David Ranzini ‘20
David is the outgoing Managing Editor of the Law Weekly.
Hiya Dave and welcome to Hot Bench! We’re so glad to catch you before graduation! So, what did you have for quarantine breakfast?
I made frozen oven fries because that’s all that’s left in my freezer, and I drank black coffee because I’m out of cream.
Where are you from?
Waynesboro, Virginia, which is close enough that I can go home, see my folks, and do my laundry, which I frequently do.
What can you tell us about Waynesboro?
It’s a pretty little town, less sleepy nowadays, with two craft breweries, a lot of meth (said the cops in my old karate class, anyway), and a very decent taco truck! It’s a nice community. Pretty much everyone knows my dad—he’s a surgeon and he might have taken everyone’s gallbladders out at some point.
When did you start thinking about law school?
After college, I’m a year or two into the JET Program, I’m teaching English in a village in rural Japan, and I realize that while I’m a good teacher, it’s not really what I love—but I need to find something else that lets me stay in Japan long term. So, I put everything together that I’m good at (research, writing, definitely NOT math) and looked for something that could let me be useful even if I’m a second language speaker. That narrowed the field to international corporate law, which also involves the best things about being a teacher (translating knowledge into a form your audience can use) with the added bonus of being well paid. At that point, I decided I was doing law school. But first, I went and did a LL.M. bilingual program at Kyushu University.
What’s something you know now that you would tell yourself coming into law school?
It’s not as hard as it looks, honestly. 1L me was very nervous about failing and not getting a job and everything coming apart. I would try really hard to reassure him it was going to work out, and 1L me would not believe it for a second.
Sounds like 1L was a rough time!
Studying for 1L fall exams while my 2L brother Gregory was totally relaxed was just about my lowest psychological point. Only the greatest respect for my brother—the real lawyer in this family.
Let’s do a lightning round!
Favorite food?
Cheese enchiladas.
Favorite place in Charlottesville?
Peter Chang’s.
Anti-Stress Hobby?
Cooking and bicycling. Really, exercise is the thin tissue that separates sanity and insanity for me during exam season.
Are you a good cook? What’s your favorite thing to make?
When I’m stressed, I like to go temporarily insane and make something expensive and complex like tempura. One of my favorite things to make is pasta puttanesca. It’s a quick olive-based sauce—you need four cans, two of tomatoes and two of olives, to make a very simple version. It’s just brilliant for when you’re cramming for finals.
What is your least favorite sound?
The noise that dentists’ drills make, it actually scares the crap out of me.
Favorite word?
Genuinely, I have no idea.
This one should be easier. If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
I would live in Akita Prefecture, Japan, and I would own and run a wildly unprofitable coffee shop in a refurbished thatched farmhouse. I would do pour-over coffee and roast my own beans, chat with my regulars and never make a dime. I would watch the big puffy clouds drift over the rice paddies in the distance and cast shadows on the sea beyond. I would have a windchime on the porch. That is the dream.
If you could pick one song to play in the background of your life, what would it be?
What’s the song I’ve listened most to on iTunes, let’s see, probably something incredibly embarrassing…“Decks Dark” from Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool.
What’s your spirit animal?
Crows. I like that they’re scrappy, intelligent, and, sometimes, they get a look in their eye, that says they know you’re there and think of you as fellow animals in the struggle. I sympathize with their existence on the edge of society—everyone on a fundamental level has been a crow trying to use a stick to get a cheese doodle out of the trashcan. The trashcan is life. I also like their mortal enemies, the cats.
Where’s a place you’ve never been, but would like to go?
I’ve never been to Sichuan, China, but I’ve always wanted to go—and Taiwan. Those two are probably highest on the destination bucket list. And for years I’ve harbored the desire to get a sailboat and just get out of sight of land. I would love to be surrounded by horizon in all directions and just watch the sun set behind me while I’m on the deck of the boat.
Do you have any sailing experience?
Zero—no wait, some! I went out once and was immediately shipwrecked. Through no fault of my own, the rudder was broken and came off, cartoon-like, in my friend Robert’s hand. It turns out a boat in the wind without a rudder is quickly capsized. I would love to do it again and not flip.
If you could make one rule that everyone had to follow, what would it be?
“Be nice, think of the other guy” would be a good one. I think everyone secretly wants to make the rule “be nice to me.” I would change that to just “be nice.”
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dwr7ed@virginia.edu