Ruth Payne is the senior director of judicial clerkships. She received her J.D. from the Law School, where she was an articles editor for the Virginia Law Review and served on the board of the Public Interest Law Association and as president of the Jewish Law Students Association. She graduated Order of the Coif and was awarded the Shannon Award at graduation. After graduation, Payne clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and completed a one-year Bristow Fellowship with the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States. From 2004-08, she was an honors attorney with the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, where she worked in the Office of International Affairs. Payne has been advising students about the clerkship process at UVA Law since 2008.