Accolades: Professor’s Work on Children and the Law Restatement Approved

Members of the University of Virginia School of Law community have recently been singled out for recognition of their achievements. Among the accolades, the American Law Institute voted to approve a new restatement on children and the law co-authored by Professor Richard Bonnie ’69, a project reporter.

“Restatement of the Law, Children and the Law,” which was approved Wednesday after nine years of work, covers issues such as parental rights and state intervention in cases of abuse and neglect, the rights of students and limits of state authority in public schools, the rights and special protections of youth in the juvenile and criminal justice systems, and children as legal persons, covering free-speech rights and the authority of minors to consent to certain medical decisions. Restatements are a series of treatises that define the principles or rules for an area of law, to inform judges and lawyers.

“The law’s treatment of children has become very complex over the past several decades and has been in need of clarification and coherence,” said Columbia University law professor Elizabeth Scott ’76, the restatement’s chief reporter, in a statement. “While traditionally children were assumed to be dependent, vulnerable and incompetent, today they are rights-bearing legal persons for some purposes — but not others.”

The reporters, subject to oversight by the director, will now prepare the restatement’s text for publication.

Bonnie is also chairing a new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine ad hoc committee to study “The Impact of Active Shooter Drills on Student Health and Wellbeing.”

Bonnie is the Harrison Foundation Professor of Medicine and Law Emeritus at the Law School, having retired from teaching in 2023. He formerly served as director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. Bonnie has co-authored leading textbooks on criminal law and public health law.

Citron Cited in Federal Reports

Professor Danielle Citron was the most-cited author in the final report and blueprint of the White House Task Force To Address Online Harassment and Abuse, released May 15. President Joe Biden issued a presidential memorandum establishing the task force in 2022, “with a mandate to build a comprehensive approach for how the federal government prevents and addresses gender-based online harms.”

Additionally, Citron’s paper “Privacy Harms,” co-authored in 2021 with George Washington University professor Daniel J. Solove and published in the Boston University Law Review, was cited in a final rule issued April 26 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to modify regulations that safeguard patients’ protected health information.

Citron, who co-directs the school’s LawTech Center, is author of the books “The Fight for Privacy: Protecting Dignity, Identity, and Love in the Digital Age” and “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace.” She is the Jefferson Scholars Foundation Schenck Distinguished Professor in Law, and the Caddell and Chapman Professor of Law.

Grad Wins Women Lawyers Award

Abigail Hauer ’24 was named the Law School’s recipient of the National Association of Women Lawyers’ Outstanding Law Student Award. Third-year law students are nominated annually by accredited law schools for the award, which recognizes contributions to the advancement of women in society, and promoting issues and concerns of women in the legal profession, among other criteria.

At UVA Law, Hauer was editor-in-chief of the Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law, a Norton Rose Fulbright Best Memorandum Award recipient, a Justice John Paul Stevens Public Interest Fellow, a Program in Law and Public Service Fellow, and a Legal Writing Fellow. She will clerk for Judge E. Gregory Wells ’86 of the Appellate Court of Maryland starting in the fall.

Grad Receives Clinic Award

Ellen Florek ’24 received the Clinical Legal Education Association’s Outstanding Clinical Student Award, which recognizes one such student at each U.S. law school. Florek participated in the Criminal Defense Clinic, Holistic Youth Defense Clinic and Youth Advocacy Clinic during her three years at UVA.

“She often seeks advice on how to improve her lawyering,” said Professor Crystal Shin ’10, director of the Holistic Youth Defense Clinic. “Ellen is a zealous advocate, and her work has been superlative.”

See a full list of graduating student awards.

Students Named Peggy Browning Fellows

Mel Borja ’26, Emily Liu ’26, Tyler Pearce ’25 and Marissa Varnado ’26 were named Peggy Browning Fellows on May 1. The Summer Fellowship Program is comprised of a 10-week fellowship at labor-related organizations nationwide. Borja will work at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs in Washington, D.C.; Liu will work at the Drivers Union, a Teamsters affiliate in Tukwila, Washington; Pearce will work at Mooney, Green, Saindon, Murphy & Welch in Washington, D.C.; and Varnado will work at New York State United Teachers in New York.