Ethan Brown '25
Features Editor
Last weekend, many UVA Law students attended the annual PILA Ball, put on by our wonderful public interest organization here on North Grounds. I did not attend this year—which is somewhat ironic given that I ended up being the only person writing about it—but I had a fantastic time going last November. I actually wound up winning two auctions, one from the Libel Show and one from none other than Professor Joe Fore’s Punctuated Law Designs.[1]
Was it worth the more than $200 I ultimately ended up spending? Well, that’s debatable. After all, all I got from the Libel Show was a name shout out in a skit.[2] And I lost half of Professor Fore’s basket during Thanksgiving break, when I left its cutesy monogrammed Constitution water bottle on a park bench. (Hilariously, a kind soul of a law student—Michael Pruitt ’24—found it and returned it to me, but guess what I did three days after that? Lose it again). Regardless, my PILA Ball memories have lasted forever, even if that poor water bottle didn’t in my clutches.
Still, as the diligent Law Weekly reader has learned, I am at my happiest when I can prattle off suggestions for how to improve things that I have no knowledge of. To that end, here are some ideas for things at the Law School (and around Charlottesville!) that I’d love to see auctioned off at my 3L PILA Ball next November. Come to think of it, next year’s event will probably happen the weekend before the presidential election. So, yikes. We’re going to need some fun stuff to distract ourselves.
A Gunner Pit Lamp That Works
Blah blah blah, I know. “It’s toxic to work in the Gunner Pit.” But sometimes I like to pretend I’m a fancy boy, and the Pit is quite conducive to that, with its cozy wood paneling and congressional records that no one (except for the sycophantic 2Ls on VLR) have touched since 2004. My love for the Gunner Pit is why I’d pay an exorbitant amount of money to actually have a frigging lamp that works there. Some are too bright. Some are too dim. Some just straight up don’t have knobs. Seeing me at 8 a.m. in the morning trying to find the best one is like the world’s saddest rendition of Goldilocks trying the different bowls of porridge. So PILA, make this sad boy’s life a little better, and put a functional lamp on the auction list next year. I promise to bid.
Individually Controlled Shades for the Gunner Pit
See above, but the opposite problem: sometimes there is also too much light in the Gunner Pit. This, too, is deeply distressing. (And clearly, I am spending too much time in there). At around 11 a.m. or noon each sunny day, the light streams in with an intensity that makes me fear God. (Photographic evidence is attached). So, I propose the Law School contribute a set of shades for the Gunner Pit skylight, which one lucky winner will have sole proprietary rights over. This is an awesome burden to carry, but I trust my classmates to use their newfound power responsibly, and hopefully make it so that I never have to look like a ninety-year-old vampire in the library again.
Pictured: Ethan Brown '25 in his absolute glory in the Pit sun
Photo Credit: Molly Gibson '25
Fifteen Minutes of Access to the Law School Foundation on the Top Floor of the Law School
In my headcanon, the Law School Foundation is a sort of Atlantis—a forbidden, unfamiliar world just out of grasp. What goes on up there? Surely nothing too exciting. But until proven otherwise, it feels like a shadowy underworld, and it is one I have an irrational desire to investigate. This is probably something that most law students wouldn’t pay more than ten dollars for. But I’d probably cough up at least twenty.
A Bodo’s “Jump the Line” Pass
This one I’d really mess up my financial future for. Every Sunday I make my pilgrimage to the Emmet Street Bodo’s. Also every Sunday I stand in line for fifteen minutes cursing myself for my decision to wait in the cold, in my ugly little Hoka slides, for my silly little bagel. I dream of a DisneyWorld-style pass where I could skip merrily to the front of the line with a simple wave, and would probably surrender my life savings for it.
Poker Night with Lisa Napier from Student Affairs
The professors are cool and all, but I’m sorry, this is Lisa’s world, and we’re all living in it. PILA could fund 1Ls at a big law rate if this one went on sale next year.
Hilariously, I have made it through 800 words by essentially complaining about how bad the lighting in the gunner pit is. And if that isn’t lawyerly loquaciousness at its finest, I don’t know what is. Happy PILA season!
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bwj2cw@virginia.edu