‘Admissible’ S6 E6: We Need Lawyers More Than Ever

NATALIE BLAZER: So do you remember in our year, there was a rumor that one of our classmates turned down law review?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yes.

NATALIE BLAZER: Was that you?

RYAN FAULCONER: It was.

NATALIE BLAZER: [SCREAMS] OK, OK, so one of our classmates came by and he was like, oh, I saw Ryan is the new Dean for public service. I was like yeah, he's great. And he's like, you remember he turned down our law review?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, well, at that time you could both write on and then you could grade on. So I did not do the journal tryout.

NATALIE BLAZER: So in other words, your grades were just that good. This is why I got such a bad grade in property because you were there messing up the curve.

RYAN FAULCONER: I didn't do the tryout, so I wasn't really expecting it. I remember getting the call or the email and being like, all right, when do you need to know what I'm going to do? And they were like, we don't understand. It was a little bit of the vibe.

NATALIE BLAZER: Yeah, there's no accepting.

RYAN FAULCONER: Right, correct. It's just--

NATALIE BLAZER: You're on it now.

RYAN FAULCONER: Correct.

NATALIE BLAZER: This is Admissible. I'm Natalie Blazer, Dean of Admissions at UVA Law. I'm so excited about today's episode for a lot of reasons, not least of which is it's giving me the opportunity to catch up with one of my classmates from UVA Law, class of 2008, who is also now a colleague of mine in the law school administration. Ryan Faulconer is the Assistant Dean of public service and director of the Mortimer Caplin Public Service Center. And as I said, a 2008 graduate of UVA Law.

Prior to joining the law school in this role, Dean Faulconer was a federal prosecutor for 15 years, focusing on corruption, white collar fraud, and cybercrime. He was hired through the attorney general's honors program into the Fraud section of the US Department of Justice's Criminal Division. Dean Faulconer subsequently worked as the public corruption coordinator and an assistant US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, a senior counsel with the computer crime and intellectual property section of DOJ's Criminal Division, and as an assistant US attorney in the Western District of Virginia.

Before joining DOJ, Dean Faulconer clerked for Judge T.S. Ellis III of the Eastern District of Virginia. While a student at UVA Law, Dean Faulconer was president of the National Trial Advocacy Team and a participant in Moot Court, as well as our Classes' recipient of the Pro Bono award. He has also coached UVA's undergraduate mock trial team since his time as a law student. So roughly the past 20 years.

RYAN FAULCONER: This was year 20.

NATALIE BLAZER: Oh my God. In 2021, he was elected to the American mock trial Association's coaches Hall of Fame. No surprise. Dean Faulconer received his BA in political science from the University of Kansas, and is a member of both the Colorado and Virginia bars. Wow, OK, I have been referring to him as Dean Falconer so far because as always, I want listeners to get into the habit of knowing and referring to people by their titles. But from here on out, I will call him Ryan. Ryan, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

NATALIE BLAZER: Just reading your bio, I mean, it's really can't be overstated, how long you have been a public servant and how I imagine stressful those jobs were.

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, I have more gray hair and less hair overall than I did when we first met, so.

NATALIE BLAZER: You haven't aged a day in my mind. So listeners just heard me share a small segment of, as I said, a very impressive bio. What's something that's not on your bio on the website, something people might not know about you?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, I mean, I'm adopted.

NATALIE BLAZER: OK.

RYAN FAULCONER: So that is often the most formative thing about me that you wouldn't know from--

NATALIE BLAZER: As a baby?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yes, Yeah.

NATALIE BLAZER: OK.

RYAN FAULCONER: So from the time. And I've always known that I was.

NATALIE BLAZER: Yeah.

RYAN FAULCONER: But from shortly after birth. And so grew up in Colorado. My mom is a writer. Dad is a retired orthodontist. And so, yeah.

NATALIE BLAZER: And so did they ever have-- you were their only child?

RYAN FAULCONER: No, I have a sister. So we're both adopted different families. So we're genetically, not the same.

NATALIE BLAZER: Wow.

RYAN FAULCONER: But grew up in the same family. And she's in North Carolina now with her spouse and my niece, Mika.

NATALIE BLAZER: Mika, that's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, that's really nice. OK, before we dive into the topic of today's show, I would love to hear how did you start to think about going to law school. How did you decide you wanted to go to law school in the first place?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, I think it probably started with competing in mock trial when I was in high school. So that is a through line that obviously continues even beyond 20 years. Is probably 27 years at this point.

NATALIE BLAZER: Wow.

RYAN FAULCONER: And so that probably started it. And so I think by the time I got to deciding what to do for career, initially it was political science because I was interested in politics, campaign, finance. This was back in McCain-Feingold in 2000 and all that stuff.

NATALIE BLAZER: Yeah.

RYAN FAULCONER: The good old days of that being nonpartisan. And so that's initially some of the things I was interested in. But then I think mock trial is probably what crystallized it because it brought in that the public speaking side of it combined with learning people's stories.

NATALIE BLAZER: It's interesting because I'm now thinking about people who choose to do mock trial, and people, especially who really enjoy it and get into it. What percentage do you think do go on to law school? I would think it's high.

RYAN FAULCONER: It's high. I'd say it's probably above 50%. I don't know the exact numbers on it. As much as anything it's a crash course, in public speaking, presentational ability and really just team building.

NATALIE BLAZER: For sure, the skills you get in mock trial are going to be useful no matter what you do.

RYAN FAULCONER: 100%. In much the same way that what you learn in law school is helpful in all careers, So it can lead you into policy careers. It can lead you into business. That kind of thing.

NATALIE BLAZER: Do you remember-- I know it was a long time ago for both of us now. Do you remember anything about your law school application process?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, I definitely remember to go back to a theme. My mock trial team at Kansas competed against the one at UVA in the fall of my fourth year of college, and there was a third year law student, Daniel Shapiro, who's now gone on. And he may have moved on from this, but was an AUSA for a long time in New Jersey, and he was the current coach. And I reached out to just ask about UVA, and he flagged a couple of things, great for clinical opportunities, prosecution clinic, things like that. Trial advocacy. The people are as advertised. Everybody loves it here. Everybody gets that wistful look in their eye when you ask them about being at UVA.

And then third, he said, also, I think the mock trial team is really good. I'm graduating, I'm not going to be coaching. They need an in-house law student coach next year. I really think you should do it. and push me to think about that. Which then led to my weekend not only involved everything that was on the listed agenda, but also involved going out and getting a meal with people who were the college kids that I would potentially be working with the following year. And that helped with the sealing of the deal at the end of the day.

NATALIE BLAZER: So it all comes back to mock trial? I mean--

RYAN FAULCONER: In a way.

NATALIE BLAZER: In a way, in a way. That's such a story. And you've been doing it the whole time.

RYAN FAULCONER: The whole time.

NATALIE BLAZER: We're going to talk about that more in a second. While you were at UVA Law, in addition to mock trial, which we know you did a lot of, do you remember other things, or was that just your main extracurricular was coaching?

RYAN FAULCONER: That was the biggest by a wide margin, but I did moot court. I did the trial advocacy team at the law school, which is the law school version of mock trial. So while I was coaching, I was also doing it. And then I did the prosecution clinic as a third year student, which gave me the opportunity then to get up in court and do some things on--

NATALIE BLAZER: Real-life arguing.

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah.

NATALIE BLAZER: Cool. And you were prepared by that point with all the--

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, I mean, I'd at least been in a lot of courtrooms for fake cases. And then all of a sudden it was very real.

NATALIE BLAZER: So we've been talking about your time as a law student. This was back in 2005 to 2008. So as you and I both know, "career services," I'm putting that in quotes because I don't think I even knew we had such a thing. Back in those days, it looked very different when you and I were students. What do you remember about navigating your career path while you were still a student?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, it definitely wasn't as robust as it is today. So my memory is similar, it was not that we did not have as many people, there was not as much of a process, but I didn't utilize some of the resources that were there and there were some there, our assistant director of public service and Pro Bono, Andrew Broaddus has been here since I was in law school. And so I was looking up before I came over here today, old emails that I had where he was helping me on things like clerkship applications. So I did utilize some of the resources that were there, but a lot of my more fine-tuned mentorship came through faculty that I really connected with well, probably.

NATALIE BLAZER: So did you know that I guess, was there ever a time where you're like, I might go to a law firm, or were you like, I'm going to basically do the public service route?

RYAN FAULCONER: No so I did a law firm my second summer.

NATALIE BLAZER: OK, OK, talk about your two summers.

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah so my first summer, I ended up at the US Attorney's office in Charlottesville, Western District of Virginia, which was also ended up being the last job I had before coming to this one with DOJ. My second summer, I split between two law firms in Denver. Mostly ended up shadowing the people who were in that corner of the firm, where it was the white collar investigations defense group, and they were all former DOJ people. And I just gravitated towards them and worked on some of their stuff.

And so I was considering it, I think getting a clerkship shortly into my third year, then jumped ahead of that, and then I just said, OK, well, I'll come back to that whole employment thing later and turn down the opportunities to go to law firms. I also think I learned during those summers that wasn't what I wanted to do straight out of law school. And so I think seeing people in a different context, realizing I like them, but they talk more fondly of what they used to do than what they currently do. And so why don't I go do that? If I can get it. And so that then became the goal was fortunate enough to clerk. And then that is what shifted me over towards public service.

NATALIE BLAZER: And then timing-wise, your clerkship is ongoing. It sounds like you had a great experience. When did you apply for your next step or how did that work?

RYAN FAULCONER: So it was actually at the beginning of the clerkship. So it was, I think, the honors program for DOJ, which was the first thing I applied for. You start working on your application in August generally, and then around Labor Day-ish is when the applications go in, and then you find out if you're interviewed sometime in maybe late September or early October, then you get interviewed usually in the October time frame, sometimes into November.

NATALIE BLAZER: Got it.

RYAN FAULCONER: So that's while I'm starting my clerkship.

NATALIE BLAZER: Of course. Yeah so you're doing all that at the same time. So for listeners who don't know and I guess I can include myself in this. I've always heard of the DOJ honors program. I just know it's a really big deal. It's for the best and the brightest. What is different? Is it just a more protracted process, more interviews, more materials, how does it work?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, so it really is just the entry level. It's the only but narrow way of getting in as an entry level attorney, either straight out of law school or off of a clerkship or certain other types of fellowships that are qualifying because they're public service and temporary. So it's really just the mechanism to get young people in. There's a little bit more bureaucracy on it than just an individual office hiring you. But it also happens as a class because it tends to be tied to either the academic calendar or the clerkship calendar. And so they'll do it all in one big chunk. And so it is a little bit more rigorous, but it's also just different because they're trying to identify people at a younger age who don't have practice experience.

NATALIE BLAZER: That makes a lot of sense. So while you're applying for that and while you are clerking for the federal judge, it's the fall of 2008.

RYAN FAULCONER: Yes.

NATALIE BLAZER: So I want to talk about this because it's very relevant to our topic today, which is just uncertainty in legal times, in the legal landscape, I guess. For listeners who might not know, I think most of our listeners would have been born by then, but they would have been young and maybe not have a 401(k) that they were worried about at the time. Talk about that time. Did it affect you professionally or did it imbue a sense of uncertainty? Just what do you remember about that?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, 100% I mean, it was really actually impacted me not as much as some classmates that I know. We had people who literally lost jobs. So I had classmates who were more impacted. But it impacted me because I was in the midst of applying for DOJ honors. I got two finalist status, which is you're basically interviewed and then they're saying you're almost surely going to get an offer. So I made it to finalist status was thought, OK, well, this is going to happen.

Then the market crashed in October of 2008 right in the middle of this timeline. And they said, we're actually going to have fewer people because we're starting to have budget concerns, so we're going to hire fewer people. You're not getting it. So I was told in November, you're not getting honors. So my initial application was you're not going to get in through this program. And so then I was like, OK, well, now I don't have a job. So then I remember reaching back out to the law firms, which a year before had said, yeah, go, clerk. And if you're ever interested, just come talk to us. We're printing money up here. Everything's fine. Yeah, it's so low key and laid back. And then I didn't know if I really wanted to do it, but I reached out to a few people and they were like, yeah, when we said call us any time, that was before the market crashed.

NATALIE BLAZER: That was before October 2008.

RYAN FAULCONER: And so I was like, all right, well, I guess I don't have a dance partner there anymore. So I couldn't go back to the firm. So then I remember at one point, I looked at a clerkship in the Republic of Palau because there was just opportunities for what can I do in public service and things like that. And I applied to various different things in government and a decent while went on. And I don't remember exactly if it was March or April, but it was all the way to March or April, but months until I was interviewing with the DC, US Attorney's office, which is a hybrid local prosecutor and federal prosecutor's office.

And I was going in for one of my final interviews with them, either second to last or last round. And I emailed somebody who I'd interviewed with the Criminal Division and said, hey, do you have any advice? Because I interviewed with you, I liked you. You seem to me. I didn't get the job. Maybe you'll help me. And she said, actually, can you email me your references? And I was like, what is this about? I emailed my references. They called them. And within like 48 hours, I had been offered a job because somebody backed out, I think for a Supreme Court clerkship or something. I don't know exactly, but somebody backed out for some reason for the following year's class. And so I got in.

But I was at that point where I was looking at this opportunity, I was thinking about state and local prosecution. I was thinking about all these different things. And all I was thinking about finishing my clerkship and who's to say. I didn't know how long it was going to last.

NATALIE BLAZER: So I have so many thoughts. First of all, I'm so glad that it's you now in this role, talking to our students because you know firsthand what it can feel like to have something yanked, to have a job offer pulled and for everything to be uncertain and then what's going to happen? And months are going by. And also I'm remembering the timing because it was like February. They called it the Valentine's Day massacre, when so many of our classmates were laid off from firms.

And I can just only imagine how much that adds to your anxiety. When you're still trying to figure these things out. So, just want listeners to know that the times we're living in right now are not the first uncertain times. 2008 was definitely a scary time, you and I think were some of the more fortunate ones. I was at a law firm that specializes in bankruptcy, and so business was booming at that time, ironically. OK, so you got the job, you got the job back, maybe due to a well-timed email, but that all worked out.

RYAN FAULCONER: Staying in touch with people who are nice to you, you never know when somebody was your advocate and you didn't get it, but they're just waiting and looking for an opportunity to help you.

NATALIE BLAZER: That's such a great point, staying in touch with people asking for advice, I love that. I've done that before with former mentors like, hey, can you help me? And I think there's that can only benefit. So you get to DOJ. And I mentioned in your bio and you touched on it a little bit earlier, you were focused on, how would you put it? White collar crime.

RYAN FAULCONER: Trial advocacy. I didn't know honestly until probably around that same time. The focus on white collar probably didn't really come into full view for me.

NATALIE BLAZER: So how does it work? So like, for example when I went to my law firm, it was like you're going to rotate through corporate and then litigation and then bankruptcy. And then you get to decide which practice group you really like. And if they like you you match. Is it like that at DOJ or how is it decided what types of cases you're going to focus on?

RYAN FAULCONER: So annoying lawyer answer it depends and it varies. But for some offices that were not me like Anti-trust Division, Tax division, National Security Division you know OK, it's a division of DOJ that focuses on a subject matter. And so you know. I got hired by the Criminal Division, which includes everything from fraud and public integrity to computer crime to child exploitation to gang to narcotics trafficking. So it includes everything.

NATALIE BLAZER: It really spans.

RYAN FAULCONER: Right, and of course, by definition, I was probably the last person on the list. I wasn't exactly like the person who got to point at the office I wanted and go there. And so--

NATALIE BLAZER: I would like fraud please.

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, so but what they do is there's a little bit of, in that division every DOJ place is different. But in that division they a little bit of a matching where you rank. Here's my, I think I ranked three. And then they obviously rank their preferences, and then they do a little bit of a matching. And so that's how I ended up.

NATALIE BLAZER: And did you have an interest in that area from your Denver time and your US Attorney's time or--

RYAN FAULCONER: I think so. I mean, I remember by the time I graduated law school, I thought I was interested in national security. We were still only seven years after 9/11. There was still a lot going on in that context. And so I thought national security maybe white collar because it's all so complicated. And I liked the complex problem solving. And I got more jazzed by putting rich liars who are cheating in jail than the alternative for me.

NATALIE BLAZER: Totally, well, and luckily, I mean, maybe it was also 2008. 2009 was a boom time for rich liars who are cheating. Is that what you called them?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah.

NATALIE BLAZER: I mean, there was a lot of that going on.

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, 100%.

NATALIE BLAZER: So you're at DOJ. You're doing this kind of work. What was like the day to day like? Like what was a typical day?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, obviously it varies by which office I was in. But the days really do vary a lot. I mean, you have some days that you're on in public facing, so you're doing an interview of a witness or you're going to a court hearing, or you're doing something that is more out in the open and public speaking type of thing. Then there are the days that you're going through evidence, so you're going out to an FBI field office, or you're going out with law enforcement to figure out, can we go through these materials? And sometimes that involves looking through a database, reading a lot of documents. Then there are the days where you're writing memos and doing legal research.

And then there are days where as a prosecutor, sometimes your project managing really because you have these small little teams of agents and maybe multiple lawyers, but sometimes you're the only lawyer. And so you're trying to marshal resources. And so you're going between emails or between conference calls or meetings, or sometimes you meet in person for a more significant thing. And so it really depends on your caseload, how many cases you have and what the stages that those cases are in. But it's just that mixture. I mean, it's one of the things that makes law fun, but it's a mixture of interpersonal interaction, reading, writing, and then persuading.

NATALIE BLAZER: I'm equal parts exhilarated and tired, thinking about it or just remembering my practicing law days, which were very different than being a prosecutor, obviously. But you're right. The teamwork and the figuring out and the war room and oh, we came up with this best argument or whatever. But then there's obviously so many late nights, there's so much poring over documents. There's a lot of less glamorous work. So I confess that when I was reading your bio and when I was preparing for this show, you're career progression. You're at the DOJ Criminal Division. And then you went to be an AUSA in the Eastern District of Virginia, then back to DOJ?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yes.

NATALIE BLAZER: Then AUSA and Western District of Virginia. So explain that in, I guess, lay terms. Like what was that progression about? And what motivated it or is that what everybody does or. I honestly am clueless about this, so.

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah. a lot of people move around within DOJ and often the hardest thing is just getting in. And then once you get in, you can work your way around to where either the work that you want to do is or the people that you want to work with are. And for me, obviously, I moved around, I frankly moved around more than I thought I would but I think I started at fraud because that's where I could get hired. And I had a choice and I ended up ranking, I think, Public Integrity first, which may or may not exist anymore, but as a section but Public Integrity first, Fraud Section second and then computer crime third. And so I knew white collar complex stuff. So I went there because that's where I could get the job.

I moved to be an AUSA in EDVA, in part because I had clerked down there. I had done a couple of cases from the Fraud Section with them. And this is often how you end up moving is you are in one DOJ office. And because it's a big government because you work in teams because you work across offices, you get some touch point with another office and you go, wait, maybe I want to go there. Now sometimes it's wanderlust because you're just looking for grass is greener stuff. But you see something and you go, well, what about that? And so I learned about an opportunity at EDVA in Alexandria because I clerked there. And you have to travel a lot if you're at main justice.

And so I had cases in California and Nebraska and international cases, Afghanistan, Iraq, all these things where I was like, maybe just having one place. Or at least the three or four cities in EDVA, that would be interesting. And so it was the first of I think, three or four jobs where I took a pay cut to change jobs, but it was an opportunity to focus in on one legal community and be in one district, which I felt, for me personally, the stability of that and being able to repeat certain things was an advantage for seeing, OK, I want to build a long practice, and I remember when I came to EDVA, I thought, look if you're at main justice, almost every case you do is like big in the news or big. You're not doing it at main justice in DC unless usually it's significant. Now sometimes there are smaller ones for training purposes. But I remember thinking, well, I don't really care about that very much.

If you're a federal prosecutor, the big cases will come if you just go somewhere, the big cases, you'll eventually have to do them. So in any event. So that was the EDVA thing, and I loved the courthouse I was in, I loved the judge, I had clerked for. I loved the community. I eventually, viewed myself as an officer of that court because it's the place that taught me how to be a lawyer, and it's the ethos that I loved of that place. Rocket docket, fast moving, but excellent. And I went there. And I had the opportunity to work on fraud and corruption stuff. So I was like, this is what I have, but better. So and that was awesome. And so I was there for seven years.

NATALIE BLAZER: Was that your favorite part of it, would you say, coming home to Eastern District?

RYAN FAULCONER: It's a good question. I actually think because there were two more stops after that. So the next one was Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section back at main justice in the Criminal Division, which is an office that both prosecutes cyber crime and advises the field on all the electronic evidence gathering, which is really the main thing these days. And goes out and does training internationally and things like that. And so I had the opportunity to go to that office.

And then down here to the Western District of Virginia in Charlottesville, where I got to work with a colleague who I had worked on some cases with, as well as for a law school classmate, Chris Kavanaugh, as the US attorney. And so honestly, I think that they each had their positive. If you want a small, really small team, everybody knows each other.

Down here in Charlottesville was awesome. It's a small office. You meet everyone within the first day and you remember all their names, that thing. So it's awesome, smaller legal community. EDVA Alexandria, they have the ability to specialize and have these units that are all about fraud because they just have more people. So it's more fast paced. But there is also some like DC Beltway nonsense that goes on with that. That can be wearing on you over time. And the computer crime section was amazingly well managed. It's an awesome place.

I remember when I first applied for DOJ honors, somebody told me, if you want to be happy, go to that section. If you want to litigate, go to fraud. And I was like, I want to litigate. Who cares about being happy? I'm 20 some odd years old. And so it wasn't exactly what I thought, but it's what happened. And so honestly, I think they were each excellent offices in their own way. I don't regret the moves, but I also don't look back at any of them. And it's almost they're just different flavors.

NATALIE BLAZER: You got a lot of, I would say, it sounds like varied experience and you have a 360 view of how that work works. What is it that made you start to think, OK, I want to go into basically a career advising role? I come back to UVA Law?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, I think a couple of things. First, I had become the intern coordinator at the US Attorney's office in Alexandria. This was after I'd had a big public corruption case, and I remember coming back from that. I was basically living in Richmond for a couple of years, came back and was settling back into a more regular routine and was asked by the then US attorney, hey, will you head up the intern program? And I was like, it sounds like a lot of additional responsibility.

But then I got into it and we were hiring classes of interns every year, and I was mentoring them. And over time I started to honestly like it more than the original job description. And so I was like, I'm loving this. And then in every stop I went to when I went to the computer crime section, what drew me to it was they advise people. And so my favorite thing, you were on duty and you just get these hotline calls from random location in the country saying, I have no idea how to do this. How do I do it? And you usually didn't know the answer, but you helped them figure it out.

And that's what I liked about that job, and even though for some people it was a burden because they would rather be doing the litigating. And then it kept happening over and over and over again. And then the last piece is what might be obvious from the beginning of the conversation, which is the mock trial coaching. I'd basically been doing a similar thing for free for 20 years, almost at that point. And it's like, if you can find the thing you're willing to do for free and then find need for it where you can actually make ends meet in an employment capacity for it, why not do that? It just made a lot of sense.

NATALIE BLAZER: Lucky for us.

RYAN FAULCONER: Hopefully.

NATALIE BLAZER: What you said rings so true because what you are doing is you're helping people figure things out on a daily basis. Talk about your role right now, how it works, what students come to you for things like that?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, so I'm one of three people that we have who do counseling with students on the Public Service Center side. We each have very different backgrounds, but we work really well as a team together. So the first thing I've been doing this first year is learning a lot by asking a lot of questions. But in terms of the interaction with the students, it is sitting down with them and having one-on-one meetings, really trying to ask them as many questions you can about their background, their story, their motivations. Following up with whatever that additional question is that'll get you the really good answer.

And so really step one is to get to know them. And then step two is say, OK, have you thought about? And then you lay out the laundry list of resources that we've compiled over the years where our center has been built over time by so many different people that it's really here are all the resources we have. And then we're saying, OK, let's get your resume in shape, let's get your cover letter in shape, and then let's start going out there. And then you're their coach or their advocate and getting them to think about things, consider things, advocate for themselves and go through the process.

NATALIE BLAZER: So you started the middle of 2024 and less than a year in to your tenure here. I think it's fair to say there have been a lot of changes in the, well, first in the higher education space, but really in the legal landscape. Can you explain high level what the uncertainty is about right now, particularly, I guess, in the public service space?

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, and there's a variety of different ways that it's impacting. But I remember when I was interviewing for this job, saying to somebody in the interview that we have an election in November and that could lead to certainly some people are going to be disappointed no matter what, but it could lead to a lot of change. So I knew that. I don't that I anticipated just how much there would be. And so things really got most concrete when the executive orders started raining down in January about federal hiring freezes and the seizing of control by certain people in certain offices over certain parts of federal hiring.

And so what started to happen was we had a number of students with job offers that they'd already accepted, like the honors program type thing that I did who were told, that offer, it's no longer good. We're revoking your job. You no longer have a job. We started having students with internships have that happen to them. Dozens by the time all was said and done. And so that was a shock to the system for everyone. I mean, we were all prepared for, things are going to change.

We were all trying to factor in uncertainty, but it came at a pace and with a certain level of cruelness that was not something that necessarily you would wish for. And so that happened with federal hiring freeze. And then, of course, you have some of the things that have followed on to that in terms of trying to change funding, reduce funding to things, which then can trickle down into other institutions, even if it's not literally just the place I used to work at the Department of Justice or even an agency that's being shrunk down or that thing.

NATALIE BLAZER: And how does that-- and by the way, I just should say we're recording this about a week before it will be actually released. So all of this could be completely different in a week. I mean, I think that's fair to say, as of April 10, this is how things are. And we won't even get into the law firm stuff because that's more private sector. And there's a lot of again, uncertainty being injected into the legal market. I'll just put it that way. So how does that change your counseling? Or does it?

RYAN FAULCONER: It does. I mean, anything that's happening, I mean, like public service you're interested in because it's helping people and usually has some relationship to some policy. So those things are always impacting us. But it changes our counseling in the sense that we are now talking to people about, in many ways, maintaining and having to live with a certain amount of uncertainty that nobody likes to have. But then it also just means we have to be more creative.

So you're now thinking about things that other types of public service work that maybe you wouldn't have thought about if you had just followed the herd towards the thing that is most common to do. And so we're having to be more creative and say, well, how do you feel about state and local government? How do you feel about non-profit work that is protected and relatively insulated? How do you feel about doing public defense work? How do you feel about doing other things?

Because by the way, there are whole areas of public service that haven't really been negatively impacted in a material way yet. They might at some point, but it's just a matter of being creative and figuring out, OK, let's buckle up and figure out how to address this situation. Figure out where might be safe while also being candid about it might be harder. You might not have the same salary. You might not have the same stability, but the need isn't going away for the most part of the type of work that needs to be done.

NATALIE BLAZER: The need is not going away. And you always hear people say, we have too many lawyers in the world. Why do we need more lawyers? And I feel like anyone who says that has never needed a lawyer. Because when you need a lawyer, it's actually pretty hard to find one or someone who says that has probably been brought to justice by a lawyer. So you're absolutely right that the need is not going away, I would argue. I think we need lawyers more than ever in some ways.

RYAN FAULCONER: Yes, yeah, 100%. I mean, whether you agree or agree disagree, but especially if you disagree with policies. One of the ways of dealing with that is legal recourse, litigation. Literally suing over the things that are happening or it's continuing to help people with whatever the consequences are of whatever the issue is. It's more important now. It's harder but more important at the same time.

NATALIE BLAZER: And I love what you said about being creative because it's in those moments that sometimes people might not have thought about state or local government, and that ends up being just the right thing for them. And it makes me so glad that our students and our alumni have you all there to help them think through that.

RYAN FAULCONER: Well, and it's in our team. I can think of so many students where we have gotten them placed now into an alternative position and not universally, but some of them, honestly, it's probably better. They are probably better off having, and it was painful, but now they're in a place that's what they really want to do. And now they're in a place that really wants them, or you don't want to work somewhere that doesn't want you. I mean, I still want there to be good public servants in places like where I used to work. And the ability for our team to work collaboratively across the different backgrounds that we have has really enabled us to do that. Because you might have for people going to the same office, all their offers get revoked. And the answer is different for all four of them.

NATALIE BLAZER: Absolutely.

RYAN FAULCONER: One goes into a judicial thing. One goes into state prosecution, the other goes into defense work, the other goes-- the answer is going to be different because their reasons for going there were different. It's been stressful in a lot of work mostly for them, but it has been really rewarding when you get them into a spot where they're still just trying to help make the world a better place.

NATALIE BLAZER: And so it sounds like the people who lost their offers or their internships and jobs. I think I heard you say this at a recent meeting. They've all found something else?

RYAN FAULCONER: All of the current students that were looking at internships have all found an internship for the summer. There's a few people with more permanent employment that are weighing offers and still applying to a few things. But for the students and internships, everybody that had something revoked either found a new placement or then we had a certain-- there's been a lot of whiplash recently, on these things, but we had a number of offers.

A couple of them returned, maybe like a half dozen, less than single digits type stuff, where a few were like, when we left you at the altar, like, now we'd like to do that again. And so we have had a few come back. I mean, there's some risk associated with that, but I think for some people, it made sense. But Yeah, we've managed to get people to pretty good places. And it's step one in a long journey that we're going to have to figure out what else we need to be creative about.

NATALIE BLAZER: Well, and I think just getting comfortable with uncertainty. Nobody wants to do it. We're all lawyers. We're risk averse. But I think it's good. It's going to come for us all sooner or later, the uncertainty piece. And so I think that's it's just going to be building skills and things that you're going to need as an attorney, frankly because there is a lot of risk and uncertainty. Really quickly because I know you're not like in financial aid, but for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness, what can you speak to about that? What would you say to someone who's like, I'm scared about going to law school because I'm going to take out loans. And I was relying on public service loan forgiveness. And now that's in jeopardy.

RYAN FAULCONER: So we don't know a lot right now about where it's going to end. There is, I think, in April or May ish time frame, some rule making going on at the Department of Education about how we're going to maybe change some things. There's been, I think, more of an effort to identify certain organizations that, in the current administration's view are pursuing, "illegal ends." Now, stated that way, it doesn't sound like it would have much impact depending on what you view that to be. It could have a lot of impact for certain organizations that are advocating things that the current administration disagrees with.

That would involve a rulemaking and probably a lot of litigation and probably a lot of lawsuits. And it's worth remembering that Public Service Loan Forgiveness isn't just law school students. It's literally all, it's like teachers. It's police officers. It's anybody in public service. And so that's going to be long and protracted. And as of right now, what as best I can interpret, it's not get rid of public service, it's try to limit public service loan forgiveness, maybe for certain people. Blah, blah, blah that we disagree with. But whether or not that will withstand court challenges or whether or not that can go through Congress, which would be required to change certain things, is a whole separate question that could obviously be impacted by the 2026 midterm elections and by other things down the line, or even just I mean, there are other policies in the economic world that are changing day-to-day now based on feedback that people are getting.

And so that is to say, I think it is going back to that living with uncertainty. If there was a question you were asking yourself like, well, what happens if such and such like you-- that question should have always been in your mind because it could always get changed. Policy could always change. But that doesn't mean don't do the thing that you want to do. We still have a loan forgiveness program that is a loan repayment assistance program in essence, that still covers you for 10 years. Our financial aid office knows all the details on this, but we still have our putting serious money into trying to help people with this. If the changes are made at a broad congressional level to reduce funding going into something, that will make it harder. But we don't yet know exactly what that's going to be. And there are a lot of people that are going to be fighting against that or disagreeing with that change.

And so I think it's being aware of it and factoring it in. And there might be some people for whom it affects their decision. But a career is a long arc. And the great thing about our students. And I think about our school in particular is that we're really dexterous. So there are attacks that look like they might be coming into form, but some of it is trying to predict what unpredictable people are doing. Sometimes when the design is to be unpredictable and to cause you to be fearful of the unpredictability which means, OK, you're clear-eyed about it, but don't negotiate against yourself.

Don't give them the victory of driving you out of public service before you even try. Try, be conscious, be aware, know what the compromise is that you're going to have to make about geography, about salary, about roommates, about whatever it is. But come and ask for help. Because if you talk with financial aid, they'll help you in your individual circumstances. If you talk to us, will help you figure out, OK, what risk tolerance do you have and what are the trade offs that you need to be prepared to make? But maybe not make before you have to.

NATALIE BLAZER: Before you have to.

RYAN FAULCONER: Right.

NATALIE BLAZER: Ryan, you're amazing, and I really hope listeners take away what Ryan just said about, don't let all the changes in the world discourage you from wanting to make the changes you want to see in the world. It's more important than ever to do that. And if you're willing to work hard and weather the changes and pivot and be creative in all those things. We need you, we want you in this industry as attorneys,

RYAN FAULCONER: 100%. It's more necessary now than it ever has been.

NATALIE BLAZER: Yeah, so to wrap up, just circling back to what we talked about at the top of the show, you and I are both, I would say proud graduates of 2008 were products of one of the most uncertain times to graduate law school on record. I myself started as Dean of Admissions at UVA Law in 2020. I inherited a team, an incredible team, as listeners know. But everything was on Zoom and everything was remote. And imagine doing open house online, with hundreds of people.

My point is just I have seen what UVA Law is capable of in these times of uncertainty and it's really awesome. Our number one priority is our students and their well-being and their success. And COVID was not great for anybody. It was very stressful. We didn't know what was going to happen one day to the next. Same thing when you and I graduated. It was uncertain. And I don't know how this era is going to stack up against those times, but those are my frames of reference with this law school in particular.

RYAN FAULCONER: I mean, look, what drew me to UVA and what makes it special is the people and the degree to which people like it and the degree to which people enjoy their experience and enjoy the bonds that they form. And that is precisely the thing that matters when it comes to dealing with uncertainty and being creative about solutions. Whether it's you go out and you create a new non-profit, you go out and you hang out a shingle, and you create a firm to do the thing that is no longer being done by whoever was doing it before, you go out and you become a Assistant Attorney General in a state instead of an AUSA, you run for office. You do whatever the heck it is that you do, you're going to do that with people.

And so the bonds that you form still really, really matter. And that's not to say, by the way that it doesn't feel different now than it did in those prior crises. On some level it does. It's hard to know when you're in the middle of it just how different it is. And I mean, what's amazing too, is we have so many people still at the law school who were around for those crises.

NATALIE BLAZER: You have to push through it, and bigger and better things can come out of it. And this is the opportunity. This is the opportunity for people to do that. So before we go, recognizing that our listeners are, for the most part considering law school or they're in the application stage or they're waiting to hear back or, what's a piece of advice that you would give them, given everything that you've experienced?

RYAN FAULCONER: So I would say if there was one thing that I got good advice about and followed, it was plenty that I disregarded, but I got good advice and followed. It was to have multiple outs to happiness wherever you go and whatever you're doing. So I came to UVA not just because I loved the law school, but because I loved the city I was going to be in. Because I had other things. I even went and played round of golf, which is a big hobby of mine, and was like, oh, I could see myself playing at this golf course.

So whatever the thing is that you're doing have multiple things that are making you happy whether that's family, hobby, volunteering. Even if you're at a law firm, by the way, be doing Pro Bono work, be doing that other stuff. And so to me, the biggest advice that I always give people is just don't put all your eggs in one basket. Don't say, oh, if I don't get this, I'm going to be unhappy. And don't rely on any one thing to give you that support or that satisfaction. You have to have multiple routes to happiness. I guess the best way to put it for me.

And then also just be kind to yourself and others. I came in thinking I'd be a sports agent or a defense attorney, and I ended up being a federal prosecutor, and now I'm a career counselor. So just be patient and kind to yourself and to others really are the biggest things for me.

NATALIE BLAZER: Be kind and look for ways to be happy. I think that is just the absolute perfect place to end on a somewhat scary topic. I think that's a really uplifting message and something that I hope everybody really takes to heart. Ryan, this was really great. I know you're so busy. Thank you so much for coming on the show.

RYAN FAULCONER: Yeah, Thanks for having me. I'm excited so I'd to be here.

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NATALIE BLAZER: This has been Admissible with me. Dean Natalie Blazer at the University of Virginia School of Law. My guest today was Assistant Dean for public service Ryan Faulconer. The next episode of Admissible will be out soon. In the meantime, you can follow the show on Instagram @Admissiblepodcast. As a reminder, Admissible is now on YouTube. You can check out all of our new episodes there, along with some vintage content we're sharing to help guide you through this application season. Thanks so much for listening, and please remember to rate the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

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