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Faculty Briefs


Ken AbrahamIn March Ken Abraham spoke at Case Law School, on “Which Came First: The Liability or the Insurance?” He also published “The Uses of Accident Law’s Past,” in the Journal of Tort Law, Issue 2, Article 2 (2007); and “The Hurricane Katrina Insurance Claims” in the Virginia Law Review (2007).

Michal BarzuzaMichal Barzuza's paper, “Delaware’s Compensation,” was accepted for publication at the Virginia Law Review (forthcoming 2008). She presented the same paper at the faculty workshop in July, and also presented her project “Lemon Signaling In Cross-Listing” in the University of Southern California Law & Economics Workshop in September.

Lillian VeVierThis spring, Lillian BeVier’s article, “Full of Surprises, with More to Come: Randall v Sorrell,” appeared in 2006 Supreme Court Review. In late June, she participated at the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference on a panel moderated by A. E. Dick Howard, discussing the recent Supreme Court term. BeVier talked mostly about the “Bong-Hits 4 Jesus” case and the campaign finance regulation case, FEC v Wisconsin Right to Life.

In September, BeVier participated as a panelist, again talking about First Amendment cases, at the Cato Institute’s Constitution Day. Her essay, Wisconsin Right to Life, will appear in the 2006–07 Cato Supreme Court Review. BeVier continues to serve as Vice-Chair of the Legal Services Corporation.

Richard Bonnie '69Richard Bonnie ’69 has devoted much of his energy to his work as Chair of the Commission on Mental Health Law Reform. The Supreme Court of Virginia established the Commission in the fall of 2006 to conduct a comprehensive study of Virginia’s mental health legislation and the accessibility of mental health services. The Commission’s work was highlighted by the tragedy at Virginia Tech on April 16. Bonnie testified before the Governor’s Virginia Tech Review Panel in July and before the General Assembly’s Committee on Health, Welfare, and Institutions in September. He also made presentations on the mental health law reform at the Pro Bono and Access to Justice Conference of the Virginia State Bar in Richmond in May; at a Miller Center Forum on Students in Distress, Mental Health and Law Reform in Charlottesville in June; at a meeting of the Northern Virginia Chapter of the Virginia Alliance on Mental Illness in June; and at the annual meeting of the Virginia Alliance on Mental Illness in Richmond in September.

During this period, Bonnie also gave several presentations on “Ending the Tobacco Problem. Blueprint for the Nation,” the major study on tobacco policy that he chaired for the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. In addition to briefings for various government agencies and committees upon the report’s release in May, Bonnie gave a talk at the Warner Policy Series sponsored by the American Legacy Foundation in Washington, D.C., in September, and presented the Keynote Address in October at the Triennial Conference on Tobacco Policy in Seattle. This conference is sponsored by the National Association of Attorneys General under the Master Settlement Agreement.

Bonnie has given additional presentations, including an address on “advance planning and aging” at a conference held by the Max Planck International Research Network on Aging in Stockholm, Sweden in June; on “addiction and responsibility” at a meeting of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Research Initiative on Neuroscience and the Law in Santa Barbara in September; and on gun control and mental illness at the Annual meeting of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the law in Miami Beach in October. Bonnie also published “Panetti v. Quarterman: Mental Illness, the Death Penalty, and Human Dignity” in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law; “The Challenge of Implementing Atkins v. Virginia: How Legislatures and Courts Can Promote Accurate Assessments and Adjudications of Mental Retardation in Death Penalty Cases,” in the Richmond Law Review (with Katherine Gustafson, a third-year student); “Voting by Elderly Persons with Cognitive Impairment: Lessons from Other Democratic Nations,” in the McGeorge Law Review (with Jason Karlawish); and “Identifying the Barriers and Challenges to Voting by Residents in Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Settings,” in the Journal of Aging and Social Policy (with Jason Karlawish and others).

Whitfield BroomeGovernor Tim Kaine recently reappointed Whitfield Broome to the Virginia Board of Accountancy for a second four-year term. Broome was originally appointed by Governor Mark Warner in 2003. The Board of Accountancy is responsible for administering the laws and regulations relating to the practice of public accounting in Virginia by individual CPAs and CPA firms.

Darryl Brown '90Last spring, Darryl Brown ’90 presented a paper, “Democracy and Decriminalization,” at a faculty workshop at the University of North Carolina School of Law, and will publish that article this fall in the Texas Law Review. He was invited to speak at the 2007 Clifford Symposium on Tort Law and Social Policy at DePaul University College of Law and will publish that symposium contribution, titled “Executive-Branch Regulation of Criminal Defense Counsel and the Private Contract Limit on Prosecutor Bargaining,” in the DePaul Law Review this fall.

Brandon GarrettBrandon Garrett presented at the UVA summer workshop series a new paper titled “Claiming Innocence.” That paper follows his study of the first 200 post-conviction DNA exonerations, titled “Judging Innocence,” which is forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review in January 2008. The findings in the “Judging Innocence” study were featured in news articles and editorials in a number of publications, including The New York Times, the Atlantic, the Baltimore Sun, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Globe & Mail, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

This fall, Garrett is presenting papers at the University of Georgia School of Law and to the National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Sciences Community.

Risa GoluboffIn June, Risa Goluboff published an op-ed on the Supreme Court’s school desegregation decisions on Slate(.com), entitled, “The Battle Over Brown: How Conservatives Appropriated Brown v. Board of Education.” In August, Goluboff was on a panel on the future of constitutional history at the American Political Science Annual Meeting in Chicago.

This fall, Goluboff is giving workshops at the University of Minnesota Legal History Colloquium and the University of California (Santa Barbara) workshop on Work, Labor and Political Economy. She is also presenting a paper at a symposium on “Law’s History: How Law Understands the Past,” at the University of Alabama. Goluboff is also the chair of the program committee for the American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting in Tempe, Ariz.

A.E. Dick Howard During the summer, A. E. Dick Howard ’61 finished and submitted two articles; one for a volume of papers marking the 400th anniversary of Jamestown that considers the significance of the Virginia Charter of 1606 as a bridge between the constitutional legacy of England and the development of modern constitutionalism, both in America and around the world; and another that looks at “The Skewed Path of the Enlightenment in Central and Eastern Europe.” It will be included in a volume of essays arising out of a conference held last spring and sponsored by the Polish Embassy in Washington and the Catholic University of America.

Howard was the only outside reviewer for a major project of the United States Institute of Peace, in Washington, D.C. Building on 19 case studies of constitutions drafted in countries in transition, the study will be entitled “Framing the State in Times of Transition: A Comparative Study of Constitution-making Processes.” In reviewing these cases studies, he drew upon both his academic teaching and writing about comparative constitutionalism and the experience he has had working with constitution-makers in countries abroad, especially in post-communist Europe.

At the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference, Howard organized and moderated a panel reviewing the most recent term of the United States Supreme Court. The focus was on the emerging Roberts Court, now that John Roberts has replaced William H. Rehnquist as Chief Justice and Samuel Alito has replaced Sandra Day O’Connor.

This summer in Washington, D.C., Howard gave the annual James Madison Lecture of the James Madison Memorial Fellowship Foundation. His topic was “The Global Voyage of American Constitutionalism: The Influence of the American Constitutional Experience in Other Lands.” The foundation is an official federal government organization seeking to build upon the contributions of James Madison to constitutional government in America.

Under the auspices of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, Howard lectured on “Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation.” Building upon the place of Jefferson’s Statute for Religious Freedom, this lecture explored the contours of Establishment Clause cases in the Supreme Court, especially as the Supreme Court, in recent years, has shifted away from the wall of separation.

Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights organized a three-week program in Washington, D.C., on “Law and Leadership.” Karamah’s purpose is to empower Muslim women to define their own place within their communities through leadership and an enhanced understanding of Islamic law. One of several faculty members for this program, Howard lectured on American constitutional law. Participants came from the United States, Belgium, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Pakistan, and other countries.

Howard was especially pleased to have the chance to give talks to groups of Law School alumni this summer. He gave the banquet address for the Class of 1962 at their 45th reunion. For that occasion, he painted a portrait of the Supreme Court as it was in 1962 — when Howard began his clerkship with Justice Hugo L. Black — and then traced the legacy of the Warren Court through the Rehnquist years and into the Roberts Court. On another occasion, Howard talked on the Supreme Court at a reception organized by the Law School for alumni in Richmond.

Howard was one of the faculty for this summer’s National Security Law Institute. For that program he lectured on the nurturing of constitutional democracy around the world. Also, under the auspices of the Sorenson Institute for Political Leadership, Howard spoke on the history, current challenges, and future prospects of the Virginia Constitution. For the Federal Executive Institute’s Program for Senior Federal Executives, he led a seminar on the changing face of the Supreme Court.

Governor Tim Kaine also appointed Howard to a second four-year term on the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation. This foundation organized the 400th anniversary of the 1607 settlement and oversees major educational missions both at Jamestown and throughout the Commonwealth.

Mitchell KaneThis fall, Mitchell Kane ’96 is a Visiting Associate Professor of Law at NYU. He presented his paper (co-authored with Ed Rock), “Corporate Taxation and International Charter Competition” at the Harvard Law School Seminar on Current Research in Taxation in August.

Michael Klarman In June, Michael Klarman taught a one-week course to the Indiana Graduate Program for Judges on Race and the Constitution from Reconstruction to Brown. In July, Oxford University Press published Klarman’s Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement, an abridged and revised version of his book From Jim Crow to Civil Rights (2004), which won the 2005 Bancroft Prize in American history. In August, Klarman discussed the new book on “The Jack Rice Show,” WCCO-Radio, in Minneapolis.

Also in August, Oxford University Press published “Unfinished Business: Racial Equality in American History, which is part of the Oxford University Press series on Inalienable Rights.

In September, Klarman gave a book talk on “Unfinished Business” at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and in November at the bookstore Politics and Prose in Washington, D.C., at the Chicago Humanities Festival, and at the Boston Bar Association. Klarman also gave a talk on “The Development of the Theory of Judicial Supremacy” to the 2007 Annual Education Conference of the Florida Conference of District Court of Appeal Judges in Naples, Fla.

In October, he presented his “backlash” project, which considers the political backlash generated by certain prominent Supreme Court rulings, to a faculty workshop at the University of Oklahoma College of Law. In November, he is giving a talk on the Supreme Court and his “backlash” project to the Baltimore section of the National Council of Jewish Women.

In December, Klarman is giving a talk on constitutional law at the Indiana Winter Judicial Conference, and an Organization of American Historians lecture on the drafting and ratification of the Constitution to a Teaching American History project at Long Island University. He is also giving a talk on Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement to another Teaching American History project in Charlottesville in October, and participating on a panel previewing the Supreme Court’s 2007–08 term and delivering a lecture on “Constitutional History: How Much Has Judicial Review Mattered?” to the Appellate Judges Education Institute in Washington, D.C.

David MartinDavid Martin has been an invited lecturer or conference participant in many venues since his last report in UVA Lawyer. He delivered the April 2005 lecture in the Human Rights and International Law Distinguished Lecture Series at Marshall-Wythe Law School, College of William and Mary, on the topic of “Courts and Military Detainees: The Overlooked Virtues of Deferential Review.” In March 2006 he was a featured lecturer in a series sponsored by the International Legal Studies Program, California Western School of Law; the Institute for International, Comparative, and Area Studies; and the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California, San Diego. His lecture was titled “Are Dual Nationality and Birthright Citizenship Good Ideas?” The following month he was a principal speaker in a session addressing “Does Dual Citizenship Threaten National Identity?,” part of the 44th Annual International Affairs Symposium, at Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Ore. The overarching theme of the conference, which involved scholars and writers from many disciplines, was “Pledges of Allegiance? Identity in a Changing World.”

Martin served as a commentator for UVA’s international law roundtable on “The Future of the State,” in October 2005, and presented a short paper on international refugee law for the biennial Immigration Law Teacher’s Workshop, held at William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada Las Vegas, in May 2006. He was invited by the Department of Justice to speak on “Asylum Law and Credibility Determinations,” at the Annual Legal Conference of the Board of Immigration Appeals, held in Alexandria, Va., in November 2006. He helped organize a conference in Washington, D.C. in December 2006 on “The Agreement on Passenger Data Transfer and EU-US Cooperation in Data Communication,” sponsored by the German Marshall Fund. In January 2007 he took part in a panel chaired by former Governor Gerald Baliles on the topic of “Jamestown to Washington, D.C. — The Challenge of Immigration: What if the Native Americans Had Built a Wall?,” at the annual meeting of the Virginia Bar Association in Williamsburg. In June 2007 he traveled to Konstanz, Germany for a Workshop of the Transatlantic Exchange for Academics in Migration Studies (TEAMS). His presentation dealt with “Asylum Applications and Judicial Review in the United States.”

Martin has been involved in several capacities with programs for federal judges dealing with immigration issues. The Federal Judicial Center invited him to serve as a faculty member, teaching the Immigration Law session, for the National Symposium for United States Court of Appeals Judges in Washington in November 2005. In October 2006 he returned to Washington as a faculty member for a full conference devoted to “Immigration Law for Judges,” cosponsored by the FJC and the Georgetown University Law Center. In June 2006 he was invited by the Committee on Federal-State Jurisdiction of the Judicial Conference of the United States to its working meetings in Bar Harbor, Maine, for a lecture and discussion regarding pending immigration reform legislation. Martin then served as an ongoing consultant as the committee decided on proposals for the Judicial Conference to take a position regarding measures in pending immigration reform bills that might affect the judiciary. Independently of that work, he was the only academic expert invited by the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify at a quickly-arranged hearing on the topic of “Judicial and Administrative Review of Immigration Decisions” in April 2006.

Other public service has included his membership in 2006 on the Search Committee for the American Society of International Law to help select a new executive director (Martin recently concluded service as a Vice President of the Society, and he remains a member of the Editorial Board of the American Journal of International Law). He is frequently contacted by the media in connection with immigration topics and issues involving the war on terror. He was a primary guest on two occasions in 2006 for “Insight,” a talk show hosted by the Central Virginia public radio station WMRA. One session addressed immigration enforcement; the other dealt with questions surrounding recent prosecution of Virginia residents who provided informal monetary transfer services to the Middle East.

During the last year, Martin took part in three amicus curiae briefs, one on immigration topics and two on matters relating to detention in the war on terrorism. He joined two other former General Counsels of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in urging a lenient interpretation of a deportation ground being considered by the Supreme Court in Lopez v. Gonzales. The Court ultimately ruled 8-1 in accordance with the basic position taken in the brief. Regarding the struggle against terrorism, he joined with other prominent professors of constitutional law in briefs supporting habeas corpus jurisdiction in Boumediene v. Bush, to be argued before the Supreme Court in fall 2007. He joined a similar brief filed with the Fourth Circuit in al-Marri v. Wright, a case challenging the indefinite detention of an alleged alien “enemy combatant” picked up in the United States.

Dan MeadorIn April, Dan Meador spoke at a special en banc session of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to mark the 25th anniversary of President Reagan’s signing the bill to create the court. Meador had headed the office in the Department of Justice that drafted the bill and attended the signing ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.

Greg MitchellGreg Mitchell and David Klein (UVA Politics Department) are editing and contributing to a book entitled The Psychology of Judicial Decision Making, which is to be published by Oxford University Press in 2008. In addition, Mitchell and Philip Tetlock’s paper on using organizational accountability systems to check unconscious prejudice has been accepted for publication in Research in Organizational Behavior, one of the most cited resources within the field of organizational behavior.

John MonahanA book by Professors John Monahan and Laurens Walker, Social Science in Law: Cases and Materials (Foundation Press, 6th ed), has been translated into Chinese and published by Law Press-China. The translation by Professor Betty Ho of Tsinghua University in Beijing was completed early in 2007. According to Professor Ho, the Chinese version will be used both as a reference for Chinese legal scholars and for teaching Chinese law students about American law. Although the production of casebooks for national distribution has long been a hallmark of the Virginia faculty, the translation and distribution of this casebook in China appears to be a first.

John Norton MooreJohn Norton Moore’s book, Solving the War Puzzle, is being significantly revised and updated for the second edition (forthcoming 2008). He is also co-editing with Robert F. Turner a book of essays by leading authorities called Legal Issues in the Struggle Against Terror (forthcoming 2008).

A book published of the proceedings of a conference cosponsored by the Center for Oceans Law and Policy (of which Moore is the director), Law, Science and Ocean Management (Myron H. Nordquist, Ronan Long, Tomas H. Heidar, and John Norton Moore, eds., Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2007) was released in spring 2007.

Moore has worked extensively to educate the public and policymakers on the benefits for the United States of ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention in preparation for the debate in the Senate. His efforts included an op-ed in the Washington Post on July 30, 2007, called “Opportunity on the Oceans: America Wins with the Law of the Sea Treaty.”

In February, Moore’s article, “Charges of Judicial Activism in Europe,” addressing judicial activism at the European Court of Justice, appeared in the Journal of the Federalist Society Practice Groups.

Tom NachbarThis spring, Tom Nachbar published a symposium piece, “The Comedy of the Market,” in the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts on some of the constitutional dimensions of intellectual property law. He was also part of a panel discussion, including Chris Sprigman and Dotan Oliar, on the topic last October.

Nachbar also spent a few weeks working at the JAG School in the Center for Law and Military Operations working on a book, The Rule of Law Handbook: A Practitioner’s Guide, on the rule of law for deployed judge advocates. The book featured over 20 contributors to the project. Nachbar was part of the editing team that brought the various contributions together and oversaw production of the book.

Dotan OliarDotan Oliar published in July “Resolving Conflicts Among Congress’s Powers Regarding Statutes’ Constitutionality: The Case of Anti-Bootlegging Statutes” in the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts. The paper analyzes the constitutionality of 1994 statutes that make it illegal to record or videotape live musical performances.

Robert O'NeilRobert O’Neil has been appointed by the National Association of College and University Attorneys as the co-editor of a First Amendment Compendium, which will provide for university lawyers and general counsels a new resource on campus free speech and press issues.

The American Association of University Professors has asked O’Neil to chair the Legal Defense Fund, on the board of which he served as a member. O’Neil also chaired the AAUP Special Committee on the Effects of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina on New Orleans institutions, which reported in late spring, and remains as chair of the AAUP Special Committee on Academic Freedom and National Security in Time of Crisis.

O’Neil’s Harvard University Press book, Academic Freedom in A Wired World, is in process and will appear in February, 2008. He has also agreed to write a chapter for a collection of essays about the Duke lacrosse saga; his will cover faculty and academic freedom issues and should be out next year.

In September, O’Neil chaired the national conference of the Ford Foundation’s Difficult Dialogues program, which he has directed for the last two years. The conference brought together in New York the principal investigators of all 27 of the grantee programs and several of the runners-up.

In October, O’Neil chaired the first-ever conference of directors of First Amendment centers, to be held in Washington with support from the Scripps-Howard Foundation and the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center.

O’Neil completed chapters for a book to be published late this year by the TIAA-CREF Institute on academic leadership and relations between presidents and governing boards, as well as a chapter for a Symposium commissioned by the Freedom Forum on the First Amendment jurisprudence of Justice Clarence Thomas (his dealing specifically with speech codes).

Finally, O’Neil lectured in late October and November at the law school of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Santa Clara, both on free speech and academic freedom issues. He will also be visiting the Journalism School at Nebraska, where he has done programs in the past.

Jim RyanThis summer, Jim Ryan ’92 published two articles (co-authored with Doug Kendall ’92) about constitutional interpretation and originalism. One appeared in Slate(.com), and the other in The New Republic.

In September, Ryan participated in the annual Supreme Court Roundup, held at the Law School. He talked about the Court’s recent decision in the voluntary integration cases from Kentucky and Seattle. Later in September, he gave a faculty workshop at the University of Michigan Law School where he discussed a new article entitled “The Future of School Finance Litigation.”

In October, Ryan spoke to the local chapter of the American Constitution Society on “Originalism for Liberals?” and traveled to Harvard Law School to participate as a guest speaker in their Child Advocacy Program where he discussed the right to preschool.

In November, Ryan will go back to Harvard to participate in a symposium sponsored by the Harvard Law Review where he will discuss his essay, “The Supreme Court and Voluntary Integration,” which will be published in the November edition of the Harvard Law Review.

Ryan is participating in a symposium on law and educational opportunity, sponsored by Teachers College at Columbia University. He will be commenting on a paper presented by Ted Shaw, Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Chris SprigmanIn May, Chris Sprigman published an article, “Indirect Enforcement of the Intellectual Property Clause”, in the Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts. He is now working on an article looking at some of the puzzles for patent doctrine and theory posed by the patenting of gene sequences.

Paul Stephan '77Paul Stephan ’77 continues to serve as Counselor on International Law to the Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State. Stephan commented on papers at two conferences hosted by George Washington University Law School, one on comparative constitutional law and the other on international law. In September, a book that he edited and contributed to, The Economics of European Union Law, will be published by Edward Elgar.

G. Edward WhiteIn April, G. Edward White attended the first joint conference of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society in Washington. He has been a member of the AAAS since 1993.

In September, White presented a paper, “The Suspension Clause: English Text, Imperial Contexts, and American Implications,” with Paul Halliday of the UVA History Department, at Harvard Law School.

In November, White was a panelist in the opening session of a conference on The Presidency and the Supreme Court organized by the Presidential Libraries of the National Archives and Records Administration at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, N.Y. The panel discussed the Supreme Court decisions, appointments, and presidential policies of the 1930s.

George YinIn the spring, George Yin delivered the keynote address at an academic conference sponsored by George Washington University Law School on the general topic of “Health and Wealth,” Washington, D.C.. He also participated on a panel at the Law School’s public service conference dealing with the topic of “working for the government” in Charlottesville. Yin presented a paper at a tax policy colloquium sponsored by New York University Law School on the topic, “Temporary-Effect Legislation and Fiscal Responsibility;” and addressed the Lynchburg (Va.) Estate Planning Council on the current tax policy outlook in Congress.

In the summer, Yin spent three weeks teaching at the International Tax Program at Leiden University in the Netherlands. The year-round program involves students from about 20 different countries, all of whom have law degrees and some experience working in the tax area. His course consisted of 27 classroom hours on U.S. international tax law.

As a member of the Internal Revenue Service’s Advisory Council (IRSAC), Yin participated in working sessions in Washington, D.C. during the summer and fall. His principal involvement has been advising the IRS as part of the “tax gap” subgroup of the IRSAC. Yin also presented a paper entitled “Temporary-Effect Legislation and Fiscal Responsibility” in an academic tax conference sponsored by Harvard Law School in Woodstock, Vt.

This fall, Yin delivered a lecture, “Temporary-Effect Legislation and Fiscal Responsibility,” at the Law School to celebrate his appointment as the Edwin S. Cohen Distinguished Professor of Law and Taxation; and on the same topic at the Sugarman Lecture at the Case Western Reserve Law School in Cleveland. He also discussed the taxation of “carried interests,” the compensation received by hedge fund and private equity fund managers, at a faculty workshop at the Case Western Reserve Law School. Finally, Yin participated in a panel at the National Tax Association Annual Meeting, Columbus, Ohio, about tax reform proposals worthy of preservation for the future.

 

Appreciation
Professor Neill Herbert Alford, Jr., 1919–2007

AlfordNeill Herbert Alford, Jr., professor emeritus of law at the University of Virginia, died Saturday, October 20, 2007, in Charlottesville. He was 88.

Professor Alford was born July 13, 1919, in Greenville, S.C., the only child of the late Neill Herbert Alford Sr. and the late Elizabeth Robertson Alford. He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Elizabeth Talbot Smith Alford, three children, three grandchildren, and one great-grandson.

Prof. Alford earned a B.A. in history from The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., in 1940; an LL.B. from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1947; and a J.S.D. (doctoral degree) from Yale University Law School in 1966. He was a Sterling Fellow at Yale in 1950-51 and a Ford Fellow at the University of Wisconsin in 1958.

He served on active duty in the Army as an infantry officer from 1941 to 1946 and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Combat Infantry Badge for his service.

Professor Alford engendered the admiration and respect of generations of law students during a teaching career that spanned over four decades. He joined the Law School faculty in the fall of 1947 and spent most of his career at Virginia, teaching there from 1947 to 1974 and from 1976 until his retirement in 1990. He was Doherty Foundation Professor of Law from 1966 to 1974 and Percy Brown Jr. Professor of Law from 1976 to 1990.

He also held chairs and visiting professorships at the U.S. Naval War College, Washington University (St. Louis), Ohio State, and Washington and Lee. From 1974 to 1976, he was dean of the law school at the University of Georgia.

He served as special counsel to the president of the University of Virginia and was legal adviser to the rector and board of visitors from 1972 to 1974. In 1990, he received the University of Virginia’s Raven Award in recognition of excellence in service and contributions to the university.

He was state reporter (the editor of court opinions) for the Supreme Court of Virginia from 1977 to 1984, and special counsel to the Virginia Code Commission from 1954 to 1957.

Professor Alford authored a book, Modern Economic Warfare: Law and the Naval Participant (1967); and co-authored a widely used law casebook, Cases and Materials on Decedents Estates and Trusts (Ritchie, Alford and Effland; 8th edition, 1993). He also wrote numerous legal articles for professional journals. After he retired from teaching, he practiced law in Charlottesville from 1991 to 1997 as counsel to Slaughter & Redinger (later Woods, Rogers & Hazlegrove).

 
Heytens ’00 on Leave to Work for Solicitor General

HeytensBy Ken Reitz

If it seemed like just last year that the Law School was announcing Toby Heytens’ ’00 arrival as associate professor of law, it was. Now the irrepressible Heytens has been granted leave to take on a prestigious position as an Assistant to the Solicitor General of the United States. He started his new job on July 30.

Considered one of the premier offices to work for as a lawyer in the federal government, the Office of the Solicitor General conducts all litigation on behalf of the United States in the Supreme Court and supervises the handling of litigation in the federal appellate courts. The United States is involved in approximately two-thirds of all the cases the U.S. Supreme Court decides on the merits each year.

Heytens spoke about his new position from his office at the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building in Washington, D.C. “I’ve only been here a few months, and the variety of work has already been amazing,” he said. In his short tenure, Heytens has already filed a Supreme Court merits brief in an employment discrimination case (Federal Express Corporation v. Holowecki), a petition for a writ of certiorari in a criminal case (United States v. Ressam), and numerous briefs in opposition to certiorari. His first oral argument before the Court was scheduled for November 6.

“I don’t know precisely how long this gig will last,” Heytens admitted. He said he will be away at least two years and possibly three.

“Dean Jeffries and the entire Law School family have been incredibly supportive and accommodating,” Heytens said, “and I can already see how this brief detour will make me a better teacher and scholar when I get back.”

Heytens is no stranger to the OSG, having been a recipient of a 2001 Bristow Fellowship, named for the first Solicitor General Benjamin H. Bristow. Bristow Fellows also work in the OSG and do much of what assistants do: help write briefs and papers on issues before the Supreme Court, file amicus briefs in the lower courts, as well as determine if cases found against the government in lower courts should be appealed.

Heytens also has previous experience with appellate litigation. After clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, he worked at the law firm O’Melveny & Myers, where his practice focused on appellate litigation, including numerous civil rights cases and other pro bono matters. During his time at the Law School, Heytens also helped coach UVA’s undergraduate mock trial team, which last April defeated Harvard to win the American Mock Trial Association’s National Championship Tournament.

Although he couldn’t turn down an opportunity to work for the Solicitor General, Heytens already misses teaching. Asked to come up with a highlight for his recently finished year, Heytens laughed. “Wow, pretty much the whole thing! One special thing was that this year was the first chance I had to teach first year law students. I taught a small section of Civil Procedure in the fall and it was amazingly fun. I emailed the section when I got the new job and told them that the one thing I really regretted is that I wouldn’t be there for the rest of their law school experience.”

Had Charlottesville changed while he was away? Heytens didn’t hesitate, “Charlottesville’s fantastic!” When he and his wife moved back they made a pact to eat at a different restaurant every time they ate out. Four months later they finally abandoned the pact, not because they had run out of new places to try but because they wanted to go back to a few of their favorites. Heytens summed it up this way: “Charlottesville has either gotten a lot better or I grossly under-appreciated it when I was in law school. Probably the latter.”