1970s Class Notes

Bell ’95, Edwards ’70 announce Retirement From Virginia General Assembly 

Rob Bell ’95 (Col ’88) and John Edwards ’70 announced their retirements from the Virginia House of Delegates and state Senate, respectively, after saying they would not seek reelection this year. 

Bell resigned from the House in September after being appointed deputy attorney general for health, education and social services in the Virginia Office of the Attorney General.  

“I have known Rob from our work together in the General Assembly, especially on the Courts of Justice Committee. I have a deep respect for his work ethic, intellect and knowledge of Virginia laws,” Attorney General Jason Miyares said in a statement. “I have confidence that he will work vigorously for the citizens of the Commonwealth.” 

Bell, of Albemarle County, was first elected in 2001, chaired the House Courts of Justice Committee and Virginia State Crime Commission, and served on the state Behavioral Health Commission. He twice sought the Republican nomination for attorney general. 

“It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve in the House of Delegates,” Bell said, announcing his retirement in February. “I want to thank the voters who allowed me to represent them in Richmond for the last 22 years.” 

In a statement, Bell listed his political victories, including cracking down on repeat drunk drivers, keeping sex offenders off school property, criminalizing the distribution of “revenge porn,” establishing minimum standards for mental health care in state jails and coordinating jail-provided mental health services with community services after inmate release. 

“[Bell and] I often came from opposite perspectives but worked hard to find common ground when we could,” state Sen. Scott Surovell ’96, a Democrat from Fairfax County, said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “He’s an extraordinary legal mind who’s sacrificed much to serve—I will miss my sparring partner [and] wish him luck in his next endeavor.” 

Bell had been an attorney at Davidson & Kitzmann in Charlottesville and served for five years as a state prosecutor in Orange County. Edwards, of Roanoke, was first elected in 1995 and has chaired the Senate Rules and Judiciary committees. He has also chaired the Virginia Code Commission, the Board of Trustees of the Roanoke Higher Education Authority and the Virginia War Memorial Board. 

“I have thoroughly enjoyed my many years in the Senate and the honor and opportunity to improve the lives of my constituents and all Virginians,” he said in a statement in February announcing he would not run for reelection. His term ends in January. 

Edwards’ accomplishments include sponsoring a measure establishing the Roanoke Higher Education Center and being instrumental in bringing Amtrak service to Roanoke. He twice sought the Democratic nomination for attorney general. 

In 1993, Edwards was appointed to fill a vacancy on Roanoke City Council and was elected to a four-year term and as vice mayor in 1994. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Edwards as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1971-73 as a judge advocate general, attaining the rank of captain. 

At UVA Law, Edwards has been an adjunct professor in trial advocacy and was a writing instructor assistant to future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, an adjunct professor at the time. 

“[Edwards] and I have very different views on many issues, but, more importantly, a shared love of the Roanoke Valley that allowed us to work together,” state Sen. David Suetterlein, a Republican from Roanoke County, said in a statement. “… I have great respect for Senator Edwards and thank him for his dedication to the Commonwealth and his service to the people of our region.” 

Edwards practices at Edwards Law Firm in Roanoke. 

—Mike Fox

In Memoriam: Linda G. Howard ’73,  Trailblazing Public Servant, Scholar 

Linda G. Howard ’73, the first woman and first Black student to serve as president of the student council at the Law School, died Sept. 15 after a battle with breast cancer. She was 74. 

Most recently, Howard served as general counsel and vice president of legal affairs for Landmark Worldwide. Her earlier career focused on academia and government service, from Congress to the White House to New York City’s law department. 

“Linda Howard’s trailblazing life was marked by her major contributions to every institution of which she was a part. She was deeply committed to bringing people together and promoting inclusivity and understanding across differences,” Dean Risa Goluboff said. 

Delivered by a Black doctor in a segregated hospital outside Richmond, Virginia, Howard grew up in Ettrick, a town centered around the historically Black Virginia State College (now Virginia State University). Her father was chairman of the college’s biology department and her mother was a math professor. The college chapel, she recalled, hosted cultural events that included the Joffrey Ballet and Duke Ellington. 

“I had an educational experience that was unusual for young Black kids of the time because we had a state-of-the-art education available to us,” Howard said in a 2018 UVA Lawyer interview with Jianne McDonald ’19, who was then president of the Black Law Students Association. “And surrounding us, of course, was a white community. My upbringing was very much in a Black-only environment.” 

At 13, her life became integrated when she moved to Massachusetts to attend a boarding school. There she met students from Africa, Hong Kong, Europe and South America, and helped establish an affiliate school in Europe during her junior year. 

In 1966, she enrolled at Reed College in Oregon, and majored in math. “Life was in our faces” in those “tumultuous” years, she said in remarks to Reed’s graduating class of 1997. The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy ’51 and the Watts riots in Los Angeles all occurred before she started her junior year.

But those years also taught her how to “engage with people whose beliefs and experiences are different from my own, and I gained a profound respect for the other fellow’s point of view,” she said in the Reed remarks. 

When she returned to Virginia to attend law school in 1970, the number of female students was growing, the school had the most Black students that had ever enrolled, and several veterans joined the class after returning from the Vietnam War. At the same time, Howard said in the interview, the school lacked Black professors and social events seemed to divide along class lines. She ran for student council president to help unite the community. 

She worked with administrators and law enforcement to allow alcohol in Clark Hall—not for the purpose of drinking, but for the broad-based social engagement it would promote. 

“On March 17, 1972, we had a St. Patrick’s Day party in Mural Hall to which all the students and all the faculty were invited, and we served green beer,” Howard said in her 2018 UVA Lawyer interview. “For me it was really bringing together the law students and the faculty in a social commonality such that everyone had a sense of belonging.” 

After graduating, Howard worked in Washington as a staff attorney for the U.S. Department of Transportation, a legislative assistant for Sen. Lloyd Bentsen and acting director of a White House task force on women under Jimmy Carter. She later taught evidence, legislation and sex-based discrimination as a tenured professor at Ohio State’s law school before moving to New York City to serve as counsel to Donna Shalala, who was president of Hunter College at the time. Howard has also worked as an attorney for New York City, and as a solo practitioner and a civil rights lecturer on speaking tours to New Zealand, India and Japan.

At Hunter College during the 1980s, Howard worked with Shalala to create an affirmative action program that dramatically increased the number of professors of color, and she drafted the school’s first sexual harassment policy. In 2007, while at her solo practice, Howard wrote “The Sexual Harassment Handbook.” 

She returned to the Law School to address the Class of 2019, her remarks inviting them “to stand for something that is important to you, something bigger than yourself and bigger than your own comfort and your own personal success and gratification.” 

Due to her illness, Howard missed her 50th UVA Law reunion this year—only the second such reunion she ever missed. 

—Melissa Castro Wyatt