My Profile Search Directory Submit News Contact Us Logout Alumni Home
Spring 2015UVA Lawyer - Home
Dean's MessageOpinionClass NotesIn MemoriamIn PrintFaculty BriefsUVA Lawyer Home
Twitter

 

In Print

We welcome submissions for inclusion in In Print. Submit online, mail to UVA Lawyer, University of Virginia School of Law, 580 Massie Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903; or fax to 434-296-4838.

Please send your submissions by September 1 for inclusion in the next issue.

Encounters with PoliceEncounters with Police: A Black Man’s Guide to Survival
Eric C. Broyles ’95 and Adrian O. Jackson

In Encounters with the Police: A Black Man’s Guide to Survival, Eric Broyles and his friend and colleague, a 25-year veteran of the Ohio police force, draw on their experience to give other black men and boys the basic information they need to survive encounters with police: Comply now, contest later.

They didn’t set out to solve the complex problems that underlie some racial interactions. They give examples of the kinds of words and actions to avoid—the kind that can quickly create charged situations in which violence is more likely to occur.

Bad police are out there, and they can be punished in the legal system. Broyles gives advice about that. But the majority have good intentions and deserve respect. It’s important for anyone to see them as human beings who deal with tragic and dangerous events all the time and arrive on the scene on edge and expecting the possibility of danger.

The most important thing is to stay calm and show that you are not a threat to a police officer: stay in the car, turn on the overhead light, keep hands on the steering wheel, no sudden moves. Comply on the spot; you can contest later if you feel you’ve been treated unfairly. They don’t excuse police who abuse their jobs, but when police act outside the law, the victim’s self-control is crucial.

Broyles writes from a wide arc of experience. He grew up in poverty and was a juvenile delinquent who distrusted police. Today he’s a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer and entrepreneur with sharp memories of every time he’s been pulled over—with cause and without. He and his co-author present a cogent and balanced approach to encounters between black and white. Additional content may be found at www.survivethepolice.com.


Talk of Many Things: Law, Sports, Politics, NatureTalk of Many Things: Law, Sports, Politics, Nature
George W. Gowen ’57
Xlibris

George Gowen was born in Italy, the son of an American vice consul with the U.S. Foreign Service and an English mother. His memoir, Talk of Many Things, looks back on a remarkable life. It was certainly one of privilege—as a young boy he saw the Prince of Wales, glimpsed the exiled Emperor Haile Selassie, and played with Teddy Kennedy [’59] in the Court of St. James. But he recalls the danger in Europe then, too: buses blown up by the IRA, his father’s car being jostled by a jeering crowd on the streets of Rome, the wail of sirens in London on the first day of the war.

He recalls his mother delivering him to Princeton at a time when he says having a reasonably good record in sports, leadership, and academics more or less assured acceptance into an elite school. Steeped in the traditions of the school, he reminisces about some of the interesting traditions that contribute to what he calls the tribal bonding of Princetonians.

Gowen headed south to UVA Law, but not before taking a summer job as a smokejumper in Montana. He wanted to see more of America, but also, he writes, he had a vague feeling that “like the spoiled boy in Kipling’s Captain Courageous, I would benefit by being knocked about a bit.” It wasn’t the first or last time he would challenge himself by getting out of his comfort zone. 

One of the delights of this book is the author’s candor on every subject he recollects, including his work ethic, his reasons for changing political parties, the obvious skepticism of his prospective parents-in-law when he asked for their daughter’s hand in marriage. “At an early age,” the author notes, “I learned man doesn’t control nature and not to panic in the face of challenges.’’

Gowen is a member of Dunnington Bartholow & Miller’s estate, trust, and private clients, corporate, and not-for-profit religious and charitable institutions practice areas in New York.


The Expressive Powers of Law: Theories and LimitsThe Expressive Powers of Law: Theories and Limits
Richard H. McAdams ’85
Harvard University Press

Why do people obey the law? Legal scholars usually say for two reasons. Law deters crime by creating sanctions, and the law has legitimate authority in the eyes of society. In The Expressive Powers of Law: Theories and Limits, Richard McAdams explains another way the law encourages compliance: through its power to coordinate our behavior and inform our beliefs.

There are mutual benefits when people can expect others to behave in certain ways because of laws. Traffic regulations are obvious examples that help keep order and keep us safe. In this book the author explores more complex areas, including constitutional and international law.

Legislation such as anti-smoking laws reflects both the public’s changing attitude toward smoking and lawmakers’ recognition of the health risks associated with smoking. Individuals are influenced by these trends and update both their beliefs and their behavior as a result.

McAdams gives examples of puzzling instances where entities with little power themselves, such as tribunals, are able to influence the resolution of a dispute. He shows how law can bring about compliance by what it says, not just what it sanctions.

The author is the Bernard D. Meltzer Professor of Law and Aaron Director Research Scholar at the University of Chicago Law School.

 

5 Months, 10 Years, 2 Hours5 Months, 10 Years, 2 Hours
Lisa Reisman ’93
Outpost 19

At first the words “Good job, Reisman” were enough to motivate her through all the late nights at her Manhattan law firm. But four years into her law career, despite the perks and feedback, on her 32nd birthday she announced her resignation.

Reisman had a plan to buy a convertible and drive across the country while she figured out the next stage of her life. But her life took her down a very different road. After going for her usual five-mile run, she fell asleep and woke up in a hospital to learn that she had a malignant brain tumor, the most aggressive type. No one had lived more than five years with her disease.
Five months after her diagnosis she underwent an MRI that showed that the cancer had not spread. Ten years after her diagnosis she competed in a triathlon.

Two hours is the length of the grueling race during which she realizes she has everything she needs to live fully in the world. Her vivid description of each stage of the race propel her story forward.

Reisman’s account is unflinching and honest, a story of endurance and grit rather than heroism. Confronted with such a grim diagnosis, she learns a great deal about herself and her relationship to her family and everyone else around her. “There’s something exhilarating about being lost,” she writes. “But only in the memory of it. In knowing you eventually found your way.”
“Lisa Reisman’s account of her ordeal reads like a noir thriller—swift, merciless, unsparing,” writes one reviewer. “High-strung and brilliant, she navigates her terrifying passage with swagger and wit, never mind courage. I couldn’t put it down.”

Reisman is a freelance reporter. This is her first book.

 

Legal Guide to the Research Credit Legal Guide to the Research Credit
Alex E. Sadler ’94
Thomson Reuters

In this book Alex Sadler reviews the legal principles and authorities that govern the tax credit for research and development that is provided by section 41 of the Internal Revenue Code. This credit has broad application to U.S. businesses of all sizes. One of the most widely claimed federal income tax incentives for corporate America, it is also a source of controversy because of its complexity and the somewhat subjective nature of the qualification standards.

Legal Guide to the Research Credit is a comprehensive review and distillation of the subject, and will serve as an important reference for law firms, accounting firms, corporate tax departments, the IRS, policy makers, and academia. The volume includes applicable Code sections, regulations, legislative history, IRS guidance, and case law.

The author practices tax law as a partner with Ivins, Phillips & Barker in Washington, D.C.

 

Becoming Madison Becoming Madison
The Extraordinary Origins of the Least Likely Founding Father

Michael Signer ’04
PublicAffairs

Michael Signer’s engaging and thoroughly researched study of James Madison’s early years, Becoming Madison, reveals the depth of one of the most important, yet among the least known, American leaders.

Signer focuses on Madison’s life to the age of 36, by which time the determined patriot had introduced his plans for a strong central government, made his mark on the Constitution, and played a central role at Virginia’s convention to ratify the Constitution in 1788. Madison steered the course of the nation through the rough-and-tumble politics of his day, not for wealth or fame, but because he believed it was his duty as an American to fight for the common good. He was five feet four, weighed about 100 pounds, was exceedingly shy, and suffered terrible bouts of anxiety. And yet he carried on.

Madison’s coming of age is an inspiring story of a leader who fought for ideas rather than grandstanding or attacking his opponents. A statesman to his core, Madison is a role model for our times. Signer’s portrait goes a long way to bringing Madison out of the shadows of history and into the light.

Becoming Madison is superb,” writes Anne-Marie Slaughter, former director of policy planning, U.S. State Department. “The history is lively and engaging. But Michael Signer’s greatest contribution is to turn a biography of Madison into a manual on leadership that is as relevant and valuable today as it was 200 years ago.”

Signer is a political theorist, lawyer, advocate, and author who practices corporate and regulatory law with the Madison Law & Strategy Group in Charlottesville. He is the author of Demagogue: The Fight to Save Democracy from Its Worst Enemies.


FICTION

The EscapeThe Escape
David Baldacci ’86
Grand Central

In The Escape, David Baldacci spins another thriller with John Puller, the combat veteran and special agent. Puller is the go-to man to investigate the nation’s toughest cases, but all of his experience and skills may not be a match for bringing in the most elusive target he has ever pursued—his brother, Robert.

Robert, convicted of treason, has somehow managed to escape the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the most secure prison in the country, and he’s now the most wanted criminal in the nation. While his captors wonder how on earth he got out, he disguises himself, hacks into a national database, and heads out to clear himself of the charges against him. He’s brilliant and elusive, and Puller’s challenge is to bring him in alive.

There are others who want to see his brother dead. There are details about his
brother’s conviction that warrant investigation, and there’s at least one person who will do anything to prevent the truth coming out. Whatever the outcome, Puller will be tested to the limit to save his brother and himself. He reluctantly teams up with Capt. Veronica Knox whose motives he questions and whose allure he does not.

Baldacci’s novels have been translated into 45 languages and sold in more than 80 countries.


Finding Roda AnneFinding Roda Anne
Bert Goolsby, LL.M. ’92
Rebecca J. Vickery Publishing

Deloris Meek is a fast-talking young man, a Southern lawyer with an unlikely name and unlikely office—a converted milk truck with a two-tone purple paint job.

Meek draws quite a cast of characters for clients, including an auctioneer who hires him to draft his will. When the auctioneer dies, Meek has his hands full tracking down the missing heiress, Roda Anne, and fending off three unhappy claimants to the estate. The story, set in the mid-1960s, is Southern to the hilt. “I practice law in a place way down in the really Deep South where they say the only thing that separates its summer heat from the heat of Hell is a screen door,” Meek observes.

Dixie St. John, his friend’s legal secretary, accompanies him on his adventure. Meek wends his way in and out of two courtrooms, a honky-tonk, a tent revival, and a hospital before he ends up in front of a probate judge who’s a font of baseball metaphors, if not jurisprudence.

Goolsby is a former chief deputy attorney general of South Carolina and criminal prosecutor.

 

Murder Trilogy: Three Two-Act Plays
Frank W. Swacker ’49
James A. Rock & Co.

This collection of Frank Swacker’s two-act stage plays involve murder, mayhem, malfeasance, and hilarious corporate shenanigans. The plays included are “Spreading Murder & Happiness: A Two-Act Play,” “Arbitrating Murder: An Arbitration Drama in Two Acts,” and “Who Murdered the Chairman? A Comic Corporate Satire in Two Acts.” Two of the plays are based on previously published novels by the author.

Swacker wrote the story on which “Arbitrating Murder” is based to entertain students and encourage their interest in arbitration for dispute resolution after teaching at Stetson University College of Law. Murder mysteries are the genre for Swacker’s plays and novels, in part because the public never seems to tire of the subject. He remembers, in fact, that the most exciting course he took in Law School was criminal law. 

Swacker is a devotee of the theater, and he grants educational organizations a royalty-free license to produce the plays, which makes them ideal for small companies and theater groups with limited budgets. He includes a handy synopsis of each play at the front of the book.



A Southern GirlA Southern Girl
John C. Warley ’70
University of South Carolina Press

At the outset of A Southern Girl, Coleman Carter is a successful trial lawyer with a happy marriage and two young sons. He grew up in the Old South, living a life of privilege guaranteed by his family’s bloodlines. He barely questioned the subtle racism and practice of exclusion in the society around him. But his wife, Elizabeth, a transplant from the Midwest, lobbies hard to adopt a daughter from Korea, and Coleman reluctantly gives in.

From the moment they move forward in their plan to adopt, their cozy world turns upside down. Coleman’s parents and his peers were judgmental and severe in their reaction. “She will have doors slammed in her face,” his mother warns. Adoption was questioned in their society, to say nothing of adopting an Asian child. Coleman realizes that the insular world he grew up in, which had always been a comforting source of pride and security, now shuns the daughter he loves. The Carters have to confront Southern traditions as they pull together for their new family to find their true place in the town they had assumed would always be home.

 “John Warley’s marvelous novel A Southern Girl is the best book I’ve ever read about Charleston’s mysterious and glittering high society,” writes novelist Pat Conroy. “Its affirmation of the enduring power of parental love vying against that enigmatic realm is reverential and stunningly original, as stylish as a novel by John Irving and as tightly written as one by John Grisham. I wish I’d written this book.”

The author, a native South Carolinean, based A Southern Girl in part on his family’s adoption of a baby girl born in Seoul, Korea. He lives in Beaufort, S.C., and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. This is his third book and is the first book in Pat Conroy’s Story River Books new Southern fiction imprint.