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

Alice Abrokwa

Disability law, health law and antidiscrimination law

Former senior counsel, U.S. Education Department, a presidentially appointed position, working on issues under the jurisdiction of the Office for Civil Rights
Former senior attorney for the National Center for Youth Law, where she focused on impact litigation and other matters
Former trial attorney with the Disability Rights Section of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division
Former Skadden Fellow with the Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Clerked for Judge James R. Spencer of the Eastern District of Virginia and for Judge Roger L. Gregory of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

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, policing, civil rights litigation, law and religion, torts

Clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III ’72 of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Served as attorney adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice
Master of theology (New Testament and ethics) from Regent College, University of British Columbia, Canada
Scholarship focuses on legal regulation of the police and the intersection between theology and law
Formerly a nurse, including eight months working at a mission hospital in Haiti, her life as a theologian and a nurse 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 three 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 of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for 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
Practiced appellate litigation privately and for DOJ's National Security Division
Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

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 focuses 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.
Scholarship integrates law and finance. 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
Scholarship focuses on procedure/remedies, constitutional law and legal theory

Celia Bigoness

Business law, contracts, corporations

Director, John W. Glynn Jr. Law & Business Program
Founded Cornell Law School’s only transactional clinic, which she grew into an endowed center for entrepreneurship law
Before academia, practiced for seven years at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York, London and Paris

Andrew Block

Juvenile justice, children and the law, 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 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
Served as lead reporter for the Uniform Law Commission’s Drafting Committee on Alternatives to Bail
Helped create the city of Charlottesville’s Police Civilian Review Board
Co-directed the Law School’s Program in Law and Public Service
Member of the American Law Institute
Scholarship often focuses on fairness in the criminal legal system

Darryl K. Brown

Criminal law, evidence and procedure

Clerked for 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
Has explored over-criminalization in the justice system
Author of the book "Free Market Criminal Justice: How Democracy and Laissez Faire Undermine the Rule of Law"

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 rights, children and the law, and aging and the law

Her books include “Red Families v. Blue Families,” “Homeward Bound,” “Fair Shake: Women and the Fight for a Just Economy” and “Hot Flash,” as well as casebooks in family law and trusts and estates.
Served as the reporter for the Uniform Law Commission Drafting Committee on the Economic Rights of Unmarried Cohabitants, and is a member of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC) and the American Law Institute
Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The 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 3.4 million views
Clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Mary Johnson Lowe of the Southern District of New York
Wrote “The Fight for Privacy: Protecting Dignity, Identity, and Love in the Digital Age” and “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace”

George M. Cohen

Contracts, professional responsibility, agency, partnerships and LLCs

Ph.D. in economics, University of Pennsylvania
Clerked for Judge Walter K. Stapleton of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Has served as an ethics consultant and expert for several law firms and government agencies
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, courts and judging, defamation, First Amendment/free speech, immigration and refugee law

Ph.D. in political science, University of Michigan
Fellow and former co-president of the Society for Empirical Legal Studies
Recently completed development of the Jurist-Derived Judicial Ideology Scores (JuDJIS), the first judicial ideology measure covering every Article III federal judge
Currently working on a book project exploring how different societies draw the legal boundaries of acceptable belief and expression

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.

Quinn Curtis

Corporations, securities and real estate law; consumer financial markets

Ph.D. in finance, Yale University
Prior to law school, worked as a software engineer for Microsoft
Recent scholarship focuses on socially responsible investing and reforming 401(k) plans

Ashley S. Deeks

International law, national security, foreign relations, law of war

Vice dean since July 2025
Served as White House associate counsel and principal 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, government secrecy, and the use of cyber and drone warfare

Michael Doran

Tax policy, retirement policy, executive compensation and federal Indian law

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, distributional effects of federal tax subsidy for retirement savings

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.

Megan Durkee

Legal research and writing

Former assistant federal public defender in Norfolk, Virginia, where she worked on a wide variety of criminal matters in federal court
Former clerk for U.S. Judge Arenda Wright Allen in the Eastern District of Virginia