Resident Faculty Quick Guide

Edmund W. Kitch

Corporate law and securities, industrial and intellectual property, economic regulation and history

Was special assistant to the solicitor general of the United States and executive director of the Civil Aeronautics Board Committee on Procedural Reform
Was a member of the Committee on Public-Private Sector Interactions in Vaccine Innovation of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences (1983-85)
Co-authored books include "Selected Statutes and International Agreements on Unfair Competition, Trademarks, Copyrights and Patents" and "Intellectual Property and Unfair Competition"

Craig Konnoth

Health policy, LGBTQ rights

Work focuses on how medicine and medical discourse can be reconfigured to work with law to produce civil rights and justice
Went to law school to do LGBTQ rights work, and continues to file briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court in major cases
As deputy solicitor general of California with a docket focused on the U.S. Supreme Court, he has been involved in a broad range of litigation

Kevin A. Kordana

Contracts and corporations, nonprofit organizations, bankruptcy

Clerked for Chief Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Scholarly interests include bankruptcy and law and economics issues
Expert on nonprofits

Kimberly D. Krawiec

Securities, corporate and derivatives law, taboo markets

Corporate law expert teaches courses on securities, corporate and derivatives law
A leading thinker on forbidden or contested markets like organ donation
Prior to academia, practiced in the Commodity & Derivatives Group at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York

David S. Law

Comparative and empirical study of public law, courts and legal texts

Internationally recognized expert in the comparative study of constitutional law, constitutional politics and judicial politics, and a pioneer in the application of empirical social science methods to the study of legal texts
Scholarship combines qualitative fieldwork on foreign judicial and constitutional systems, quantitative analysis of constitutions and treaties, and regional expertise on Asia
Ph.D. in political science, Stanford University; his work on courts and constitutions has been featured in media around the world and has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Romanian and Persian

Chinh Q. Le

Legal aid, civil rights, impact litigation

Former legal director of the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, the oldest and largest general civil legal services program in the nation’s capital
Oversaw roughly 60 lawyers and a dozen legal assistants in leading Legal Aid’s individual client representation, systemic appellate and policy advocacy, and impact litigation across all practice areas
Former director of the division on civil rights in the office of the New Jersey attorney general
Former assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., where he began his career as a Skadden Fellow after law school

Michael A. Livermore

Environmental law and climate change, administrative law

Clerked for Judge Harry T. Edwards on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Founding executive director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University School of Law
Co-authored "Retaking Rationality: How Cost-Benefit Analysis Can Better Protect the Environment and Our Health." The book became the foundation for a new approach public interest organizations could take in arguing for policies to protect the environment. (Faculty Q&A on related scholarship)

Julia D. Mahoney

Property, corporations and land conservation, nonprofit organizations

Has also taught at the University of Southern California Law School and the University of Chicago Law School
Scholarly articles include works on land preservation, eminent domain, health care reform and property rights in human biological materials
Practiced law at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Paul G. Mahoney

Corporations, securities regulation, contracts

Former Dean of the Law School (2008-16)
Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and for Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Worked on legal reform projects in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Nepal

Ruth Mason

State, international taxation and policy

National reporter for the United States to the 2008 IFA Congress on tax discrimination and the 2014 European Associate Tax Law Professors Congress on tax information exchange
Co-editor of Kluwer's "Series on International Taxation" and a member of the editorial board of the World Tax Journal
Mason's research focuses on comparative taxation, with an emphasis on EU tax law.
Amicus brief cited by U.S. Supreme Court in Comptroller of the Treasury of Maryland v. Wynne.
Has a four-part special report on EU state aids forthcoming in Tax Notes

Molly McShane

Child advocacy, juvenile justice and public service

Provides representation to children in the juvenile justice system and children with disabilities in the public school system
Former director of public service at the Law School
Worked for Legal Aid Society of New York, Juvenile Rights Division and Advocates for Children in New York City

Joy Milligan

Civil rights, constitutional law, legal history, law and inequality

Studies the intersection of law and inequality, with a particular focus on race-based economic inequality
Before entering academia, Milligan practiced civil rights law at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., where she was a Skadden Fellow, and clerked for Judge A. Wallace Tashima of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Earned a Ph.D. in jurisprudence and social policy from the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on race, politics and legal history

Gregory Mitchell

Civil litigation; law and psychology

Ph.D. in psychology, University of California, Berkeley
Scholarship focuses on legal judgment and decision-making, the psychology of justice and the application of social science to legal theory and policy (Faculty Q&A)
Mitchell's background in social psychology informs his work, which explores how human reactions to legal rules vary across individuals and are influenced by context. (Scholarship Profile)

John T. Monahan

Social science in law, mental health law, forensic psychiatry

Ph.D. in psychology, Indiana University
Directed two large research projects in the area of mental health law, authored or edited more than a dozen books and has written more than 200 articles and chapters. His book, "Social Science in Law: Cases and Materials," co-authored with Professor Emeritus Larry Walker, was a seminal work in the field.
Member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a former fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
Monahan's work has been cited frequently by courts, including the California Supreme Court in the landmark Tarasoff v. Regents, and the U.S. Supreme Court in Barefoot v. Estelle, in which he was referred to as "the leading thinker" on the issue of violence risk assessment. (Faculty Q&A)

Karen Moran

Legal research and writing

Directs the Law School’s Graduate Writing Program
After law school, clerked for Judge Thomas A. Clark on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Former general civil litigation attorney for Fulbright & Jaworski (now Norton Rose Fulbright), and also served as an appellate attorney for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Thomas B. Nachbar

Constitutional law, antitrust and communications regulation, national security

Clerked for Judge Frank H. Easterbrook of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Practiced with what is now Mayer Brown in Chicago
Is a U.S. Army Reserve judge advocate, and was a principal editor and contributor for the first three editions of "The Rule of Law Handbook: A Practitioners’ Guide" (2007-09)
Before he went to law school, Nachbar spent five years as a systems analyst, working for both Andersen Consulting and Hughes Space and Communications.

Caleb E. Nelson

Constitutional law and civil procedure; federal courts

Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and for Judge Stephen F. Williams on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
Practiced law with the Cincinnati firm Taft, Stettinius & Hollister, where he focused on appellate litigation
An expert in legislation and federal courts and a renowned classroom instructor, Nelson is author of the textbook "Statutory Interpretation." (Story)

Cynthia L. Nicoletti

Constitutionalism, federalism, Civil War legal history

Won the American Society for Legal History's William Nelson Cromwell Prize in 2011.
Nicoletti is working on a book based on her doctoral dissertation. The book examines the issue of whether secession during the Civil War could have been legally valid.

Dotan Oliar

Intellectual property, law and economics

Clerked for the Israeli Supreme Court after earning his law degree at Tel Aviv University
Served as a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Olin Center for Law and Economics
Has presented in several fora, including the Stanford/Yale Junior Faculty Forum; the annual meetings of the American, Canadian and European law and economics associations; and the intellectual property scholars conference. (Story)

Kelly Orians

Prisoner decarceration and reentry, civil rights, nonprofit organizations

Leads the Decarceration and Community Reentry Clinic at UVA Law
Awarded an Echoing Green Fellowship to help launch The First 72+, a holistic reentry services organization serving formerly incarcerated people in New Orleans, and Rising Foundations, a community development corporation dedicated to helping formerly incarcerated people become business owners and homeowners
Helped craft policy and impact litigation strategies, including the implementation of the Graham v. Florida decision, which made the practice of sentencing juveniles to life without the possibility of parole unconstitutional in non-homicide cases.
Scholarship has focused on the collateral consequences of arrests, convictions and incarceration, as well as the history and impact of sentencing reform and prisoner reentry reform

Daniel R. Ortiz

Constitutional law, administrative law, election law

M. Phil. in English studies, University of Oxford (Marshall Scholar)
Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. and for then-Judge Stephen G. Breyer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
Argued on behalf of Maetta Vance before the Supreme Court in Vance v. Ball State.

Saikrishna Prakash

Separation of powers, presidential powers, constitutional law

Clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
A frequent commentator in the media on presidential power, Prakash is the author of "Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive."
Among Prakash's articles are "How to Remove a Federal Judge," and "The Executive Power Over Foreign Affairs." (Scholarship Profile)

Richard M. Re

Criminal procedure, federal courts and constitutional law

Clerked for Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court
His research garnered attention in 2018 as part of an amicus brief he wrote for the Supreme Court case Hughes v. United States
Runs the blog Re's Judicata and is a member of PrawfsBlog

Margaret Foster Riley

Food and drug law, health law, animal law

Has written, researched and presented extensively about biomedical research, genetics, reproductive technologies, stem cell research, animal biotechnology, health disparities and chronic disease (Faculty Q&A)
Chair, UVA Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee
Legal advisor to the Health Sciences Institutional Review Board, which is responsible for reviewing all human subject research at UVA involving medically invasive procedures

Kimberly J. Robinson

Education law, Civil rights, Affirmative action, Desegregation and integration, Race, Sexual discrimination and harrassment

Scholarship proposes novel law and policy solutions that advance educational equity and help to close opportunity and achievement gaps
Editor of the book “A Federal Right to Education: Fundamental Questions for Our Democracy”
Co-editor with Charles J. Ogletree Jr. of “The Enduring Legacy of Rodriguez: Creating New Pathways for Equal Educational Opportunity” (Harvard Education Press, 2015)
Provided legal advice on race, sex and disability discrimination in education as an attorney with the U.S. Department of Education Office of the General Counsel and on school finance litigation as an attorney with Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells)
Clerked for Judge James R. Browning on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit