Making a Case Before the Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the employment discrimination case of a woman being represented by the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic in the fall of 2012. Vance v. Ball State University is the ninth clinic case the Supreme Court has heard.

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Investigating Human Rights

Just three years after the end of a bloody civil war in Sri Lanka, a group of University of Virginia law students ventured into the Southern Asian island nation in January 2012 to explore the current state of human rights. Each year, students in the Human Rights Study Project, known as Cowan Fellows, travel to countries with troubling records on human rights to collect information, mostly through first-person interviews, and report their findings. Past teams have traveled to China, Cuba, Cambodia and the Middle East, among others.

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What Corporate Clients Want

Virginia's Law & Business Program integrates business and legal analysis in the classroom. Students train in accounting and corporate finance, which allows them to take more intensive business law courses and advanced short courts taught by leading corporate lawyers. Associate Professor John Morley [above] leads the program.

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Preparing for Public Service in the Real World

The Program in Law and Public Service offers participants a curriculum that includes faculty mentoring, guaranteed funding for summer public service jobs and access to seminars relating to public service law. Each year up to 20 first-year students and five second-year students are accepted into the program.

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Building Appellate Experience

Class of 2012 students Anne Malinee and Kristin Millay won the 83rd annual William Minor Lile Moot Court Competition in April 2012. The contest, in which 163 students competed, is the premiere event at the Law School testing students' litigation skills and involves writing briefs and making arguments before real federal appeals court judges.

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Living in Charlottesville

Charlottesville has racked up numerous accolades over the years for its quality of life, including No. 1 City in America (Frommer's "Ranked and Rated," 2004), Healthiest Place to Live (Men's Journal, 2010), No. 4 Best Place to Live in the Country (Kiplinger's Magazine, 2009), No. 9 Best Small Market for Business (Forbes Magazine, 2008) and the Best Town to Live (Outside magazine, 2008).

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Clerking for the Supremes

Virginia tied for second among law schools nationwide in the number of alumni clerking for sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices in the 2011-12 term. This is the third time since the 2006-07 term that Virginia has had four clerks at the Supreme Court.

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A Dog Day in Class

Professor Anne Coughlin gives students in her Criminal Investigations class the opportunity to see a police dog demonstration as part of her instruction on the Fourth Amendment.

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Networking with Leading Lawyers

Virginia Law's curriculum is complemented by academic conferences, lectures and a range of related events organized by students and faculty. Students meet and network with prominent attorneys in a variety of fields, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano '83 [above], who has spoken at the Law School several times in recent years.

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Taking on the Nation's Environmental Challenges

Students recently teamed up with UVA and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to present solutions to the nation's most vexing conservation challenges.

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Outside the Classroom

Professors and the student organization Women of Color recently co-sponsored a dinner series in which students met at teachers' homes to discuss intellectual and professional issues of interest.

Lawyering 101

In addition to the Law School's 20 clinics, Virginia offers courses in trial advocacy and public speaking, legal writing, professional ethics and short courses that allow students to engage with problems faced by lawyers in practice.

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Cutting-Edge Scholarship

Professor Chris Sprigman's new co-authored book, "The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation," challenges conventional thinking that copyright and intellectual property protection spurs creativity. "Fashion designers are free to copy and take inspiration from their rivals' designs," Sprigman said. "And there is lots of copying in the fashion industry, but there's lots of innovation and there's lots of profits."

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Law, Up Close and Overseas

Many students receive Law School funding to work abroad over the summer, including Julia Lacovara, who interned with the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

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Hands-on Clinical Experiences

In response to a motion prepared by students in Virginia Law's First Amendment Clinic, a federal judge ordered American International Group Inc. and the Securities and Exchange Commission to publicly release corporate monitor reports on AIG leading up to the financial meltdown in 2008.

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Seeking Justice and Learning Law

In the past year the Innocence Project Clinic helped overturn the convictions of two Virginia men, including one who was on death row, and helped exonerate a man proven innocent of rape by DNA testing.

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What Fraudulent Marriages Say About Public Benefits

While love and marriage might go together like a horse and carriage for many romantics, marriage fraud and the legal system don't fit together quite as neatly. That's one conclusion Professor Kerry Abrams makes in her article "Marriage Fraud." Abrams' work breaks down boundaries between family law and other disciplines, including immigration and administrative law.

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Fighting for Women in Combat

A group of students and Professor Anne Coughlin worked together to help bring a federal lawsuit seeking the reversal of U.S. military policies banning women from serving in combat roles.

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Students First

Dean Paul G. Mahoney meets with groups of new students informally in the fall through a series of lunches with first-year class sections.