Douglas Maggs ‘23
Interviewed by Jacob Smith ‘23
Welcome to Hot Bench! For the benefit of readers who haven’t met you yet, please describe yourself in a few sentences.
Sure. I’m originally from Arlington, Virginia. Grew up my whole life in the DC area. I went off to college at Harvard and then I did a master’s degree at the University of Edinburgh. I found my way back to DC, worked in economic consulting for a couple of years, and now I am a 1L at UVA Law, and I’m having a great time here!
Great! So let’s talk about your master’s degree in archaeology. Did you spend a lot of time sifting dirt in a kilt? What was that like?
Yeah, so it was a classical art and archaeology degree at the University of Edinburgh. It was a twelve-month program. The first two-thirds were regular semesters with classes, but perhaps my favorite part of the whole experience was the third part. I was down in Italy for most of that part of the degree, about forty-five minutes north of Naples on a Roman dig site. I was in a particular trench that was located where the theater used to be, so I was finding everything from coins to pieces of an oil lamp to pieces of pottery. Maybe the coolest thing I found was volcanic ash deposits, not from the famous Vesuvian eruption, but from a later third-or fourth-century Vesuvian eruption.
And to the second part of the question, unfortunately I was not digging in a kilt. However, I did graduate from the University of Edinburgh in a kilt, and I believe that is still my profile picture on Facebook to this day.
So you’ve worked as an economic consultant. What’s been one of your favorite experiences in the real world of work?
I was at a small firm called Criterion Economics for the past couple of years. And although it was a small firm we worked on some really interesting cases before the ITC (International Trade Commission), the FTC (Federal Trade Commission), and a few times, different district courts. I think the most exciting thing for me was the moment right when we got a new matter and it was just a mad dash to gather as much intelligence as we could. Who’s this client? How does their business model work? Who is the opposing party? How does their model work? How do they interact? What court proceedings have either of them had in the past? I loved all that recon intelligence work. And I think there was nothing more exciting than being able to bring the findings back and tell the boss, when you testify or when you’re deposed or anything else, here are the points that we’re going to want to hit.
It seems you’ve done a lot of traveling. I know it’s hard, but can you pick one favorite or tied-for-favorite country and tell us why you enjoyed it so much?
I had the chance to go to Australia a couple of times. And it is a really phenomenal place. One time I went there and I rented a camper van and drove down the entire east coast of Australia. And during that trip I snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef, I watched the sun rise on a beach that was full of wild kangaroos, I felt like I made friends with the locals at every single stop I made. I just can’t say enough nice things about Australia. And also the adventure of driving a manual transmission camper van on the wrong side of the road, that was kind of fun too. Except when I tried to shift with the door handle. That didn’t work so well.
Wait, you tried to shift with the door handle?
Well, because in an American car, if you’re shifting, it’s with your right hand. But because you’re sitting on the right-hand side of the car in Australia, the shifter is to your left. So I’m trying to shift out of first gear, and, instead of catching the gear shifter (which my left hand should have reached for), I opened my door and really surprised myself!
Let’s do a lightning round!
Favorite kind of pizza?
Hawaiian.
Most unusual talent?
Avid ham radio operator.
Favorite kids movie?
I loved Finding Nemo. I remember watching it in theaters when I was a kid and thinking that it was such an awesome movie. And it has Australia in it too.
Would you rather fight 100 rabbit-sized horses or one horse-sized rabbit?
I feel like I have to go for a horse-sized rabbit, but I’ve got to watch out for those hind legs.
If you had to write a novel, what genre would it be?
Mystery.
Favorite candy?
Kit Kat.
Backup-plan job?
I always thought being a firefighter would be a pretty cool profession.
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dtm2bb@virginia.edu