Ethan Brown '25
Satire Editor
If there’s anything we can all agree on, it’s that February is the worst month of law school.[1] It’s cold, the sun sets at 2 p.m., and there’s an unreasonable amount of work to get done—especially for the 1Ls, who have to confront networking events, journal tryouts, LRW fellow applications, and the like. If that wasn’t enough, consider the cherry on top: club leadership transitions, in which beleaguered 2Ls ritualistically find relatively bushy-eyed 1Ls to take over the executive boards of extracurricular activities all across the Law School.
Sure, 1Ls might consider running for conventional roles, like President or Treasurer, of an organization or two that they care about. After all, doing so is “great for their resume” and “will seriously not take that much work, I swear, it’s super chill.”[2] But I write today to discuss the leadership titles we all should honestly include in our clubs at UVA Law this leadership transition season—because not everything that happens in a club can be adequately summed up in a few boring titles.
Vice President of Liking Your Feisty Messages in a Group Chat But Never Coming to Meetings
This person is a hero. Sometimes, you just need bodies to back you up in a group chat with your fellow executive board members, and a simple love react or exclamation mark can go a long way. Even though this person might never actually do their job or come to meetings in the first place, that sad reality can be overlooked by the fact that they’re always on your side when it matters: in deciding petty conflicts.
Secretary of Whining About the Job They Voluntarily Took On
I know this job well because I’ve lived it! My title on the Virginia Law Weekly’s colophon might say “Features Editor,” but it really should read this instead. I signed up to be Features Editor with glee last year—what a joy, I thought! Writing every week for this Law School’s finest institution. No one coerced me into it. Much like Adam Driver’s impassioned admonition to Scarlett Johansson in A Marriage Story, I “chose this life.”[3] But still, I have found myself each week complaining to my Editorial Board compatriots about having to write an article, something that I imagine has only endeared me to the lovely folks on our staff. (Sorry, Nikolai, Monica, Andrew, and Garrett. You are all patient souls.) My personal saga aside, this job is a cornerstone of any club at UVA Law: We all know them, and we all need them. At least they do their job.
Chief of Listservs
Honestly, I don’t know how civilization has made it this far without every club having a designated person just to handle listservs. With the constant requests from recent graduates to be taken off, to the endless throngs of 1Ls that technology seemingly conspires to exclude from listserv access despite my best efforts, this task is like a permanent hum in the background noise of my psyche. Please, for the love of all that is holy, give listserv management its own position. And preferably give that person the power to obliterate listservs entirely and do everything over GroupMe. And then create a new position for the person who has to run the GroupMe, because that’s its own scha-bang. And then ideally scrap the GroupMe too, because I’ve seen that devolve into a fiery hellscape more times than I can count.
Person Who Just Texts, “hiiii can i do anything to help uwu?” A Few Times a Week
I speak from experience as Lambda’s outgoing “Executive Vice President,” a role that could be aptly described as “The Person Who Really Just Is Trying to Help Out the Person Whose Role Actually Matters.” What does that look like in practice? Mostly sending texts like the ones above, while also being on deck to send out both (1) cheery and (2) passive-aggressive texts in the club GroupMe. Clearly a full-time gig.
The Ones Who Somehow Do Everything
I am convinced that almost every club at the Law School could be effectively run by two or three people, because in every organization I’ve been a part of…this is about the number of people who do any work, anyways. They might not always be the President—although they often are—but they step up and put in a herculean amount of effort to compensate for some of the figures above. They deserve a Girl Scout cookie and a nap.
Jokes aside, I think getting involved in club leadership is great. It is a fantastic way to signal your commitment to your identity (through affinity group leadership), a geographic region, or a potential practice area of interest. And you just might meet some new faces and gain marketable skills in the process. So even if you find yourself serving as GroupMe Czar in a few weeks, god forbid, it’s an opportunity nonetheless—and get excited about it!
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bwj2cw@virginia.edu
[1] bUT WhAt AbOuT feB cLuB?
[2] These are the lines that I’ve been employing in my desperate attempts to recruit 1Ls to run for executive boards. Only time will tell if my persuasion has worked.
[3] I can’t relate to people who haven’t watched this movie enough to quote it at will. A breathtaking piece of cinema.