Hi Professor Ware! Thank you so much for meeting. I’ll start with an introduction: Where are you from, how long have you been at UVA, and what do you do here at the Law School?
I was born in Iowa, but I mostly grew up in Northern Virginia, so from near here. I’ve been at UVA for sixteen years now. I started in 2009, and I teach Legal Research and Writing.
To start with, I know you had a career before law school, so can you tell us a little about that?
I first worked for a big book publisher in New York City for about seven years doing editorial work on trade books—trade books are the kind of books you would buy in Barnes & Noble. I did all nonfiction, mostly economics, history, and science books. It was a lot of fun. And then I went to law school and was a lawyer for the City of New York for a few years before coming to UVA.
Why did you decide to make the switch to law school, and what was the transition like for you?
Honestly, it was because I didn’t have the right skill set for book publishing. I loved editing, and the longer I stayed the more time I got to spend editing manuscripts and working with authors, and I loved that part of it. But the career path there is much more about networking with agents and authors and acquiring new projects and marketing those projects. The kind of networking and marketing skills involved in that were not my strengths. So, I eventually realized that it wasn’t a perfect fit for me and decided to go to law school instead.
I had always thought I would go to law school. Publishing was a detour where I thought briefly that maybe I should try something different. I loved it, it just wasn’t a totally natural fit. So, then I came back to the law school idea.
And from there, what motivated you to switch from practice to teaching, and how did you end up teaching LRW at UVA specifically?
I liked practicing law, but this job gathered together all the things I loved. The parts of publishing I loved and was good at were editing and working with authors, and part of this job is working with students in their writing and finding ways to help them say what they want to say better. So, it took the stuff I loved from publishing and the stuff I love from lawyering—the logical reasoning and argumentation, and the persuasiveness, which is all very writing-focused—and combined them. I also like teaching, and I was looking to move back closer to where my dad lives in Virginia. So, when I heard about the opportunity here, I thought, that’s a really good fit for me.
Any hot takes on legal writing?
Do you mean at UVA or in general?
I was thinking in general, but if you have any about UVA, I’ll hear that too!
Writing is thinking. If you have an AI do it, you don’t understand your case. How about that for a hot take!
I was thinking of asking about AI, but I thought it might be a bit of a cliché…
Everybody’s bubbling about it right now! I think it’s overblown, but we’ll see—I’m not a tech expert.
We’re going to switch to lightning round. Favorite thing about Charlottesville?
The mountains, I guess. It’s beautiful here.
Favorite book?
How would I ever pick a favorite book!
One of your favorites?
I’ll go with Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson.
Cats or dogs?
Cats. I love dogs, too, but I have a cat.
Lexis or Westlaw?
Westlaw.
If you were to teach a doctrinal, which one?
I would still want to teach about writing because that’s what I love. But if I had to teach a 1L Doctrinal, it would be Civil Procedure.
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Interviewed by Jason Vanger '27