Leah Deskins ‘21
Professor Liaison Editor
This week, Drew Calamaro, Lena Welch, and I had the distinct pleasure of sharing a meal with UVA’s one and only Professor Margaret[1] Foster Riley, the University’s only faculty member simultaneously working within the roles of Professor of Law, Professor of Public Health Sciences, Professor of Public Policy, and Director of UVA Law’s Animal Law Program. That’s so many titles that I’ve already forgotten whom I’m writing about. Oh right, Professor Mimi Riley. She has also served on UVA’s Board of Visitors and other leadership groups within the University, and her expertise is in near-constant demand at various agencies in Washington, DC., or so it seems. Her classes at the Law School tend to focus on health-related topics. She has taught the health law survey course, this semester’s health care reform seminar, the food and drug law course, a J-term health-related course, and supposedly a host of other health-related classes. She also teaches the animal law seminar, and she is currently co-teaching an environmental ethics class with Professor Cannon.
Our lunch naturally began with a short conversation about the rise of COVID-19, also known as “coronavirus,” but we very quickly moved onto a much more interesting topic, Professor Mimi Riley herself.
Professor Riley grew up in northern New Jersey, just seven miles north of the George Washington Bridge. She ventured south to Duke for college, spent a year working extremely hard at the Moroccan embassy in Paris after graduating, and then found her way back home for law school at Columbia. Not one of those people who left law school intending to be a law professor, she spent several years in private practice in New York and Philadelphia before accepting a legal writing teaching position at UVA as a temporary gig. One thing led to another, and twenty-five years later, she’s still here.
Professor Riley shared a number of details about her experience teaching at UVA over the years. When she first arrived, the Law School still only occupied what is now the Withers-Brown wing of the building. There was no wood paneling (gasp!), and the lockers more closely resembled something you might see at a high school. The student body was larger, the faculty was smaller, and there were far fewer female members of the faculty (shocker). She noted that, in addition to obvious related changes over the last twenty-five years (a smaller student body, more faculty, more female faculty, and the acquisition of Slaughter Hall after laying siege upon Darden and forcing the MBA students into their definitely-not-as-nice portion of North Grounds adjacent to the North Grounds Rec Center[2]), students at the Law School have become more public service-oriented than they were when she first started teaching.
We also had the chance to hear about Professor Riley’s family influences. Apparently, Professor Riley is the lawyer black sheep of the family. Her dad was a doctor. Her mom worked in a science field. Her sister is a doctor. There might be another sibling who is a doctor. You get the picture. But, as might be obvious, even the allure of commercial litigation and then teaching legal writing could not keep her genes at bay for long. The medical world eventually won out. She has worked on a number of national academy committees on medical-related issues.[3] Her first big research project in health law involved cloning, and she’s currently a member of the Novel and Exceptional Technology and Research Advisory Committee (NExTRAC) at NIH. And, of course, she plays a big role at UVA Law and within the University’s ethics and medical sphere.
When asked how students should approach their futures, Professor Riley suggested that life should be interesting, and students should strive to keep their lives interesting. There are times when the law is just work, and it’s important to look for other outlets, whether this involves doing meaningful pro bono work or something unrelated to the law entirely.
In addition to more academic, professional topics, Lena, Drew, and I wanted to get to know the real Professor Mimi Riley, so we asked the most pressing questions we could think of. We couldn’t help but wonder: (1) What is Professor Mimi Riley’s favorite animal? Coming from suburban New Jersey, it would make perfect sense that Professor Riley’s favorite animal would be among those pets most cherished by suburban households. Indeed, her choice of favorite animal stems from a childhood pet: a pig, one named Mama Cass, specifically. (2) What are her hobbies? Cycling (the indoor and outdoor varieties), traveling and gardening. (3) What are her favorite restaurants in Charlottesville? Fleurie, Little Star, Oakhart Social, and Duner’s. (4) What is her favorite UVA Law newspaper? The Virginia Law Weekly, obviously.
Lena, Drew, and I thoroughly enjoyed our lunch with Professor Mimi, almost as much as we’ve enjoyed her classes. A real gem, UVA Law and the University of Virginia as a whole is lucky to have her on board.
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lcd4ew@virginia.edu
[1] On the first day of my animal law seminar with her last semester, Professor Riley informed us that, if we’re going to use her first name, we should call her Mimi. Saying Margaret will make you sound like a telemarketer, apparently.
[2] Fine, the last part involves just a little fiction.
[3] Shockingly, I have mostly retained my ability to do math since coming to law school, but it seems to have been at the expense of my ability to comprehend literally anything related to science, so this discussion went completely over my head.