Devon Chenelle ‘23
Prose Style Editor
Pictured: Former NLG President and Modern-Day Corporate Raider, Gerri Kellman
Photo Credit: Peter Kramer, British Vogue
TV’s hottest show is the HBO prestige drama/dark comedy Succession. The show depicts the trials and tribulations of one extraordinarily wealthy family, the Roys, as the family’s next generation struggles amongst themselves and against their father, Logan, to seize control of the family business, Waystar Royco, a media conglomerate modeled after NewsCorp (formerly the parent company of Fox News). I find the show compelling and hilarious viewing; when members of the Roy family shout commands at their personal bankers and attorneys, I giggle, imagining those commands working their way down from the in-house employees, to the BigLaw relationship partner, until it ultimately culminates in future versions of ourselves scrambling to fulfill their wishes as associates. My most beloved aspect of Succession has to be that the show’s best character—Gerri Kellman, Waystar Royco’s General Counsel—is very obviously an alumna of our own beloved UVA Law. Although the specifics of her legal education are not discussed in the show, a variety of hints, innuendos, and aspects of her characterization make it clear that this particular fine advocate could not have received her J.D. anywhere but Charlottesville.
To begin with, Gerri demonstrates the keen intelligence expected of a UVA Law graduate, without ever delving into the arcana of specific legal theories or running wild with the implications that obscure case law might hold for the Roy family’s feverish bouts of mergers and acquisitions. This is strongly paralleled in the fashion that UVA Law graduates, while perhaps possessed of slightly lower undergraduate GPAs and LSAT scores than our lovely peers at Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, have a hard-nosed, realistic, and “can-do” attitude to our legal work that makes us such wonderful successes at the law firms we are employed at. Although canonically she spent time as an assistant U.S. attorney, and thus doubtless has a masterful grasp of the ins-and-outs of securities law, Gerri knows that the right way to dissuade Logan from a potentially ill-advised acquisition is not through protracted discussion of the minutiae of Delaware corporate law or by reference to the Southern District of New York’s treatment of previous actions that rested within a gray area of the 1934 Act. Instead, it is best to proceed through skillful diplomacy and the mustering of social coalitions to make sure the correct strategy prevails—a delicate operation well-known to anyone who has ever had to assemble a softball team here.
Similarly, Gerri is a profoundly socially adroit individual and is able to employ all of her social wiles to make sure both her own best interests and those of Waystar Royco prevail at all times. Although our institution’s frequent and varied social events—from softball, to Feb Club, to Barrister’s Ball, and so many in between—surely exist to provide us a much-needed release valve from the at-times intense law school environment and to offer us a chance to socialize with our peers outside of the nooks and crannies of the Law Library, I suspect another significant reason for the Law School’s absolutely jam-packed social calendar is that it conditions us for the demands of law firm, and eventually in-house, life. Having to make polite chitter-chatter with that one section-mate you don’t quite connect with at weekly softball games is fantastic practice for the need to be on, at worst, cordial terms with all of the people you work with, and I find that Gerri’s deft social maneuverings in the viper’s nest of Waystar Royco is evidence of the social conditioning she received in spades at UVA Law. Could a graduate of any other law school have dealt with the treatment Gerri receives (which ranges from impolite to, at times, downright criminal) at the hands of the Roy family with so much grace and aplomb that she remains not only firmly ensconced within the company’s leadership but also a trusted advisor to all? Similarly, could a graduate of any other law school survive, without the training of Feb Club, the Roy family’s chaotic, neverending, and frequently alcohol-soaked social calendar? I think not.
Finally, although—as a man—the extent to which I can speak to this is limited, I find that Gerri represents the vigor, strength, and intelligence so typical of my female classmates. While I, like many of my male classmates, have a rather high opinion of myself, I must acknowledge my womanly classmates to be on the whole rather more impressive than myself. As I personally find the women of UVA Law to represent the best of this institution, so does Gerri Kellman.
I hope I have convinced you. If not, you will have to tune in and see for yourself. The new—and final—season of Succession is airing weekly on HBO, Sundays at 9 p.m.
---
dnc9hu@virginia.edu