year process was that after we started, that’s when #MeToo happened. And so, there were some changes. There was more visibility to some of this that also occurred after we started,” said Professor Cahn. But one thing that didn’t change in those eight years: the fact that women at the top are falling behind.

Professor Cahn is the Justice Anthony M. Kennedy Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. Professor Carbone is the Robina Chair in Law, Science and Technology at the University of Minnesota Law School. Fair Shake: Women & the Fight to Build a Just Economy will be available for purchase beginning in May.

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tya2us@virginia.edu

[1] Kim Parker, What’s behind the growing gap between men and women in college completion?, Pew Research Center (Nov. 8, 2021).

116th Libel Show: The Best Ever?

Virginia Law Weekly March 28, 2024

Ryan Moore '25
Law Weekly Historian

No one truly knows when this happens, but at some point during the school year, the University of Virginia sends their best and brightest law students to an elite comedy and musical performance camp. I presume the students work 14-hour days perfecting comedy writing, practicing musical composition, and learning the finer points of acting. Last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, these insanely talented law students returned to Grounds and put on the 116th Libel Show.

Pictured: Libel's 3Ls take a bow.
Photo Credit: The Sandu Family

The Libel Show is a UVA Law tradition, like softball or exorbitant parking fees. Legend goes that the show started as a hazing ritual, where 2Ls and 3Ls would force 1Ls to perform skits on the steps of the Main Grounds Rotunda. The 2 and 3Ls would throw rocks and shoot bottle rockets at them, which is a practice I think we should bring back.[1] The practice suffered two false starts. First, allegedly the President of UVA was hit by a stray bottle rocket. Second, and better sourced, is that in the 1900s the Libel Show lampooned a mortgage professor so hard he had the show shut down for five years. In all honesty, he probably deserved it, as he failed an entire class of Mortgage Law students.

In its current iteration, the show lampoons life at the Law School through a variety of impersonations, song parodies, and skits. Despite being put on by a gaggle of law students, who ostensibly have hours of readings to do each night, the quality of performance and musicality is surprisingly high. The ultimate goal of the Libel Show is to give every law student one to three evenings of outrageous comedy. Lord knows we all need it.

Writing a review of the Libel Show is a difficult task for any reporter, let alone one as sub-par as me. Key to enjoyment of the Libel Show is knowing all the inside jokes—not just of the law but of law school itself. Try explaining offensive non-mutual collateral estoppel, or why Dean Dugas is a funny punchline, to someone who’s brain hasn’t been broken by 1L year.[2] I looked through past reviews of the Libel Show and honestly have a better understanding of the Rule Against Perpetuities than what the 1976 Libel Show was about.

Therefore, I have decided to completely embrace the ephemeral nature of topical comedy and have created a list that will shoehorn in as many Libel Show in-jokes and reviews as possible.[3] You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll enjoy some BBQ that will make you slap your dang mama.

Pictured: James Hornesby '24 as Swiper the Parking Police Officer
Photo Credit: UVA Law on X

1. By far the biggest crowd pleaser was Study On My Own, a parody of Dancing On My Own by Robyn. If four UVA Law students were ever to drop out and form a boy band, it would be these guys. Gentlemen, there is still time.

2. I loved how the Libel Show Troika invited Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to perform some skits. He followed in the footsteps of his father, Robert F. Kennedy, who also participated in the Libel Show during his time at UVA. Now, my editor tells me that this was not the real RFK Jr., but a talented impersonator. I remain skeptical of the official story and will await the final report from the Warren Commission.

3. George Santos.

4. Little known fact, but the Charlottesville Historical Society recently unearthed a lighthouse on the grounds of Monticello. The Libel Show was lucky enough to secure an exclusive interview with Bartholomew, the current lighthouse keeper, who is offering discounted accommodations for UVA Law students. Have your carrier pigeons on standby.

5. The only lowlight of the night came from the trumpet player on Darden Guys. This player, who shall remain nameless,[4] made a mistake starting at measure 76. The notes he was supposed to play were D#, G#, G#, B, B, then a C#. Instead, after the second B note, he dropped down to an A natural. A rookie mistake, unbecoming of his level of skill and abilities, but most likely a result of the open bar.

That just about sums up the 116th Libel Show. Every year I am shocked at how talented my fellow law students are, and how much we accomplish in just a few group rehearsals. Special shoutout to my bandmates. Playing music with you all the last two years has been one of my most cherished experiences, and I will dearly miss you, and our 2:00am runs to Cookout.

Pictured: The Founding of UVA
Photo Credit: UVA Law on X

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tqy7zz@virginia.edu

[1] Let’s see you dodge that, RFK Jr. Headshot!

[2] Like my wife, who kept on asking what a “fed sox” is.

[3] Future Law Weekly historians will hate me, just as I hate prior Law Weekly reporters who do not adequately cite their sources.

[4] But is totally not me.

Could America's Future Be Parliamentary?

Virginia Law Weekly March 28, 2024

Andrew Allard '25
Editor-in-Chief

Max Stearns is the Venable, Baetjer & Howard Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law. His new book, Parliamentary America: The Least Radical Means of Radically Repairing Our Broken Democracy is available for purchase online.

Pictured: Maxwell Stearns
Photo Credit: Hopkins Press

Last Monday, the Journal of Law & Politics hosted an interview with Professor Max Stearns ’87 to talk about his new book, Parliamentary America: The Least Radical Means of Radically Repairing Our Broken Democracy. As the title suggests, Stearns’ proposal is ambitious—it involves three amendments to the Constitution.

Stearns’ three amendments would: (1) double the size of the House of Representative and institute a mixed-member proportional (MMP) voting system; (2) replace the Electoral College with presidential election by House party coalitions; and (3) allow the House to remove the President with a no confidence vote.

The three constitutional amendments Stearns proposes would replace the United States’ present presidential system with one that looks much more like parliamentary democracy, a system of government that has been widely adopted in democracies around the globe, especially in Europe. Stearns emphasized that MMP voting—which is used in Germany—is key to breaking the “stranglehold” that the two parties currently have on American politics. “Many people haven’t heard of mixed member proportionality. But it is a system that produces proportional representation and yet avoids the tragedy of many proportional representation systems that are hyper fragmented.”

Under an MMP voting system, Americans would still vote in federal elections every two years. But instead of one ballot, voters would now cast two: one for a candidate in their district—just like voting now—and one for a party. Party ballots would be assessed on a state-by-state basis to determine the proportion of seats for each party. For example, Texas’ House delegation would double from thirty-eight to seventy-six. If voters in Texas split evenly for four parties, each party would receive 25 percent of Texas’ seats in Congress, or nineteen seats each. Meanwhile, the candidates who won district votes would take one of their party’s nineteen seats until those seats are filled, with the remainder filled by party-list members.

Because a single party would be unlikely to capture the entire House of Representatives, parties would then have to form a coalition government. The resulting coalition would also appoint the President. A 60 percent supermajority of the House could then also remove the President for “maladministration.” While Stearns doesn’t supply a legalistic definition for maladministration, he noted that the supermajority requirement would prevent removal for mere policy differences because it would require members of the coalition government to also vote for removal.

Stearns acknowledged that these proposals are radical. But he suggested that they are “conservative” in the sense that they repair America’s democratic institutions through the most minimalistic reform needed. “We are past the point of bandaids,” Stearns said.

Stearns also explained his rejection of other—arguably more modest—proposals. “One of the things that gets a lot of attention is ranked-choice voting. I blame Andrew Yang for this,” Stearns said. “Ranked-choice voting does none of the things that its advocates contend.” Stearns argued that in a bimodal electorate, the elimination of candidates with the fewest votes, which characterizes the ranked-choice voting process, ultimately reallocates votes to major party candidates. “It punishes sincere voting. It doesn’t get you a centrist.”

To the extent that other problems, such as the polarized media environment, also contribute to democratic backsliding, Stearns argued that these problems will be easier to tackle under a parliamentary system. “Once we are a functioning democracy—which we are not—we can take on lots of things.”

Of course, a single amendment to the Constitution—let alone three—may be a dead end given the high bar for passage and the polarized public. Americans have amended the Constitution only twenty-seven times in 235 years, for an average of about one amendment every eight years. Excluding the Bill of Rights, which was quickly adopted after ratification, that average is about one amendment every fourteen years. By comparison, the global average lifespan of a constitution is just seventeen years.[1]

But Stearns insists that amendments are the only viable option. “The mistake that people make is to think that the thing to be avoided is proposals that require amending. No, the thing to be avoided is proposals that will not work and cannot be enacted.” Stearns suggested that, perhaps, Congress would become interested in democratic reform if a constitutional convention were initiated. “We may dislike these people—let them be the heroes of democracy.”

In short, Stearns is taking on a gargantuan task. Fixing American democracy, noble as it may be, is no easy feat. “For the same reason it is hard for a man to see where he placed his glasses, it is hard for a democracy to fix its political process.”[2] Vice Dean Michael Gilbert, interviewing Stearns, summed it up nicely: “I thought a natural place to start would be with the problems in American democracy. Now, the problem is, we only have one hour.”

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tya2us@virginia.edu

[1] Tom Ginsburg et al., The Lifespan of Written Constitutions, U. Chi. L. Sch. (Oct. 15, 2009). https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/lifespan-written-constitutions

[2] Note, Pack the Union: A Proposal to Admit New States for the Purpose of Amending the Constitution to Ensure Equal Representation, 133 Harv. L. Rev. 1049 (2020).

The Rise and Fall of Silicon Valley Bank

Virginia Law Weekly March 19, 2024

Noah Coco '26
Managing Editor

On Tuesday, March 12, the LawTech Center hosted Professor Xuan-Thao Nguyen from the University of Washington School of Law to discuss her new book, Silicon Valley Bank: The Rise and Fall of a Community Bank for Tech. The discussion took place almost one year after the Bay Area regional bank failed and entered Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation receivership.[1]

Professor Nguyen began by discussing the origins of her research into Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), which far preceded the bank’s recent troubles. Earlier in her career, when she first started as a summer associate at the law firm Fried Frank, she was assigned to research the question of whether any banks would issue loans collateralized by intellectual property. She discovered a pretty clear answer: with very few exceptions, almost no bank in the country would issue such a loan. One regional bank, however, distinguished itself for integrating these exact loans into their business model. That bank was SVB.

Nguyen described SVB’s origin story as having its own startup character. In the 1970s, its founders–Robert Medeiros, Bill Biggerstaff, and Roger Smith–proposed a novel banking business model for servicing emerging tech startups. They had little capital at the start but managed to secure $10,000 in investments from a network of one hundred professionals ranging from law firm partners and accountants to politicians and venture capitalists. This network was representative of the services that SVB pitched to its customers: a deep and broad network of professionals with knowledge of how startups needed to operate.

SVB’s model was built around providing loans to venture capital (VC)-backed startups strapped for cash between VC funding rounds, a period where more than 50 percent of startups historically had failed. Along the way, they captured the entire startup ecosystem, providing banking services not only to the startups themselves but also to their founders and executives, as well as the VC funds and investors backing them. SVB swiftly established its bona fides both to regulators and customers and quickly came to dominate banking services to the startup community. They continued to expand as the success of their business model was proven time and time again. It grew to become the thirteenth largest bank in the country on the eve of its collapse.

As spectacular as SVB’s rise was, so too was its fall—a “Shakespearean tragedy,” as Professor Nguyen views it. In the two years preceding SVB’s collapse, and while Professor Nguyen was conducting interviews for her research, SVB was a “vibrant and successful” bank. That all changed suddenly.

Professor Nguyen first described the broad contours of the economic mechanisms that precipitated SVB’s demise. Flush with cash from government stimulus programs following the pandemic, VCs channeled excess deposits into SVB. Meanwhile, the startup companies SVB lent to demanded fewer loans. Chasing alternative methods of generating returns to pay their own depositors, SVB dumped their deposits into what were considered to be very safe long-term U.S. Treasury bonds. However, as the Federal Reserve executed the most aggressive rate hikes in its history, the value of those bonds dramatically fell. Fearing the insolvency of the bank’s balance sheets, SVB’s own tech clients triggered a run on deposits, withdrawing $142 billion in less than forty-eight hours.

This economic explanation only describes part of the story, though. Professor Nguyen proceeded by identifying the actors she believes to be most culpable for the demise of SVB: the “tech bros.” As Nguyen sees things, “the tech bros were responsible for killing their own bank.” She believes they were informed by a misunderstanding of the basic operations of banks and driven by a “herd mentality” among VC-backed portfolio companies.

The misunderstanding that Nguyen pointed to was the fact that the losses from the Treasury bonds were minimal compared to the size of the bank’s entire balance sheet. Moreover, these losses were merely “on paper,” that is, they would only be realized if SVB was forced to sell the bonds to meet customer demands for deposits.[2] The assets were very safe, and had SVB held the bonds to maturity they would not have been forced to realize the losses on those assets and perhaps would still be operating today.

More concerning for Professor Nguyen, however, were the “bubbles” within tech circles that amplified the fears of bank collapse through social media and communication networks. SVB’s customer base was concentrated within the relatively small and interconnected VC-backed startup community. Once the narrative of fear gripped that small group of VC backers, it proliferated as these same backers instructed their portfolio companies to withdraw their deposits from SVB. These messages circulated rapidly through social media and other messaging platforms, and the portfolio companies complied. Within forty-eight hours, SVB succumbed to the demand for over $142 billion in deposits, the shortest bank run in this country’s history.

Professor Nguyen made parting recommendations for both the bank operators and tech bros central to SVB’s collapse. To the bankers, she says the lesson to be learned is that social media is a new risk to modern banking that risk managers need to account for. To the tech bros, she recommends humility. Tech founders may develop innovative technological products, but this does not make them sophisticated banking operators. Perhaps with a little humility, they would not have induced the collapse of their own bank.

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cmz4bx@virginia.edu

[1] https://www.fdic.gov/resources/resolutions/bank-failures/failed-bank-list/silicon-valley.html.

[2] Which they were.

Oleg: the Oleg Vidov Story

Virginia Law Weekly March 19, 2024

Nikolai Morse '24
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus

On March 13, 2024, Professor Paul Stephan’s Emerging Markets class hosted a screening of Oleg: The Oleg Vidov Story. The documentary, narrated by Brian Cox,[1] covered the life of Oleg Vidov, a Russian film star who defected to the United States in 1985. The screening was followed by a brief question and answer session with Vidov’s widow, Joan Borsten. Called the “James Dean of Russia,” Vidov’s defection from the USSR to the United States was particularly notable due to his high profile. The film provided a peek into the life of an artist whose ambitions were cabined by the goals of state propaganda, who had to give up a life in his home country to escape persecution, and who ultimately found a new path late in life which combined his artistic and political sensibilities.

Vidov was born near Moscow in 1943 to Varvara Ivanovna Vidova, a school teacher. His mother met Vidov’s father during World War II while he was recuperating in a hospital where she was a nurse. Having heard that his father died during the war, Vidov grew up raised by a single mother. Vidov and his mother moved around regularly because she was dispatched to different parts of the USSR to teach in Soviet schools. As a result, Vidov spent his childhood living in Russia, Mongolia, and East Germany. When his mother was sent to China, Vidov was sent to live with his aunt in Kazakhstan.

Vidov’s uncle had been sent to the Gulag, and Vidov grew up hearing from his family about how his uncle was unjustly imprisoned. Vidov’s aunt told him often that he could not rely on or trust the state, and must always be self-sufficient. His aunt also provided him with his first exposure to cinema, seeing movies such as Tarzan, Grapes of Wrath, and Stagecoach. It was then that he decided he wanted to be an actor.

Eventually, Vidov’s mother faced a politically motivated attack, lost employment opportunities, and eventually even had her pension cut. Vidov, then fourteen years old, worked full-time and enrolled in night school for acting. Seeking movie roles, he was told that he would not receive roles without “knowing the right people.” Needing to support his family, he worked in construction before being accepted into the state university for film.

Vidov began to receive film roles. He contributed nearly all of his paychecks to support his mother and aunt, helping them to insulate the shed they lived in with cardboard. After a while, he was recruited by a director to film a movie in Denmark, which provided his first opportunity to travel and experience life outside of the Eastern Bloc. Though he was originally told by a group of KGB officials that he could not go because he was not a party member, Vidov was ultimately allowed to travel to Denmark after signing an agreement that he would not sleep with Western women and would be a good Soviet gentleman. The film was selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival and was reviewed favorably.

Returning to the USSR, Vidov encountered a Soviet government that was imposing an increasing number of restrictions on art, literature, and movies. While Vidov continued to receive leading roles, he became increasingly disillusioned with the government’s elevation of propaganda over artistic integrity.

It was during this time that he met his first wife, Natalia Vasilievna Fedotova, who was best friends with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev’s daughter, Galina. While they had a son in 1971, their marriage was unfortunately not a happy one. As Vidov traveled extensively to film in various locations, his wife grew dissatisfied with his salary and urged him to leave acting and take up a role as a Soviet minister.

After five years, they agreed to separate. Natalia then filed for divorce and obtained all their communal property. During the divorce hearing, a judge took him aside and told him that while there were laws, there were also telephone calls. And the judge had received a telephone call from a high-ranking Communist Party official. After their divorce, Vidov received fewer and fewer roles and for five years did not receive a single leading role. He knew that he would have to escape the Soviet Union if he was to have any future in film.

After befriending a Yugoslav actress, Vidov married her friend and got permission to live in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. But after some time, his wife divorced him because she did not want to be a wife only on paper. He was instructed to appear at the Interior Ministry in Moscow, but because the local officials liked his movies, he was given leave to arrange his own travel rather than be taken into custody. It was during this time that he talked with an actor friend who had a restaurant on the Yugoslav-Austrian border and convinced an official at the Yugoslavian embassy to stamp Vidov’s passport to allow him to cross.

After a harrowing cross, Oleg was relieved to escape, but it soon sunk in that he was a stateless person. After being put into contact with actors (including the woman who would later become his wife, Joan Borsten) in the West, they helped him to immigrate to America as an individual seeking political asylum. After a few years, he ended up getting the animation and story rights to Russian movies and stories, and he produced them with the famous ballet dancer, Mikhail Berizhnikov. This led to his renewed fame in Russia and his ability to return home and reunite with his family, including his son, Slava.

The documentary provided an intimate view into a fascinating life with various chapters, told by his friends and family. It ended with an intonation by Vidov that “[h]appiness belongs to the risk takers…I always followed my heart, and that is my freedom.” Asked what she hoped viewers would take away from this film, Borsten responded with a reference to the similarities between Vidov’s strained life in the USSR and modern-day Russia, “I hope this film gives you some insight into what Russia was, and what it could have become.”

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Cpg9jy@virginia.edu

[1] There is nothing quite as soothing and terrifying as listening to Logan Roy hold forth for several hours.

Law Students Turn Out for Mason Ramsey

Virginia Law Weekly March 19, 2024

Brent Rice ‘25
wrf4bh@virginia.edu

This past Saturday, the historic Jefferson Theater hosted a remarkable spectacle as the former Walmart yodeler and Subway sandwich artist, Mason Ramsey, performed to a sold-out, standing-room-only crowd. The young superstar delivered a performance for the ages to an audience of all ages, including at least twenty members of the Law School community, with multiple members from every class year represented. For Ramsey, this performance marked his second visit to the city and venue as he continues his meteoric rise to fame.

Pictured: Mason Ramsey
Photo Credit: Brent Rice

Ramsey’s story is one of humble beginnings when, in 2018, a video of him yodeling Hank Williams' "Lovesick Blues" inside a Walmart went viral, launching him into the spotlight at the young age of eleven. Now seventeen, Ramsey proved he is capable of far more than yodeling, captivating the audience with hits like “Famous” and “Puddle of Love,” and tear-jerkers such as “Reasons to Come Home” and “Blue Over You,” showing off the impressive range of his now mature voice.

But it wasn't just Ramsey's vocal prowess that stole the show—his stage presence was equally impressive. Sporting black pants, a blue velvet quarter-zip, and an orange scarf that has become a signature look for him on this tour, Ramsey commanded attention by strumming his guitar and dancing across the stage with the confidence of a seasoned performer.

No wonder that, upon returning with a member of my party after the show to reclaim a credit card that had been inadvertently left at the bar, the security guard proclaimed him to be “the next Elvis.” The diligent guard was far from the only one with high praise for Mason Ramsey. Sophia Lorusso ’25 shared her enthusiasm for the concert with a simple sentence: “It was electric.”

Others at the event, who shared that they attended solely at the urging of their friends, expressed surprise at the quality of Ramsey’s voice and the relatability of his lyrics. Several admitted that they will soon be adding several of his singles to their regular playlists for future listening pleasure.

As the concert drew to a close, Ramsey brought down the house with a soul-filled performance of the crowd favorite “Twang,” before taking a moment to express his gratitude and disappearing off stage. Not one to let the night end prematurely, the group of law students began a chant of “one more song” that reverberated into a thunderous roar from the crowd, drawing Ramsey back onto the stage where he delivered not one, not two, but three encore performances. None as powerful as “Yo Da Lady Who,” which had the crowd shouting those very words at the top of their lungs for the duration of the song and late into the night.

After the concert’s end, many of the law students stuck around for several minutes while they waited for Ramsey to sign the 2’ x 6’ banner Alexa Rothborth ’25 had designed for her Mason Ramsey-themed pregame that preceded the event. Smiling fondly over her freshly autographed memorabilia, Rothborth put an endearing spin upon one of Ramsey’s own lyrics, adding “We loved him for his twang.”

As for me, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that many of these bops had found their way onto my own Spotify playlist. If you happen to catch me in the music room this finals season, I hope you’re ready to clear your throat and sing along.

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wrf4bh@virginia.edu

BLSA Brings Rappaport to Talk Entertainment Law, AI in Music

Virginia Law Weekly March 13, 2024

Ashanti Jones '26
Features Editor

Friday, March 1, the University of Virginia School of Law’s Black Law Student Association (BLSA) hosted Kim Rappaport, Senior Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs for Columbia Records, for the latest installment of their Breaking Ground Speaker Series. Rappaport discussed the intricacies of entertainment law, her personal legal career path, and current issues in music law, such as the growth of artificial intelligence (AI). The event featured a moderated interview by Nia Saunders ’25, BLSA Vice President, and Kyle Trotman ’26, BLSA Interim Social Action Chair, followed by questions from the audience.

Pictured (left to right): Nia Saunders '25, Kim Rappaport, Kyle Trotman '26
Photo Credit: UVA Law

In addition to her current role at Columbia Records, Rappaport served as Senior Director of Business and Legal Affairs for Sony Music Entertainment and RCA Records and was recognized as a Billboard Women in Music Executive Honoree in 2023. Throughout her career as an entertainment lawyer, Rappaport has worked with notable artists such as Beyonce, Lil Nas X, and Adele.

Trotman began the interview by asking Rappaport about her unique path to practicing entertainment law. Rappaport started her professional career with a bachelor’s in architecture from Cornell University, but soon after she pivoted and pursued a law degree at American University Washington College of Law, where she graduated magna cum laude.

“People take many journeys in education and then finally make a decision, so for me that journey started from an early age with art, design, and music,” Rappaport said. “I sort of compromised with my parents, who were like ‘you can’t go to art school, you’re not going to be able to support yourself.’ They were right, I couldn’t really support myself, so I went to law school.”

Rappaport began her legal career as an associate in the Washington D.C. office of Arnold & Porter. Rappaport shared with the audience her experience as a BigLaw associate and how her work with Arnold & Porter gave her an unusual opportunity to break into entertainment law. “I worked my way into the IP litigation group, because at the time they had business with the RIAA, which is the lobbying organization for record labels,” Rappaport said. “We represented all the labels on a big anti-piracy case…and I led the damages case, which wasn’t the sexiest work, but I really got to interact with all the record labels.”

One evening, Rappaport faced off with a team of eight or more lawyers alongside some of Sony’s in-house lawyers on a matter pertaining to the case. Over the course of the night, Sony’s in-house team departed, leaving just Rappaport and one other attorney, which eventually turned into just Rappaport. “[Arnold & Porter] left me alone for the weekend with the client, it’s like 1 a.m., we’re still on the phone with Winston & Strawn, and this senior Sony lawyer said ‘I have to take a nap,’” Rappaport said.

Feeling a little outnumbered, Rappaport asked the senior lawyer if there were any other Sony lawyers they could phone for backup, to which the senior lawyer responded they had no junior associates in the department at that moment. Noticing a prime opportunity, Rappaport seized the moment and pitched herself on the spot. “I went back to the office I was borrowing, printed my resume, came back with an additional coffee and a bread product, and that’s basically how I made the move,” Rappaport said. “He asked me ‘you want to do this?’ and I said ‘yea, I’d actually love to.’”

Rappaport clarified her role as an in-house entertainment attorney does not involve talent scouting, it is purely on the side of talent acquisition, which she believes is probably for the best because sometimes she has discounted artists that have turned out to be a huge success for the label.

“They didn’t hire me for my creative judgment, and a lot of the times I’m wrong,” Rappaport said. “I was working on Little Nas X, and when we first found the early version of ‘Old Town Road’ and my CEO was dm’ing him, I thought it sounded like a nursery rhyme. Shame on me, Little Nas X has surpassed Elvis and the Beatles, he’s a delight and he’s a creative marketing genius.”

Saunders shifted the conversation by asking Rappaport about the effects of AI on the music industry and how entertainment lawyers are accommodating or challenging these effects. “AI, at least for Sony, is probably one of the biggest topics,” Rappaport said. “All the music companies fear it’s going to cannibalize the industry like digital anti-piracy did.”

Rappaport explained the best way to combat the negative effects of AI, as of now, is to contract around it as best as they can, but mainly by restricting an artist’s ability to grant rights to their music to AI. “The whole point of a recording agreement and the crux of our company is getting these exclusive rights,” Rappaport said. “We don’t want another company to basically flip it on us and do any re-records. Like with Taylor Swift, you see the problem of the re-record…people are rushing to buy the re-record instead of the original, which is the same fear with AI, so we’ve been working in AI-specific language into our contracts . . . because we don’t want to be caught behind on technology.”

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alj3emz@virginia.edu

VJIL Art Theft Symposium: Perspectives on Visiting the Louvre Over Spring Break

Virginia Law Weekly March 13, 2024

Nikolai Morse '24
Editor-in-Chief Emeritus

On February 27, the Virginia Journal of International Law (VJIL) hosted its 73rd annual symposium, entitled Art Theft, Artifact Repatriation & Restitution Efforts: Challenges and Progress. For this reporter, the event provided an interesting backdrop to a visit to the Louvre while in Paris for spring break.

The symposium focused on efforts to repatriate art that had been removed from its country of origin, most commonly during wartime or colonial occupation. For the most part, the focus of discussions was on the interactions of the legal system and various governments in assisting or hindering repatriation efforts.

The event began with welcome remarks from Mishan Khara ’24, the outgoing Editor-in-Chief of VJIL, and Julia Jean “JJ” Citron ’24, the Symposium Director and outgoing Research and Projects Editor of VJIL. The first panel, “Modern Litigation Approaches to Restitution Claims,” consisted of Jake Archer, Special Agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigation; L. Eden Burgess, B.A. ’96, Of Counsel at Schindler Cohen & Hochman LLP; Professor William L. Charron ’98, Partner at Pryor Cashman LLP; and Jonathan C. Hamilton ’98, Partner at White & Case LLP.

The panelists described the legal framework underlying efforts to repatriate art as a meshing of property and contract law, overlaid by an intermingling of state and federal law. The litigators discussed recent cases they had worked on and the litigation strategies they had pursued. Of particular interest was the comparison between civil and criminal routes to repatriate stolen art. One panelist noted that much of the civil dispute will center on the choice of law, and whether the law of the current locus of the art should govern or the law of the land of origin.

Next, Amelia K. Brankov, the founder of Brankov PLLC, gave the keynote address. In her address, Ms. Brankov described various current trends in art law more generally, and how repatriation efforts were affected. She also described some of the factors that have complicated matters, including artificial intelligence and other evolving technology. She also described the ways in which copyrighted intellectual property intersects with art law, and how this is driving the development of American law in the area.

The final panel of speakers addressed the topic “Institutional and Individual Approaches to Transitional Justice, Memory, and Repatriation.” The panel included Professor Deborah A. DeMott, Duke University School of Law; Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba, Curator of African Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Ashley D. Fry, Indigenous Affairs Officer, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State; and Lorie J. Nierenberg, Senior Counsel, U.S. Department of State Office of the Legal Adviser. The panelists described the relationships between museums, the public, and countries of origin. Speaking on the importance of repatriation efforts, the panelists described it as a story of culture and returning historic art in relation to communities that exist today. The panelists from the State Department described various initiatives and educational programs.

When asked how VJIL chose this year’s symposium topic, Citron pointed to the number of repatriation claims and, perhaps more notable, the significant number of museums that returned such art in 2023. Contrasting this year’s topic to that of prior years, Citron said she was motivated by the personal feelings that art invokes, and her hope that it made the operation of international law more tangible for attendees. “By bringing in art, which is a deeply personal and emotional topic, I thought that it would hit closer to home because art is a part of us and our cultures’ stories and storytelling.”

During my visit to Paris over spring break, as I toured art museums, I thought about the symposium. The complexity of repatriating art involves, as panelists mentioned, the intersection of various legal doctrines and local, national, and international law. Yet more than the legal complexities of repatriation, my mind was drawn to the emotional and historical connection that Citron pointed out.

For instance, my favorite part of my visit to the Louvre was its collection of antiques. The Louvre is home to a prodigious collection of artifacts and artwork from the ancient Persian and Egyptian empires. To see the stories the artwork told, and to imagine them being crafted by human hands thousands of years ago, was awe-inspiring. And if I’m being honest, I was truly glad they were there for people to see.

At a more fundamental level, there seem to be many questions that demonstrate the tension inherent in repatriation efforts. Is art for the individual or the public? Should art that is displayed from other nations (even those that no longer exist) contain a disclaimer to this effect? Isn’t this what many descriptions in museums already do? And can any explanation sufficiently pay respect to a land or people whose artifacts and history were forcibly seized or destroyed? And how should we weigh the increased visibility of an artifact in a world-famous museum, compared with the national pride in having art returned to its birthplace?

The answers to these questions will likely continue to shape the development of both art law and the ways in which art owners, art lovers, and countries interact with historic and popular art. For now, they are worth considering while we enjoy art and connect ourselves to those from places and times far from our own.

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cpg9jy@virginia.edu

Law Firm Partners Prepare Students for AI's Impact on Legal Practice

Virginia Law Weekly February 29, 2024

Noah Coco '26
Managing Editor

As a law student, if you are not thinking about how artificial intelligence (AI) will impact your legal career, you should probably start. If you are already thinking about how AI will impact your career, you should be encouraged by the opportunities it presents. That is the message that attorneys Chris Mammen and Jay Silver ’81, partners at the law firm Womble Bond Dickinson, delivered to students at the Law School on Thursday, February 22, in a talk titled, “What You Need To Know About AI in Legal Practice.”

The current buzz surrounding AI is inescapable. It may be difficult to separate the signal from the noise and discern the lasting impacts of the technology on society. Lawyers will have to contend not only with the unique legal challenges that AI engenders, for clients and public interest organizations alike, but that these same transformational technologies will impact the very practice of law.

It is easy for lawyers to embrace the challenges that AI introduces for clients. The rapid adoption and deployment of AI technologies and applications pose numerous legal uncertainties that provide a “target-rich environment,” as Silver likes to think of it, for attorneys to help clients navigate. Mammen and Silver presented wide-ranging areas of concern that clients will regularly rely on lawyers to help navigate—particularly in the early phases of AI adoption before many of the legal challenges begin to be resolved—from privacy, data security, and regulatory concerns, to questions of intellectual property infringement, products liability, and professional liability. Uncertainty generates demand for legal counsel. Law students should be encouraged by this increasing demand and be prepared to take on the challenges companies will be faced with.

What may be more concerning for law students is the prospect of these same AI technologies and applications displacing employment in the legal sector itself. For instance, Mammen and Silver cited a 2023 report published by Goldman Sachs estimating that 44% of tasks performed by legal professionals could be automated by AI.[1] Although the precise distribution of legal sector employment displacement is difficult to predict, it is apparent that law firms, the destination of a majority of the Law School’s graduates, will have to prepare for the possibility of dramatic displacement and realignment of their workforces. Mammen and Silver pointed to at least three reasons for decreased demand for law firm employment.

First, law firms themselves will require fewer attorneys and legal professionals as AI applications perform the duties traditionally performed by associates—for instance, legal research, document summaries, and document drafting. Compounding this trend is the concomitant reduction in demand for external counsel at all as in-house counsel, who will likewise reduce their own staff, utilize their own AI applications to perform work previously outsourced to external counsel. Third, as legal services become easier to perform through AI applications, new types of professional services firms will increasingly enter the space and displace even more demand for the services of law firms. Mammen and Silver noted that the Big Four accounting firms, generally considered to be professional services firms, have already begun investing heavily in legal services technologies that perform work traditionally serviced by attorneys at law firms.[2]

The story Mammen and Silver presented thus far suggests a grim outlook for legal sector employment. Law students, in particular, may be discouraged as they contemplate the massive financial investments currently being expended to receive an education for a profession expected to be increasingly displaced by AI. However, dismay and resignation are premature, for the same technologies that challenge the traditional model of law firm services and employment create opportunities for a new class of legal professionals to adapt and forge a new model.

The changing nature of legal services will demand a new set of skills that attorneys have the opportunity to harness. Put another way, the value proposition for lawyers will shift, creating new opportunities for those attorneys capable of deploying AI applications within law practices effectively. For example, there are opportunities for attorneys and law firms to be leaders in the adoption of AI tools. Perhaps this means, as Mammen and Silver suggest, law firms should think of themselves as venture capital funds investing in the very legal technologies that will drive the legal services industry in the future. Perhaps it simply means effectively structuring law practices around AI technologies, efficiently allocating labor and developing competitive fee structures that retain and attract clients.

Also, opportunities will abound for “power users” of the AI tools law firms will have at their disposal. General tech skills and fluency will obviously become increasingly important for attorneys to possess, but so too will the skills necessary to evaluate AI outputs. Mammen and Silver propose that the model of law firm employment will “compress” the traditional path of attorneys and favor those who can become such “power users” proficient in evaluating AI outputs, as opposed to the traditional model that favored those attorneys who gained proficiency in many of the technicalities of legal work through the routine performance of repetitive tasks. Such repetitive tasks may become obsolete with the adoption of AI, so attorneys who can adapt to the new models of work while establishing themselves as trusted advisors for clients will be positioned to thrive in this new environment.

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cmz4bx@virginia.edu

[1] Briggs, et al., “The Potentially Large Effects of Artificial Intelligence on Economic Growth,” https://www.gspublishing.com/content/research/en/reports/2023/03/27/d64e052b-0f6e-45d7-967b-d7be35fabd16.html.

[2] Deloitte, Ernst & Young (EY), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), and Klynveld Peat Marwick Goerdeler (KPMG).

Upcoming Law School Safety and Response Event

Virginia Law Weekly February 25, 2024

Mary Grace Triplett ‘24

Warning: This article discusses gun violence in schools. If this topic makes you uncomfortable for any reason, please know that you are not alone. This article seeks to start a conversation about how to improve safety in the Law School.

All of us have been impacted by gun violence. I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, only a ten-minute drive from The Covenant School. In 2023, The Covenant School was the target of the deadliest mass shooting in Tennessee’s history.[1]And just months before that, three students—D’Sean Perry, Devin Chandler, and Lavel Davis Jr.—were shot and killed on UVA’s grounds. These tragedies reflect the grim reality of our modern age—students, teachers, and school administrators are often the victims of senseless violence. Last year, two hundred and twenty-seven people in the United States were wounded or killed on school property.[2] Unsurprisingly, these shootings have left students feeling anxious, unsettled, and fearful when something at school feels out of the ordinary.

In addition to these feelings of hopelessness, students may also feel frustrated about what can only be described as an information gap. Does the Law School have procedures in place for these kinds of situations? Are members of the public required to “check-in” when they enter the school, or can they move freely about the Law School? How do we lock the classroom doors in the event of an emergency? These questions are typically met with a response that students should contact Student Affairs if they have questions or feel unsafe. But even if Student Affairs is the proper avenue to address day-to-day issues, the school desperately lacks a broader discussion about safety. From our perspective, this issue seems to be on the backburner until—tragically—it comes to the forefront in the wake of another shooting.

These feelings inspired me and my friends to write a petition to the Law School administration last spring. Our petition included several goals: to identify feasible ways to make our school safer, to increase transparency about our safety protocols, and to start a much-needed conversation about campus safety that would include students, faculty, and staff alike. Our collective “first step” is to host an event on Law School Safety and Response, which will be led by members of UVA’s Threat Assessment Team and the Office of Emergency Management. The event has been organized by Annie Somerville ’24, Ethan Young ’24, Kennedy Williams ’24, and myself. It has been sponsored by the Student Bar Administration, and we welcome other student organizations to endorse the event as well.

The event will be tailored specifically to the Law School. It will offer an opportunity for students to ask questions to Law School administrators and UVA Emergency employees about how to respond in unsafe situations. First, it is important to acknowledge that the Law School is in a unique position because it is open to the public. On any given day, many individuals who are not affiliated with the Law School will roam our hallways for tours, events, or clinics. These contributions and community interactions are an enriching part of our student body experience. But this dynamic occasionally leads to uncomfortable and anxiety-inducing situations. Last year, for example, there were at least two occasions in which a non-student appeared in a course and participated in ways that were concerning, and at times, aggressive. This event will offer guidance and suggestions on how you could respond appropriately—or choose not to respond—in those situations. The hosts of the Law School Safety and Response event will also discuss the possibility of an active shooter. While this topic is certainly difficult, we feel that preparing for such a situation is far less difficult than the alternative.

Finally, our classmates have raised important questions about what the administration is currently doing to protect our community, and what other measures could be put in place. A large part of the problem is not that the Law School lacks those procedures, but that students are unaware of them. To have productive conversations about reform, we must first take the time to understand the school’s existing protocols and the reasoning behind them. This event will provide an opportunity for students to learn the procedures already in place and suggest new ideas for the future. We do not have the answers about how to make our school safer, or how to help students feel more comfortable in the classroom. But before we can solve the problem at hand, we must enable a discussion concerning the key information between students and administrators so that we are all on the same page.

There are many ways for students to fight the gun violence epidemic that our schools currently face. Through organizing this event, we have chosen to instigate change within our own community by facilitating dialogue, improving protocols, and preparing for an emergency. But this is just the beginning of a conversation, which we hope will spur further community organization and activism around this problem.

We hope you will join us at the Law School Safety and Response meeting on Wednesday, February 28th at 1 p.m in Brown 152. It will be an opportunity to learn and ask questions about an issue that affects each of us daily. Feel free to reach out to me, Annie, Ethan, or Kennedy about questions, comments, or concerns that you may have.

[1] Adeel Hassan & Emily Cochrane, What We Know About the Nashville School Shooting, N.Y. Times (Sept. 13, 2023), https://www.nytimes.com/article/nashville-school-shooting.html.

[2] Naaz Modan & Kara Arundel, Another Record High: Counting School Shootings in 2023, K-12 Dive (Dec. 20, 2023), https://www.k12dive.com/news/2023-total-school-mass-shootings/703007/.