Leah Deskins ‘21
Professor Liaison Editor
Last Tuesday, Marlyse Vieira ’22, Christina Luk ’21, and I logged onto Zoom for lunch with Professor Cathy Hwang. Professor Hwang is a new face around the (virtual) Law School, and she has a light-up picture of the Death Star in the room where she lectures for our Corporations class, so I figured she might be a good bet for our first professor interview of the 2020-2021 academic year. When she agreed to let the Law Weekly interview her on Zoom and consented to some eating on camera, I knew we were in for a treat.
Professor Hwang joined UVA Law all the way from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Prior to teaching in Utah, she was an academic fellow at Stanford, but she wasn’t always an academic. After completing her legal education at the University of Chicago, she worked at Skadden for several years before making the transition to academia. When asked what led her to teaching, Professor Hwang explained that, while at Skadden, she found that she really enjoyed mentoring her more junior colleagues and, at the same time, did not see herself staying to become a partner,[1] so she decided to head down the academic path. This semester, she’s teaching Corporations, and, next semester, she’ll be teaching Deals, as well as Mergers and Acquisitions.
Pictured: Professor Cathy Hwang has become an immediate hit with students. Photo Courtesy of Professor Hwang.
Marlyse, Christina, and my lunch conversation covered many of the usual academic and professional topics. We learned that Professor Hwang is working on an article about the collaborative process of establishing corporate intent and how contracts reflect numerous interests in a corporation, not just those of the two head honchos at the top making the deal. She explained how she prepares for class and reflected on how much she likes the freedom of being a professor, because she gets to structure her time as she pleases. As a new professor, Professor Hwang felt a great deal of kinship with students who are also starting their careers. She offered this advice:
“Right now, we’re each on the cusp of the rest of our career. It’s time to start thinking about what’s important to each of us in life, how we want our lives to look, and how we can maximize our happiness.”
Professor Hwang espoused the value of trying a personal values card sort if we’re having trouble figuring out what’s important to us.
We also ventured into other fruitful topics. Professor Hwang does not like grapes. She’s pro-watermelon, and anti-honeydew and cantaloupe. We learned that she played clarinet in her high school marching band and took flute lessons at 7:30 in the morning while she worked at Skadden. In her spare time, she enjoys hunting for Clorox wipes, skiing, watching the Tour de France, and playing Animal Crossing. She also enjoys shoveling snow. In response to a question about what she’d like to do in Charlottesville, when we’re not all cooped up at home hiding from COVID-19, she said that she hopes to visit the local wineries and breweries, see a polo match, and check out the Downtown Mall. The usual Charlottesville things.
It is very difficult to do Law Weekly’s lunch with Professor Hwang justice.[2] She’s a great conversationalist, very relatable, and quite funny. She offered customized career advice for one of us on the Zoom call and told us about how she came to think of cantaloupes as a “trash fruit.” I had been a little worried about how things would go, given that we couldn’t eat in the world-famous Stone Dining Room or one of the other outstanding restaurants in the immediate vicinity of the Law School (Sedona, anyone?), but our conversation exceeded all of my expectations. 10/10 would not give Professor Hwang a bad Yelp review. She is an excellent addition to the Law School community.
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lcd4ew@virginia.edu