Meet Morgan Lingar, UVA Law's New Student Bar Association President

University of Virginia School of Law student Morgan Lingar '16 begins her term as president of the Student Bar Association this week. She formerly served as the SBA's representative to the UVA Student Council.

Hometown: Danville, New Hampshire

Prior education: B.A., women's, gender and sexuality studies; mathematical sciences with a statistics concentration, Colby College

Prior work experience: I did not take any time between graduating from Colby in 2013 and starting law school. While in school and during the summers I worked a wide variety of jobs from working at a horse farm and coaching at running camps to more traditional legal internships and research positions.

Future career plans: This summer, I will be a summer associate at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in New York. I am excited to have the opportunity to explore several practice areas over the course of the summer, though at this point I am particularly interested in litigation.

Favorite law class or subject: I have really enjoyed taking some skills-based classes this year, including Trial Advocacy and Advanced Legal Research. Additionally, I think short courses provide a wonderful opportunity to learn from some amazing people who are not full-time faculty. Both Responses to the Financial Crisis with Ned Kelly and Leadership and Team Management with Jim Donovan have been great classes that provide a very different experience from the majority of law school classes. I also really enjoyed Criminal Law with Professor Rachel Harmon and Evidence with Professor Gregory Mitchell , who are both fantastic professors.

What are you looking forward to as SBA president: One of the things I have always loved the most about student government has been that it gives me the opportunity to meet students, faculty and administrators that I probably would never have met otherwise. Beyond being excited for this, I am looking forward to working on the surprises that will inevitably come up throughout the year in the form of various issues and student concerns.

Top goals as SBA president: I plan to continue the focus on student self-governance that SBA has begun this year by focusing on outreach to students and candid communication of student opinion to the administration. I hope to partner with other student organizations on Grounds as much as possible in order to streamline our events and our goals. I will also focus on community, both by supporting the UVA Law traditions that contribute to the unique sense of community here and by evaluating what changes might make our school more attractive to a diverse group of prospective students.

Recent Past SBA Presidents

• Alexander Matthews '14
• Brian Park '14
• Alexandra Aurisch '13
• Sanjiv Tata '12
• Chris Martin '11