Resident Faculty Quick Guide

Kenneth S. Abraham

Torts and insurance law

His torts treatise, "The Forms and Functions of Tort Law," has become a basic text for first-year law students across the country.
Leading insurance law scholar and author of the foremost casebook in the field
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and member of the Council of the American Law Institute

Payvand Ahdout

Federal courts, separation of powers, constitutional law, criminal procedure

Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Judge Debra Ann Livingston on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Former Bristow Fellow in the Office of the Solicitor General of the United States
Her research centers on modern uses of judicial power through the lens of federal courts. The Yale Law Journal named her its inaugural Emerging Scholar of the Year for 2022.

Barbara E. Armacost

Criminal procedure, civil rights litigation, torts and constitutional law

Served as attorney adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice
Frequently provides commentary on Supreme Court decisions (Supreme Court Roundup)
Spent eight months working at a mission hospital in Haiti before pursuing her J.D. Her life as a nurse and theologian shaped her approach to law teaching and scholarship.

Scott Ballenger

Appellate litigation, civil liberties

Director of the Appellate Litigation Clinic
A former partner in Latham & Watkins’ Supreme Court and appellate practice, he has argued two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and dozens in courts of appeals and trial courts across the country
Former senior counsel to the assistant attorney general in the antitrust division of the Department of Justice, where he worked on the trial and briefing team for United States v. Microsoft
Clerked for Judge J. Clifford Wallace on the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia

Aditya Bamzai

Administrative law, civil procedure, computer crime, federal courts, national security law

Served as an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice
Practice appellate litigation privately and for DOJ's National Security Division
Clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia at the U.S. Supreme Court

Charles Barzun

Evidence, torts, jurisprudence and legal history, constitutional law

Clerked for Judge Robert D. Sack of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Former Climenko Fellow and lecturer, Harvard Law School
Barzun's research fcuses on the interdependence of the philosophy of law and the history of law.

Michal Barzuza

Corporate law and corporate finance

Received the John M. Olin Prize for outstanding S.J.D. dissertation in law and economics at Harvard Law School
Her article, "Market Segmentation: The Rise of Nevada as a Liability-Free Jurisdiction," was named among the 10 best corporate and securities law articles published in 2012, in an annual poll of corporate law professors conducted by Corporate Practice Commentator (Story)
Scholarship integrates law and finance (Scholarship Profile). Her article "What Happens in Nevada? Self-Selecting into Lax Law," was published in the Review of Financial Studies.

Rachel Bayefsky

Federal courts, constitutional law, civil procedure, legal theory

Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Chief Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
Former lecturer and Climenko Fellow at Harvard Law School
Practiced appellate litigation
Scholarship often focuses on legal institutions’ treatment of intangible harms such as stigma and disrespect

Andrew Block

Juvenile justice, child advocacy, state and local government law

Director, State and Local Government Policy Clinic
Former director, Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice (2014-19)
Former legal director, JustChildren Program of the Legal Aid Justice Center (1998-2010) and director of the Child Advocacy Clinic at UVA Law (2010-14)

Josh Bowers

Criminal procedure and criminal defense law

Clerked for Judge Dennis Jacobs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Practiced criminal defense as an associate for Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason & Silberberg and as staff attorney for the Bronx Defenders
Scholarship often focuses on fairness for the accused in the legal system (Faculty Q&A)

Darryl K. Brown

Criminal law, evidence and procedure

Clerked for then-Chief Judge Dolores K. Sloviter of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Worked as an assistant public defender, a source of inspiration for his later scholarship explaining how criminal law works (Scholarship Profile)
Has explored over-criminalization in the justice system (Faculty Q&A)
Author of the book "Free Market Criminal Justice: How Democracy and Laissez Faire Undermine the Rule of Law"

D. Ruth Buck

Legal research and writing

Practiced in the litigation section of Neely & Player in Atlanta, handling cases ranging from personal injury and contract disputes to securities fraud
As a law student, was a finalist in the Lile Moot Court Competition and won the Stephen Pierre Traynor Award for Excellence in Appellate Advocacy

Jay Butler

International law, corporations, contracts, corporate social responsibility

His scholarship has been recognized with the Lieber Prize and Francis Deák Prize
In addition to a J.D. from Yale, received a B.A. as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University while studying jurisprudence
Clerked for Judges Hisashi Owada and Giorgio Gaja of the International Court of Justice and worked as a legal adviser to the government of Japan

Naomi R. Cahn

Family law, trusts and estates, feminist jurisprudence, reproductive technology, and aging and the law

Her books include “Red Families v. Blue Families,” “Homeward Bound” and “Unequal Family Lives,” as well as casebooks in family law and trusts and estates
Serves as the reporter for the Uniform Law Commission Drafting Committee on Economic Rights of Unmarried Cohabitants, and a member of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and the American Law Institute
Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and New Yorker, and she has appeared on numerous media outlets, including NPR and MSNBC
From 2002-04, Cahn was on leave in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and researched gender-based violence

Danielle K. Citron

Privacy, First Amendment, feminism and the law, civil rights, administrative law

Named a 2019 MacArthur Fellow for her work on cyberstalking and intimate privacy
Adviser to then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris on privacy issues and a member of her Cyber Exploitation Task Force (2014-16)
Vice president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting civil rights and liberties in a digital age
Gave TED talk “How Deepfakes Undermine Truth and Democracy” that has had over 1.9 million views
Clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Mary Johnson Lowe of the Southern District of New York

George M. Cohen

Contracts and professional responsibility

Ph.D. in economics, University of Pennsylvania
Clerked for Judge Walter K. Stapleton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
A member of the American Law and Economics Association who has served as an ethics consultant and expert for several law firms (Faculty Q&A)
Co-authored the books "The Law and Ethics of Lawyering" and "Foundations of the Law and Ethics of Lawyering"

Michael G. Collins

Civil procedure, conflict of laws, evidence

M.A. in classics, Stanford University
Scholarship focuses on jurisdiction and history of the federal courts
Co-author of casebooks on transnational litigation, federal courts, and civil procedure
Recipient of UVA All-University Teaching Award, 2013

Kevin Cope

Law and economics, international relations, international law, immigration and refugee law, judging

Ph.D. candidate in political science, University of Michigan (expected 2019)
Created the first judicial ideology measure covering every Article III judge in the federal judiciary
Currently working to develop a method that could help international treaty negotiators achieve global-welfare-increasing cooperation
Clerked for three federal judges, including Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and practiced government enforcement litigation law in Washington, D.C., with Skadden, Arps

Anne M. Coughlin

Criminal law, feminist jurisprudence and women's issues

Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. and Judge Jon O. Newman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Co-authored the casebook "Criminal Law: Cases and Materials"
In 2012 Coughlin and a group of law students using the moniker "The Molly Pitcher Project" helped file a lawsuit on behalf of military women seeking to overturn the combat exclusion. (Story)

Quinn Curtis

Corporations, securities and real estate law; consumer financial markets

Ph.D. in economics, Yale University
Prior to law school, worked as a software engineer for Microsoft
Recent scholarship focuses on how law can help reform 401(k) plans (Faculty Q&A)

Ashley S. Deeks

International law and litigation, national security, law of war

Served as White House associate counsel and deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council, 2021-22
Served as the assistant legal adviser for political-military affairs in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Legal Adviser
Embassy legal adviser at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad in 2005, during Iraq’s constitutional negotiations
Since joining the Law School in 2012, has been frequently quoted in the national media on topics such as legal justifications for war, the Edward Snowden affair and the use of cyber and drone warfare.

Michael Doran

Tax policy, legislative process and legal ethics

Former partner at Caplin & Drysdale in Washington, D.C., practicing federal tax and federal pension law
Served twice in the Office of Tax Policy at the U.S. Treasury Department
Recent scholarship challenges conventional theory of executive compensation, largesse of tax cuts for wealthiest Americans

John F. Duffy

Intellectual property, patents, administrative law

Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and for Judge Stephen Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Served as an attorney adviser in the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel
In the field of intellectual property, Duffy has been identified as one of the 25 most-influential people in the nation by The American Lawyer and one of the 50 most influential people in the world by the U.K. publication Managing Intellectual Property. He was named a legal “visionary” by the Legal Times in 2009 and has been profiled in Businessweek.

Kristen Eichensehr

Cybersecurity, foreign relations, international law and national security law

Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Sonia Sotomayor and for Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Served as a special assistant to the State Department legal adviser and practiced appellate and national security law, including advising on cybersecurity issues, at Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C.
Eichensehr’s recent scholarship focuses on the constitutional powers of the president and Congress in foreign relations law, the role of private actors in cybersecurity, and the development of international law to govern state behavior in cyberspace

Deirdre M. Enright

Innocence cases, DNA exoneration, criminal investigation

Worked as a staff attorney at the Mississippi Capital Defense Resource Center and at the Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center, where she represented clients and consulted on cases in all stages of capital litigation, with primary focus on federal and state post-conviction proceedings
Led UVA Law’s Innocence Project Clinic from its launch in 2008 through July 2021.
She and her students were featured on the hit podcast "Serial," Episode 7. (Story)