ERIN BROWN ’21 TO CLERK AT U.S. SUPREME COURT BROWN ’21 TO SUPREME

ERIN BROWN ’21 will clerk for Justice Brett Kavanaugh at the U.S. Supreme Court for the 2024 term, becoming the second UVA Law alumna to line up a high court clerkship for that term.

“If you had told me at the beginning of law school that I would clerk at the Supreme Court, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Brown said. “The amazing professors and classmates that I had along the way put that goal within reach.”

The Law School is fifth after Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Chicago in placing clerks on the U.S. Supreme Court from the 2007 through 2022 terms. Rachel Daley ’21 will clerk for Justice Neil Gorsuch, also for the 2024 term. Henry Dickman ’20 and Michael Corcoran ’17 are currently clerking for Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas for the 2022 term.

Brown is now clerking for Judge Carl J. Nichols of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and previously clerked for Judge Britt C. Grant of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

At UVA Law, Brown was a Karsh-Dillard Scholar, recipient of the Bracewell LLP Appellate Advocacy Award, executive editor of the Virginia Law Review and a participant in the Supreme Court Litigation Clinic. She was also a research assistant to Professors

The Forum Hotel Opens

AFTER TWO YEARS OF CONSTRUCTION, The Forum Hotel, run by Kimpton and owned by the Darden School Foundation, officially opened for business in April.

A. E. Dick Howard ’61 and Saikrishna Prakash, who both advised Brown on her Virginia Law Review note, “The Lost Judicial Review Function of the Speech and Debate Clause.”

“Erin is the total package—brilliant, industrious, indefatigable. She’s the epitome of the legal eagle,” Prakash said. “To top it off, she is a wonderful, enthusiastic and energetic person.”

Brown said she looks forward to seeing justices with differing perspectives tackle the difficult issues that have divided circuit courts with the aim of finding the right result under the law.

“Being exposed to the high caliber of advocacy at that level will help me become a better lawyer when I am an advocate myself,” she said. “I couldn’t be more grateful for this opportunity to continue to develop skills that I will put to use for the rest of my career, all while learning directly from Justice Kavanaugh.”

Brown earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina.

—Mike Fox

Located next door to the Law School, the site—featuring 198 hotel rooms, a restaurant and sports bar, numerous event spaces, and five acres of gardens, walking trails and water features— offers a long list of potential benefits for community members. In addition to providing a convenient place for Law School visitors to spend the night, it promises to be a locus for gatherings on North Grounds. The school’s Career Development Office has slated some employer networking events for The Forum’s ballroom, which accounts for 6,000 of the 40,000 square feet of interior and exterior event space.

“We are already in demand as a wedding venue from alumni with a strong North Grounds connection and people simply interested in a memorable experience in a beautiful location,” said Ashley Williams, CEO and chief learning officer of Darden Executive Education & Lifelong Learning.

—Mary Wood

Lgbt Rights Receive Jefferson Medals I

MENAKA GURUSWAMY AND ARUNDHATI KATJU, who have advanced LGBT rights as lawyers in India, were named this year’s recipients of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law.

Sponsored jointly by the University of Virginia and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the nonprofit organization that owns and operates Monticello, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medals are awarded each year to recognize the achievements of those who embrace endeavors in which Jefferson—author of the Declaration of Independence, third U.S. president and UVA founder—excelled and held in high regard. The law medal, and its counterparts in architecture, citizen leadership and global innovation, are UVA’s highest external honors.

“Menaka Guruswamy and Arundhati Katju have worked tirelessly to advance equality and LGBT rights in India, the world’s largest democracy,” Dean Risa Goluboff said. “I’m thrilled to

School Responds To Tragedy On Grounds

CLASSES RESUMED AT THE LAW SCHOOL and across UVA just days after a tragic shooting on Main Grounds that left three students dead and two others hospitalized on Nov. 13.

To welcome students back to North Grounds and give them room to grieve together, the school hosted a communitywide breakfast Nov. 16 in Caplin Pavilion, organized by the Student Affairs Office. The school also hosted two drop-in gatherings a day earlier while observing the University’s Day of Reflection.

Nearly 100 students, faculty and staff filed into the pavilion, where three small candles lit the jersey numbers of the three football players who celebrate their achievements and for our students to learn more about their groundbreaking work and careers.”

Guruswamy and Katju were scheduled to talk at the Law School on April 12, but India’s Supreme Court scheduled a conflicting trial date involving the lawyers.

Guruswamy and Katju represented plaintiffs in a landmark 2018 ruling in which the Supreme Court of India unanimously decriminalized homosexuality by striking down a colonial-era anti-sodomy law. Their petition was the first time LGBT Indians had challenged the law as a violation of their fundamental rights. In recognition of their success, Guruswamy and Katju were named among TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2019. In a current case before the Supreme Court of India, Guruswamy and Katju are representing clients seeking same-sex marriage rights.

Guruswamy, a senior advocate at the Supreme Court of India, has also worked on cases related to white-collar defense, constitutional law, corporate law and arbitration. Guruswamy was the B.R. Ambedkar Research Scholar and Lecturer at Columbia Law School from 2017-19. She has also been a visiting faculty member at Yale Law School, the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and New York University School of Law, where she taught comparative constitutional law.

Katju, a lawyer practicing in Indian trial and appellate courts, has worked on cases including white-collar defense, commercial law and legal aid, in addition to LGBT rights litigation. In 2015, Guruswamy and Katju represented a transgender man brought from the United States to India by his parents so he could be “reformed.” They successfully persuaded the Delhi High Court to force his parents to return his travel documents, and the court reaffirmed the man’s civil rights.

—Mike Fox

were killed: Devin Chandler (15), Lavel Davis Jr. (1) and D’Sean Perry (41). Dean Risa Goluboff delivered brief remarks.

“People are going to [have] different levels of grieving, different levels of anger, different levels of loss and mourning,” Goluboff said. “I will tell you that the [glimmers of hope] I find are all about community— community on a number of different levels,” Goluboff said, citing the outpouring of support the University and its members have received from alumni, from Charlottesville and beyond.

“I just want you to feel like you’re part not only of this community, but of this very big community who all have our backs,” Goluboff said.

—Melissa Castro Wyatt