Vanderbilt Law Magazine Fall 2023

VA N D E R B I LT

LAW

150 Years of Vanderbilt Lawyers and Leaders

FA L L 2 0 2 3

FROM THE DEAN

Dear alumni and friends:

JOE HOWELL

I

t’s fitting that Vanderbilt University is launching Dare to Grow, our forwardlooking fundraising campaign, as we celebrate our sesquicentennial. Working together to secure a strong foundation for a successful future is a wonderful way to celebrate

who viewed teaching and mentoring as a sacred calling instilled the collegial culture that has differentiated VLS for the past 70 years.

I was struck by Vanderbilt’s welcoming environment when I taught here as a Visiting Professor in Fall 2001. I joined Vanderbilt’s

our history.

Our nation and world are completely different from the days of our founding. America had 35 states when the Law Department of Vanderbilt University admitted its first students in 1874.

To highlight one illuminating aspect of our early history—the need for well-educated legal professionals in all communities—legal historian Daniel Sharfstein has curated a campus exhibit highlighting students from the Cherokee and Chickasaw Nations in what was then Indian Territory who attended Vanderbilt in the late 1800s. Nine earned law degrees and served their Nations as effective advocates, judges, legislators, and administrators.

Our School’s long-term success was assured when John W. Wade joined the law faculty in 1947, as the school re-opened after World War II. Over the 20 years Wade led VLS as Dean, he laid the foundation for the unique culture we prize so highly today. He started by recruiting a cadre of outstanding faculty, including nationally renowned scholars like Elliott Cheatham. In the 1960s Dean Wade also tasked John S. Beasley II ’54 (BA ’52) with recruiting students from leading universities nationwide that Beasley believed would be good fits for VLS; some still refer to themselves affectionately as “Beasley’s Bastards.” They, Wade, and a devoted faculty

law faculty because I could see that, here, both faculty and students thrive. As Dean, my top priority is to maintain the strong sense of community and collaborative culture that sets Vanderbilt apart from other top law schools.

We face a future that appears both exciting and daunting. Vanderbilt’s well-timed Dare to Grow campaign will ensure that we can continue to recruit outstanding law faculty and attract top students from colleges nationwide.

Your support will also allow us to deepen, broaden, and adapt our curriculum to ensure VLS graduates are well-prepared to enter modern legal practice in any market and area of law they choose.

I am grateful for the sound leadership that imbued Vanderbilt with a culture that values teamwork and mutual respect without compromising academic rigor. I invite you to work together with me as we position the Law School to thrive for the next 150 years.

Sincerely yours,

Chris Guthrie Dean and John Wade-Kent Syverud Professor of Law

CONTENTS Editor & Assistant Dean for Marketing & Communications Nate Luce

19

26

43

Senior Editor & Publications Director Grace Renshaw Design and Art Direction Anita Dey and Tim Kovick FINN Partners - Nashville Editorial Contributors Katie Armstrong, Eileen Cunnhingham, Clay Cline Dean & John Wade-Kent Syverud Professor Chris Guthrie Associate Dean for Development & Alumni Relations Clay Cline

16 21

Vanderbilt Law School Office of Development & Alumni Relations 131 21st Avenue South Nashville, Tennessee 37203 Tel: 615-322-2606 Fax: 615-322-5730 alumni@law.vanderbilt.edu law.vanderbilt.edu Vanderbilt Law is published by Vanderbilt Law School in cooperation with Vanderbilt University Division of Communications, 2100 West End Ave., Suite 1100, Nashville, TN 37203, which also provides online support. Articles appearing in Vanderbilt Law do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the law school or the university.

Vanderbilt University is committed to principles of equal opportunity and affirmative action. Please recycle.

Copyright © 2023 Vanderbilt University

28

Faculty Thought Leaders Joseph Fishman on copyright litigation.

Randall Thomas on the shift from public to private companies. Yesha Yadav on the cryptocurrency meltdown. Matthew Shaw on education rights. Joni Hersch on law graduates’ job satisfaction.

New Faculty & Staff Associate Dean for Research Rebecca Allensworth, Assistant Dean and Martha Craig Daughtrey Director for Public Interest Beth Cruz ’10, Professor Lauren Sudeall, Assistant Professors Farhang Heydari and Nicole Langston, and Stanton Foundation First Amendment Clinic Director Jennifer Safstrom.

VLS at 150 A Lesson in Leadership: How Vanderbilt Became One of the Nation’s Leading Law Schools Under the Leadership of Dean John Wade and Admissions Dean John S. Beasley II ’54 (BA’52).

Alumni in the Headlines Incoming Board of Advisors President John-Paul Motley, JD/MBA ’99 12 In a candid interview, Motley talks about his experience as a firstgeneration law student, what sparked his interest in law, and his successful career in L.A. Four VLS Alumni Join Forces at the Colorado AG’s Office 14 First Assistant AG Robert Dodd ’88 recruited Torrey Samson, Danny Rheiner, and Jeremy Johnston, all Class of 2015, to join the Colorado AG’s Specialized Business Group.

1989 Classmates Grantham and Lord Form Maynard Nexsen 15 Jeff Grantham and Leighton Lord reconnected while navigating the challenging of leading their firms through the pandemic. Soon, they realized their firms were compatible and complementary.

Appreciation Tribute: Kent Halkett ’81

26

NEWS

In the News: Faculty, Students, and Events 2023 BLSA Dinner David Williams Symposium 2023 Founders Dinner Commencement

Departments

Class Notes In Memoriam Welcome from Assistant Dean Clay Cline

2 24 27 39 42

39 41 44

FALL 2023

1

In the News Ganesh Sitaraman Leads New Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator for Political Economy and Regulation Based at the Law School, the VPA aims to advance research, education, and ideas.

Vanderbilt University has created the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator for Political Economy and Regulation, a $6 million effort to advance research, education, and ideas.

Part of Discovery Vanderbilt, a groundbreaking initiative to bolster innovative research and education at the University, the VPA is based in the Law School and led by New York Alumni Chancellor’s Chair and Professor of Law Ganesh Sitaraman, who will collaborate with faculty from across the university to connect and extend Vanderbilt’s strengths in public policy—which includes Peabody College’s work on education policy, the College of Arts and Science’s leadership on civic and social science policy, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s work on public health—to issues on political economy and regulation.

“Discovery Vanderbilt provides the resources and support to empower cutting-edge research that can make significant impact 2

VANDERBILT LAW

locally and globally,” Provost C. Cybele Raver said. “Ganesh is a dynamic, highly accomplished scholar in law, government, and political thought; he’ll bring tremendous expertise in leading this innovative new effort to solve some of the most important policy challenges of our time.”

The Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator’s first initiative is its Project on Networks, Platforms, and Utilities, an effort to revive and reimagine regulation in the transportation, communications, energy, banking, and technology sectors. This work, already underway, has been led by Sitaraman and Morgan Ricks, who holds the Herman O. Loewenstein Chair in Law. Together, Sitaraman and Ricks recently published Networks, Platforms, and Utilities, the first casebook in the field in a quarter century, co-authored with Shelley Welton of the University of Pennsylvania and Lev Menand of Columbia University.

“From supply chain disruptions and airline flight cancellations to issues with big tech platforms, new research into the law governing networks, platforms, and utilities couldn’t be more timely,” said Dean Chris Guthrie. “The Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator’s work helps advance productive and cross-partisan solutions to these pressing problems.”

“We live in a time of great transformations in our economy,” Chancellor Daniel Diermeier said. “These changes create an opportunity to advance new paradigms, research, and policy ideas through bold scholarship and collaboration. The Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator will put us at the forefront of these efforts.”

Weaver Family Program in Law, Brain Sciences, and Behavior Established with $3.85 Million Endowment Owen Jones leads new interdisciplinary program based at VLS.

V

anderbilt Law School has launched a new interdisciplinary program, the Weaver Family Program in Law, Brain Sciences, and Behavior, funded by a $3.85 million endowment from the Glenn M. Weaver Foundation. The new program sponsors faculty research aimed at exploring law and human behavior across a broad spectrum of medical, biological, and social science fields, and organizes and hosts symposia and distinguished lectures featuring leading researchers working at the intersection of law, brain sciences, and behavior.

The Weaver Foundation previously established the Dr. Glenn M. and Mary Ellen Weaver Faculty Research Fund at Vanderbilt Law School in 2017 and endowed the Glenn M. Weaver, M.D., and Mary Ellen Weaver Chair in Law, Brain, and Behavior in 2019.

Owen Jones, who holds the Weaver Chair, will direct the program.

In addition to his appointment at the Law School, Jones is a professor of biology at Vanderbilt. He created and directed the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Law and Neuroscience, an interdisciplinary team of brain scientists and legal scholars at leading universities throughout the U.S., funded by four grants from the MacArthur Foundation, which has published over 100 brain-scanning and theoretical works since 2011.

“The pace of technological change and scientific discovery in the brain sciences

Inaugural Weaver Distinguished Lecture in Law and Neuroscience has increased dramatically. That offers both advantages and challenges for the legal system, which makes this a perfect time to launch a new initiative like this,” Jones said. “With the Weaver Foundation’s investment, we’ll be able to ensure continuous interdisciplinary engagement and foster new research that’s both cutting-edge and useful.”

The new program has been endowed in honor of Dr. Glenn M. Weaver, his wife Mary Ellen Weaver, and the Weaver family. Dr. Weaver was a leading clinical and forensic psychiatrist who practiced in Cincinnati for more than 55 years and directed the psychiatry department at Christ Hospital in Cincinnati for 25 years. A pioneer in the field of forensic psychology, he became one of the first medical professionals in his region to be board-certified in forensic psychiatry and taught Law and Psychiatry as an adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati College of Law. He was certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and his distinguished career included teaching for more than 20 years at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and serving as coordinator of teaching and psychiatry at Christ Hospital.

Dr. Weaver founded the Weaver Institute for Law and Psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati in 1997 to connect legal and mental health scholars and promote teaching and scholarship in forensic psychiatry.

Internationally renowned neuroscientist Anthony Wagner discussed his pioneering research on the cognitive neuroscience of memory encoding and retrieval in the inaugural Weaver Distinguished Lecture in Law and Neuroscience on March 21. Wagner directs the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University.

His talk attracted Wagner an interdisciplinary audience of faculty and students from the Law School and the Department of Psychology.

Wagner’s research uncovered a strong correlation between an eyewitness’s high confidence that his or her memory is accurate the very first time a witness is interviewed about their recollections or asked to identify suspects from photos or a line-up and the accuracy of the person’s initial testimony. “Reliability of eyewitness testimony is never higher than when first tested,” Wagner said. He recommended videotaping first interviews to preserve the most reliable testimony. He also found that after the initial interview and particularly after multiple interviews, eyewitness testimony becomes significantly less reliable. Initial memories can be corrupted and yield false memories. “Eyewitness testimony is never lower than when it’s tested in court,” Wagner said. “The act of testing memory contaminates memory.”

FALL 2023

3

VLS News Federal Court Adopts Fee Matrix Developed by Professor Brian Fitzpatrick and Brooke Levy ’22 When Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered a plaintiff to recalculate and resubmit her claim for attorneys’ fees using the so-called “Fitzpatrick Matrix” on Jan. 23, her order marked the successful launch of a new tool developed for the Department of Justice by complex litigation expert Brian Fitzpatrick, who holds the Milton R. Underwood Chair in Free Enterprise.

Fitzpatrick was asked to take on the daunting task of updating the 40-year-old Laffey Matrix, a chart used by successful federal litigants to calculate and claim reimbursement for legal fees, in 2020 by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. “If you sue the federal government and win, you may be able to file a claim to be reimbursed for your attorneys’ fees. But most law firms weren’t even using computers in 1983 when the Laffey Matrix was developed. I was asked to develop an updated matrix that reflected modern realities,” he said.

Fitzpatrick volunteered to do the work pro bono if the DOJ would fund a research assistant and hired Brooke Levy ’22 to conduct a comprehensive audit of recent fee petitions in the D.C. District Court.

“Brooke went into the federal courts’ electronic docketing system and examined every fee petition filed between 2013 and 2020. In cases where lawyers put in the hourly rates they actually charged the client for their work, we pulled that out and put it in a spreadsheet. That allowed us to determine the real hourly rates charged in the market,” he said.

Fitzpatrick

Fitzpatrick presented the updated matrix, which provides fees for attorneys based on their years of experience and includes hourly rates for law clerks and paralegals, to the Department of Justice in late 2021. DOJ staff promptly dubbed the chart the “Fitzpatrick Matrix.”

“My goal was to develop a reliable assessment of fees charged for complex federal litigation that both plaintiffs and judges could use to evaluate fee claims,” he said.

Fitzpatrick hopes his new matrix will streamline the process for such claims in the future. “The matrix provides objective criteria for determining attorneys’ fees based on prevailing rates and the attorneys’ experience, so it should simplify the process for filing claims and require less judicial review,” he said.

Vanderbilt Receives $1 Million in Cy Pres Funding for EV Research

Vandenbergh

4

VANDERBILT LAW

Michael Vandenbergh, Co-Director of the Energy, Environment and Land Use Program, and Dr. Tina Hartert of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center are leading two research projects that aim to identify the barriers to and potential health benefits of adoption of electric vehicles in the southeastern United States.

The studies will be paid for by the Audi CO2 Cy Pres Settlement Fund, which will provide $1 million of funding over three years. The research funds were granted as part of a class-action settlement of a vehicle emissions case that allows for money remaining in the fund to be used for environmental research projects.

“Electric vehicles will eliminate tailpipe air pollutant emissions from vehicles and reduce energy costs, but we need to understand the specific effects on human health and the environment. Our projects will identify the maternal and child health effects of widespread EV adoption and explore barriers to rapid uptake of vehicles in rural, suburban, and urban areas,” Vandenbergh said.

One project examines how the switch from fossil-fuel-powered vehicles to electric vehicles of all types will reduce air pollutant emissions in Tennessee and improve public health. The second examines how social influences, including political polarization, can impede widespread EV adoption in rural, suburban, and urban areas.

Mark Williams and Cat Moon ’98 (BA ’92) Lead AI Faculty Bootcamp Mark Williams, Associate Director for Collections and Innovation for Vanderbilt’s Alyne Queener Massey Law Library, and Cat Moon ’98 (BA ’92), Director of Innovation Design for Vanderbilt’s Program on Law & Innovation, organized a two-day bootcamp in spring 2023 to introduce faculty to the potential of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as Chat GPT and Casetext’s Co-Counsel based on generative AI technology.

“Generative AI made a huge leap forward last fall that most people thought was years away,” Williams explained. “We designed a bootcamp to introduce faculty who are not yet using LLMs to this rapidly evolving technology and help faculty who are already testing out LLM tools better understand how they work, identify more ways they can use them to support their work, and avoid the pitfalls.”

Williams and Moon emphasize that learning how LLMs work and using them

effectively will be essential to lawyers and legal scholars going forward. A survey published by Lexis/Nexis in April 2023 that included more than 2,300 lawyers and law students revealed that 36 percent of the lawyers and 44 percent of law students surveyed had used LLMs personally or professionally. “AI won’t replace lawyers, but it can help them work much more efficiently,” Moon said.

Williams and Moon offered practical guidelines to help faculty start using LLMs for routine, but time-consuming tasks such as developing course syllabi, tests, and quizzes, and drafting emails and meeting agendas.

“When faculty can use this technology to gain time to spend on their scholarly work and developing new courses, that’s a positive outcome,” Williams said.

They are teaching an elective class for upper-level students this fall on productive uses for LLMs.

Generative AI made a huge leap forward last fall that most people thought was years away.

Jennifer Shinall Receives Chancellor’s Award for Research Labor economist Jennifer Shinall, JD/PhD’12, received a 2022 Chancellor’s Award for Research in Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in recognition of her research on laws intended to protect the rights of pregnant women in the workplace Announced by Chancellor Daniel Diermeier, the award recognized Shinall for her 2021 Cornell Law Review article “Protecting Pregnancy,” which offers a sophisticated analysis of an important and complex question: “Which laws designed to assist pregnant women in the workplace actually succeed at doing so?”

Shinall examined the impact of laws in various states passed at different times and in different combinations to identify which laws appeared to have the greatest impact on pregnant women’s ability to continue working during and after pregnancy based on their workforce participation. Her research was the focus of a Forbes article, “Which Employment Laws/Policies Actually Help Pregnant Women.”

Shinall

FALL 2023

5

Introducing the “Climate at Vanderbilt” Podcast

Five VLS Professors Receive Hall-Hartman Awards

J.B. Ruhl, David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair in Law and Co-Director of the Energy, Environment and Land Use Program, has launched a new podcast, Climate at Vanderbilt, to spotlight work Vanderbilt faculty and students are doing to address the challenges of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

“We’ll hear from faculty members and students across a wide span of schools who will tell us about their research, courses, and other initiatives. There’s a lot of important and exciting work to explore here,” Ruhl said.

The podcast, which is available on Spotify, kicks off with a two-part interview with Jonathan Gilligan, Alexander Heard Distinguished Service Professor and an Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who discusses his work through Vanderbilt’s Climate and Society Grand Challenge Initiative and his role in forming the undergraduate Climate Studies major.

“Climate change is going to be a part of our future for a very long time. It’s critical that the global community work to turn the bend on greenhouse gas emissions and prepare for necessary adaptations. I hope you will join me to hear how Vanderbilt is contributing to these solutions,” Ruhl said.

Professor of the Practice of Law Michael Bressman (BA’89), Associate Professor Sara Mayeux, Assistant Professor Francesca Procaccini, Dick and Martha Lansden Professor of Law Daniel Sharfstein, Lee S. and Charles A. Speir Professor of Law Kevin Stack, and adjunct professor Alexis Hoag-Fordjour were honored with HallHartman Awards for Outstanding Teaching from the Vanderbilt Bar Association.

Hall-Hartman Awards recognize excellent teaching and are based on a student poll administered by the VBA. They recognize one professor in each of Vanderbilt’s three first-year sections and two professors who taught upper-level courses.

The awards honor the late professors Donald J. Hall and Paul Hartman, both of whom spent their academic careers at Vanderbilt and were revered for their teaching.

“We have many outstanding teachers on our law faculty, which makes these awards particularly coveted,” Dean Chris Guthrie said. “Professors cherish this recognition because it comes directly from the students they’ve taught this year.”

Sharfstein, Bressman, and Procaccini were recognized for their first-year classes in Property Law, Contracts, and Civil Procedure, respectively, while Mayeux was honored for her class in First Amendment Constitutional Law and Stack for his Administrative Law class.

Hoag-Fordjour teaches at Brooklyn Law School and was honored in the adjunct category for her short course, Abolition: Imaging a Decarceral Future.

Bressman

Mayeux

Procaccini

Sharfstein

Stack

47 Firms Connect with Rising 2Ls at Spring Firm Mingle

Members of the Class of 2025 met informally with attorneys representing firms with offices throughout the U.S. and abroad at the JW Marriott in downtown Nashville.

6

VANDERBILT LAW

VLS hosted 137 attorneys from 47 law firms at its inaugural Spring Firm Mingle for rising 2Ls March 22. Held at the JW Marriott Nashville, the event connected students with potential employers representing locations in 72 U.S. cities and two international locations.

“More than 85 percent of the Class of 2025 attended the Spring Mingle,” said Associate Career Services Director Betsy Key, who organized the event. “This career fair enabled students to connect with employers ahead of the busy summer recruitment season, and we appreciate the attorneys and firms who came to VLS to meet our students.”

Career Services hosted a 1L Fall Firm Mingle to allow members of the Class of 2026 to connect with potential summer employers on October 26.

Environmental Policy Experts Convene at EELU State of the Environment Conference The Energy, Environment and Land Use Program’s inaugural State of the Environment Conference, held March 27 and made possible by the Sally Shallenberger Brown Program Fund, brought together local leaders, faculty, policymakers, and other experts who discussed their work and the challenges presented by climate change in a five-panel discussion moderated by EELU faculty. Speakers tackled the state of the environment from several angles.

EELU Program Director Caroline Cox sat down with local environmental experts to discuss the state of Tennessee’s environment.

Jonathan Gilligan, Director of the Vanderbilt Climate and Society Grand Challenge Initiative, led a panel on local responses to climate change.

Energy law expert Jim Rossi, who holds the Judge D.L. Lansden Chair in Law, moderated

a discussion on national, regional, and local responses to what he described as a historic transformation of the energy sector to renewable energy sources.

J.B. Ruhl, Co-Director of the EELU program, moderated a panel of Metro Nashville officials and Vanderbilt experts whose work focuses on adaptation and social innovation as they described efforts underway in Nashville and Tennessee.

“Global warming is now more likely than not to exceed 1.5 degrees centigrade,” Ruhl noted, “and global warming will continue to increase due to increased cumulative carbon emissions.

Every increment of global warming will intensify multiple hazards, and adaptation to those hazards is a profound and urgent challenges to state and local governments.”

Christopher Serkin, who holds the Elisabeth H. and Granville S. Ridley Jr. Chair in Law,

Ruhl

Serkin

moderated a panel of local land use and conservation professionals who discussed how land use controls are being used to implement climate mitigation efforts by local governments in cities, suburbs, and rural areas.

Lisa Bressman’s Work with Abbe Gluck Cited in Biden v. Nebraska

Bressman

A 2013 Stanford Law Review study co-authored by Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Lisa Bressman with Abbe Gluck of Yale Law School was cited by Justice Amy Coney Barrett in her concurrence in Biden v. Nebraska.

Justice Barrett cited Bressman and Gluck’s study, “Statutory Interpretation from the Inside: An Empirical Study of Congressional Drafting, Delegation, and the Canons, Part 1,” in her concurrence, in which she addresses how the major questions doctrine should be applied in interpreting the text of a statute.

Bressman and Gluck reported the results of their empirical survey of 137 congressional counsels drawn from both parties, both chambers of Congress, and spanning multiple committees, in two journal articles published by the Stanford Law Review in 2013 and 2014. Their stated goal was to address the question: “What role should the realities of the legislative drafting process play in the theories and doctrines of statutory interpretation and administrative law?”

71 VLS students worked at interns in summer 2023 for legal employers in 15 states, Washington, D.C., and for legal nonprofits in London, U.K., The Hague, Netherlands, and Kyiv, Ukraine. The students received stipend support to help defray their living expenses or earn course credit for their unpaid legal work with government and nonprofit legal employers, including federal district and bankruptcy courts, U.S. Attorneys and State Attorneys General, federal and state agencies, federal and state prosecutors’ and defenders’ offices, municipal law departments, and legal nonprofits.

FALL 2023

7

Amicus Brief Submitted by Ingrid Brunk cited in Halkbank v. U.S.

Brunk

Justice Neil Gorsuch cited an amicus brief written by Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk, who holds the Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law, and William Dodge of the University of California, Davis, in his concurring opinion in Halkbank v. U.S., a decision handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court on April 19.

The United States indicted Halkbank, a bank owned by the Republic of Turkey, for conspiring to evade economic sanctions the U.S. has imposed against Iran. Halkbank argued that the indictment should be dismissed because, under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, it should be immune from criminal indictment as an instrumentality of a foreign state.

Halkbank’s appeal was denied by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, and the denial was upheld by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In a majority opinion written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court held that the District Court had jurisdiction over Halkbank and that the FSIA does not apply to criminal cases.

Justice Gorsuch filed a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, citing the brief submitted by Brunk and Dodge in which they urged the Court to reverse the portion of the Court of Appeals’ decision holding that the Executive Branch “possesses exclusive

power over common-law foreign sovereign immunity decisions,” which are then binding on federal courts.

Justice Gorsuch addressed their position in his opinion, asking “should we be concerned that deference to the Executive’s immunity decisions risks relegating courts to the status of potted plants, inconsistent with their duty to say what the law is in the cases that come before them?”

In its majority opinion, the Court stated that “The Second Circuit did not fully consider various common-law immunity arguments that the parties raise in this Court,” vacated the judgment, and remanded the case to the Second Circuit to address the issue of commonlaw immunities.

Brunk discussed the “Open Questions after Halkbank” in an April 21 column published by Lawfare.

Currier ’23 Wins ABA’s Saferstein Student Writing Prize Elodie Currier ‘23 won the American Bar Association’s Harvey Saferstein Consumer Protection Prize for her article, “The Myth of Anonymity: De-Identified Data as Legal Fiction.” The article is forthcoming in the New Mexico Law Review, and a version was published in the ABA Antitrust Law Section Newsletter.

Currier received a $5,000 scholarship award and an expense-paid trip to the Antitrust Law Section’s March 2023 annual meeting in Washington, D.C. The annual writing competition is open to secondand third-year law students who write on consumer protection issues.

Currier’s paper addresses the challenge of regulating the collection, processing, and sale of vast troves of electronic data Americans generate through their interactions with web browsers and sites, smart devices, and retail outlets. She recommends that states explore data protection laws that balance the realities of de-identification with the judicial economy concerns that entrenched the legal fiction of “non-identifiable Currier data” in the first place. Currier received the Weldon B. White Prize for submitting the best student paper in her class at Commencement.

Currier found the initial inspiration for her paper while working as a summer associate at Willkie Farr & Gallagher in New York. She will join the firm as an associate after serving as a 2023–24 law clerk for Judge Jon Phipps McCalla of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee.

8

VANDERBILT LAW

Former EPA administrator Carol Browner, who served as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Barack Obama from 1993 to 2001, delivered the inaugural Distinguished Lecture on Climate Change Governance in September 2022. Browner engaged in a wide-ranging conversation about U.S. environmental policy and the EPA’s regulatory work with Michael Vandenbergh, who co-directs the Energy, Environment and Land Use Program. Her talk was made possible by the Sally Shallenberger Brown EELU Program Fund, endowed in 2021

by Martin Shallenberger Brown ’92.

• Schools have become a battleground in the debate over appropriate limits on free speech. States have introduced bans on school curriculum that overwhelmingly target instruction concerning race, racism, sexism, and LGBTQ+ identity.

• Discussions about legislation limiting speech in schools should involve three constituents: teachers, parents, and students.

• Teachers are government employees, which introduces a power dynamic into their speech. “As a government employee, when you speak, you often hold a certain degree of power in your voice,” Procaccini said.

Francesca Procaccini delivers the 45th annual Waterfield Lecture in Murray State University’s Curris Center Ballroom on April 25, 2023.

Procaccini Delivers 2023 Waterfield Lecture First Amendment scholar Francesca Procaccini, Assistant Professor of Law, delivered the Harry Lee Waterfield Distinguished Lecture in Public Affairs at Murray State University in April.

Her lecture, “Child Citizens: Free Speech in Public Schools,” focused on the challenges of establishing limits on speech that protect vulnerable communities, including

schoolchildren, while also respecting constitutional freedoms.

Key takeaways: • Free speech is essential to democracy, but limits for speech to children are challenging to define. Procaccini characterizes the debate as “an exercise in line drawing.”

• Age-appropriateness and “legitimate pedagogical interests” are appropriate reasons to restrict a student’s right to receive information.

Procaccini’s talk was based on her article “(E)racing Speech in School,” which is forthcoming in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. She was the third Vanderbilt scholar to deliver the Waterfield Lecture. Professor of Political Science David E. Lewis and Chancellor Emeritus Alexander Heard delivered the lecture in 2022 and 1989, respectively.

Ten VLS Students Work for Legal Nonprofits in Tennessee and Mississippi for Pro Bono Spring Break 2023 The VLS Pro Bono Spring Break Program enables students to gain meaningful legal experience and boot-on-the-ground exposure to public interest work in a variety of settings.

In March Emma Harrison ’24 led a team that included Tasia Harris ’23, Nicholas Summers ’25, and Lauryn Wedgeworth ’25 to Oxford, Mississippi, where they worked for North Mississippi Rural Legal Services under the supervision of attorney Al Cutturini.

“These students came to work, and they absolutely blew me away. I was impressed with their skills and their work ethic,” a grateful Cutturini said.

William McGoughran ’25 worked at the Tennessee Innocence Project, which represents clients who have been convicted of crimes in claims of innocence and wrongful conviction, under the supervision of Executive Director Jessica Van Dyke and Deputy Director Jason Gichner ’02.

Chris Cao ’25 (BA’22) led a team that that included Sean Geercken ’23, Hongyu Yi LLM ’23, and Brittany Williams ’25 working on Free the Vote, a project to reinstating voters who have been disenfranchised due to criminal involvement.

FALL 2023

9

Three Marshall-Motley Scholars Choose VLS Ashley Fox ’24, Adom Atatkun ’25, and Sophie Howard ’25 are attending VLS as Marshall-Motley Scholars through a pioneering program sponsored by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund for students committed to pursuing careers in civil rights law.

NAACP Marshall-Motley Scholarships provide full tuition, room, board, and incidentals. The Legal Defense Fund developed the program to eliminate financial barriers for law students who seek to devote their careers to civil rights and racial justice advocacy by fully covering the cost of law school attendance. The program also facilitates summer internships with civil rights organizations and access to special training sessions during law school sponsored by LDF and supports scholars as they launch Fox, Howard, and Abatkun their careers in public advocacy with two-year post-graduate fellowships with civil rights organizations.

Fox was selected for the second class of Marshall-Motley Scholars and Howard and Abatkun for the third. Fox earned her undergraduate degree in political science at Washington University in St. Louis, Howard at Spelman College, and Abatkun at Georgia Southern University.

Justin Driver, Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law and Counselor to the Dean at Yale Law School, delivered the 2022 Victor S. Johnson Lecture. A constitutional law expert, Driver focused his talk on the implications of SFFA v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC, two cases challenging affirmative action policies decided by Driver the Supreme Court in the past term.

The annual Victor S. Johnson Lecture, which features a distinguished speaker who addresses the law and its relationship to public policy, was endowed by Victor S. (Torry) Johnson III ’74 in honor of his grandfather.

2023 Barrett Lecture: Judge Allison Riggs, North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Allison Riggs of the North Carolina Court of Appeals delivered the 2023 Barrett Social Justice Lecture, “The Strengths and Limits of Democracy as a Tool to Advance Social Justice,” in April. Before taking the bench, Judge Riggs focused on voting rights as an attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice.

Riggs spoke about how policies affect democracy and how students can use their legal careers to advocate for voting rights.

The lecture series honors the late George Barrett ‘57, a civil rights attorney who fought for desegregation in Tennessee’s higher education institutions. Barrett passed away in 2014.

Ellen Ward (BA’21) and Samantha Paradela, both Class of 2024, won the 2023 Bass Berry & Sims Moot Court Competition on Feb. 3, receiving the John A. Cortner Award and a cash prize. They faced finalists Rachel Wagner and Madison Porth in the competition’s final round, which they argued before Judges Andre B. Mathis of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Robin S. Rosenbaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, and Eli J. Richardson ’92 of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Porth argued in place of Evan Donaldson ’24, who was competing in the National Moot Court Trial Competition with his partner, Mary-Preston Austin ’23.

Winners Ward and Paradela (left) and Finalists Wagner and Porth (right) with Judges Mathis, Rosenbaum, and Richardson.

10

VANDERBILT LAW

Mary (“Molly”) Alexandra Dennard Teague of Charlotte, North Carolina, received the Founders Medal for First Honors for the J.D. Class of 2023.

Teague earned her B.A. at Davidson College and then taught history and social studies in the Baltimore City Public Schools through Teach for America and worked as a paralegal for a New Yorkbased legal nonprofit devoted to child advocacy before entering law school.

As a 1L, Teague took Property Law and was hooked. During her second and third years, she devoted most of her elective course credits to classes focusing on property, land use, and environmental law. She has joined Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in New York as an associate focusing on real estate.

Teague receives 2023 Founders Medal for First Honors

Lauryn Wedgeworth is the Class of 2025 Garrison Social Justice Scholar Wedgeworth earned her undergraduate degree at Howard University and taught U.S. History in Indianapolis, Indiana, through Teach for America before entering law school. She worked as a legal intern with Legal Services Alabama in Anniston and as a law clerk with Dodson Parker Behm & Capparella in Nashville during summer 2023. In March she worked for North Mississippi Rural Legal Services during Pro Bono Spring Break.

Criminal justice experts Barry Friedman and Vikrant Reddy found “Common Ground” on police reform in the 2023 Dean’s Lecture, moderated by Chris Slobogin, Director of the Criminal Justice Program.

Friedman directs the Policing Project at New York University and Reddy is a senior fellow at Stand Together Trust. Their wide-ranging discussion on March 20 was part of the 2023 Dean’s Lecture Series on Race and Discrimination, which sponsors interdisciplinary lectures focusing on racial justice, civil rights, and discrimination.

Canellos

Wedgeworth

Journalist Peter Canellos discussed his book, The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero, on Feb. 21 as part of the Branstetter Judicial Speaker Series. Canellos, a graduate of Columbia Law School, became fascinated with Justice Harlan because of his scathing dissent in Plessy, the Supreme Court decision that ushered in the Jim Crow era.

FALL 2023

11

Motley decided to earn the joint JD/MBA degree as a first-year MBA student at Owen. He became partnerin-charge of Cooley’s Los Angeles office in 2022.

John-Paul Motley, JD/MBA ’99,

starts term as BOA president

12

VANDERBILT LAW

G

rowing up in Shelbyville, Tennessee, John-Paul (JP) Motley, JD/MBA ’99, never imagined a career advising corporate boards on governance, securities law compliance, and disclosure.

From an early age, his grandmother, Pauline Moore, instilled in him an understanding of the importance and value of a good education.

As a Vanderbilt JD/MBA, Motley was an Order of the Coif graduate of VLS and a Beta Gamma Sigma graduate of Owen in 1999, after which he joined O’Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles, rising to the Managing Partner of its Los Angeles office and Chair of the firm’s Capital Markets practice. In 2022, he moved to Cooley as Partner-in-Charge of the firm’s new Los Angeles office.

In this interview, Motley speaks candidly about his background and career.

How did being a first-generation student affect your law school experience?

No one in my family had been to college, much less law school! I was the first person in my immediate family to go to college, and that was in large part due to my grandmother, who made sure I had the tools to keep advancing.

She was instrumental in my education—she sat with me while I did my homework from kindergarten to my senior year of high school.

She never attended college. She had the grades to be valedictorian but was told it would be more helpful for a boy to be valedictorian to help his college application chances, so she was given a C in one of her courses, which dropped her to salutatorian. My grandmother did not get the opportunities I have been given, and it was important to me that she knew I recognized my good fortune. I endowed the Pauline P. Moore Scholarship for firstgeneration law students in her honor.

What made you choose Vanderbilt for law school?

I was an accounting major and had gotten a job at Arthur Anderson when I graduated college, but a professor encouraged me to apply to graduate school. I chose Vanderbilt because of its academic reputation and because it was close to my home in Shelbyville. My grandmother had been diagnosed with cancer during my last year of college, and I wanted to be near her.

I started as an MBA student at Owen, but by spring semester, I was intrigued by the JD/ MBA program. I visited Ann Brandt, who was then the Law School’s Dean of Admissions, every other Friday for a couple of months with a new letter of reference. In May 1996, I brought Dean Brandt another letter and told her if I had any chance of being accepted into VLS, I hoped the decision could be made soon. My grandmother’s condition had worsened. A week later, I was admitted. I will never forget the day I drove to Shelbyville and gave my law school admissions letter to my grandmother. Growing up in Boones Hill, Tennessee, she never dreamed anyone in her family would go to VLS. It meant the world to her.

How has having a JD/MBA benefited your career?

When I started at Vanderbilt, I wasn’t sure what professional path I wanted to follow and thought the JD/MBA gave me more opportunities. I had passed the CPA exam and wanted to leverage that skillset. After graduation, I decided to start at a law firm, and that was the right decision. My MBA and my college accounting degree enhanced my ability to understand the drivers behind clients’ business decisions and communicate key legal points to clients, whether they were investment bankers, CEOs, CFOs, or board members.

You’re a loyal participant in Vanderbilt’s On-Campus Interview Program. Why do you think Vanderbilt Law students are good hires?

I have participated in OCI at VLS for over two decades! When I was an associate, I quickly learned that having a really good team was critical to success at a law firm. I’ve always found VLS students to be great lawyers because they are team players who are willing to contribute in any manner, which you can tell they learn from the culture at VLS. Logan Tiari ’12 is now my partner at Cooley, where we just opened the firm’s downtown LA office.

Does any particular aspect of your law school experience stand out?

VLS set me up well for my first job and my career, but the most memorable aspect were the friends I’ve made. Those friendships have stayed with me through all these years. Sidney Peryar ’99 has become a very close friend and been a tremendous help to me through all of life's ups and downs since we graduated law school.

What do you do outside of work?

My husband, Matt Gloin, and I have been together for 24 years. We have two kids—our son Hayden (14) and our daughter Ashlyn (12).

I inflicted my son with a love for the Tennessee Titans, and we attend at least one Titans game each year. He has been a lucky charm—the Titans are 7-0 in games he has attended. We also tend to sit behind the Titans bench so he can see his favorite players. The coaches and players through the years have been extraordinarily gracious and given him game balls, gloves, towels—all sorts of memorabilia that he now has in his room. My daughter Ashlyn has taught me the other game of football—she plays forward for her soccer team. We travel quite a few places together as I am learning the sport. Next on our agenda is to attend a Nashville Soccer Club game at their new stadium.

VLS set me up well for my first job and my career, but the most memorable aspect were the friends I’ve made.

FALL 2023

13

Robert Dodd ’88, far right, with (l-r) Jeremy Johnston, Torry Samson, and Danny Rheiner, all Class of 2015

Four VLS Alums Work Together at the Colorado AG’s Specialized Business Group Robert Dodd ’88 recruited 2015 classmates Torrey Samson, Danny Rheiner, and Jeremy Johnston to join his legal team at the Colorado AG’s office.

When 2015 classmates Torrey Samson and Jeremy Johnston were seated next to each other in Professor Ganesh Sitaraman’s Regulatory State class as 1Ls, they never imagined they would someday be working on the same team at the Colorado Attorney General’s office in Denver, along with a third 2015 classmate, Danny Rheiner. At graduation Samson and Johnston both accepted jobs with the Nashville District Attorney’s Office but soon parted ways when Samson accepted a clerkship on the Tennessee Supreme Court with the late Justice Connie Clark ’79 (BA’71).

Robert Dodd ’88 set out to recruit VLS grads for his team after he was named head of

14

VANDERBILT LAW

the Colorado AG Specialized Business Group in 2018. Dodd had joined the Colorado AG’s office in 1998 after working as an assistant state attorney in his home state, Florida, and in private practice in Tallahassee and Denver.

He relished the broad scope of litigation work and collaborative culture in his group and saw VLS grads as good fits for his team’s culture and challenging workload. “Our work puts a spotlight on why attorneys should consider working in their state or federal AG’s office,” he said. “We represent the state in matters involving the state lottery, gaming, sports betting, the auto industry, including car dealerships, the DMV and regulation of Uber and Lyft.” Dodd notes that team members worked on 303 Creative, a high-profile case decided in June by the Supreme Court.

Samson joined the Specialized Business Group at Colorado AG’s office in 2019 after working in the Civil Rights and Claims Unit of the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office.

When she helped Dodd recruit Johnston, who was then working as an assistant city attorney

with the Prosecutor’s Office in Westminster, Colorado, in 2022, Johnston became the fourth VLS graduate at the Colorado AG’s office; Rheiner had started work at the AG’s office in 2019 as a Ralph L. Carr Appellate Fellow and moved to the Specialized Business Group in 2022. Suddenly four of the team’s seven attorneys were VLS grads.

Rheiner came to the Colorado AG’s office with clerkships for judges sitting on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas and the Colorado Court of Appeals under his belt, and he urges VLS graduates to apply for the Carr Appellate Fellowship program that launched his career there. “It’s a great opportunity to get to do interesting work right out of the starting gate,” he said.

Rheiner, Samson, Johnston, and Dodd are happy to talk with any VLS students or grads interested in fellowships or internships at the Colorado’s AG’s Office.

Grantham, left, and Lord co-lead Maynard Nexsen.

1989 Classmates Jeff Grantham and Leighton Lord Form Maynard Nexsen

E

arly in his first semester of law school in 1986, Leighton Lord was fighting his way through a surging crowd at Cannery Hall, angling for a better view of the stage where the popular punk-rockabilly band Jason and the Scorchers were performing, when a strobe flash illuminated a face he recognized: classmate Jeff Grantham. The pair bonded immediately over their love of live music and soon found that performances at Nashville clubs were a great way to end a long day of studying.

Leighton Lord, left, and Jeff Grantham during their student days.

“We didn’t have the internet, we didn’t have cell phones, so somebody would go get a newspaper and figure out what was at the Exit/In, and you’d walk through the library at 11 o’clock at night and see who you could get to go see a band with you,” Lord recalled.

Throughout law school, Lord and Grantham enjoyed memorable performances

by REM, Guadalcanal Diary, Love Tractor, the Grateful Dead, and other bands.

After graduation, both ultimately accepted jobs with Southeastern firms, but in different states: Grantham with Alabama-based Maynard Cooper & Gale, and Lord with Carolinas-based Nexsen Pruet, after a clerkship at the Delaware Chancery Court and service on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. “When I left Vanderbilt in ’89, I loved Nashville and was going to stay there, but when I met the people at Maynard Cooper, I knew that is where I wanted to be,” Grantham said.

For decades, their contact was friendly but sporadic. The two friends reconnected in 2018 when Lord, who had served as Nexsen’s Chair since 2011, called Grantham to congratulate him on being named Managing Chairholder at Maynard Cooper & Gale. Over the next two years, the former classmates occasionally sought each other’s counsel on meeting the challenges of firm leadership.

Then Covid hit.

“Jeff and I started this dialogue that was really about helping each other be good managing partners during challenging times,” Lord said. “ ‘Are you closing your offices?’

‘What’s your mask policy?’ We were talking a lot. Our merger grew organically out of our friendship and those conversations.”

The former classmates quickly realized their firms had similar cultures and complementary strengths. “We were both dedicated to client service, a culture of teamwork, and treating people well, and our practices, economics, and geography were well-aligned,” Grantham said.

In January 2023, Lord and Grantham announced the formation of Maynard Nexsen, which brought together more than 550 lawyers based in 23 offices in six Southeastern states, California, Iowa, New York, Texas, and Washington, D.C. “Our clients had told us they needed more services in more locations, and by coming together, we became a national firm, and our attorneys gained opportunities to work with more clients,” Lord said.

Grantham is Maynard Nexsen’s CEO and Managing Shareholder, and Lord is President and Chief Strategy Officer.

FALL 2023

15

Works by VLS Faculty Identify New Litigation Trends Recent journal articles co-authored by Joseph Fishman and Randall Thomas examine recent trends affecting litigation.

16

VANDERBILT LAW

Historically, the significance of ‘prior art’ within IP law begins and ends with patents.

Joseph Fishman examines a new application for the IP concept of “Prior Art” in a co-authored study.

Music copyright expert Joseph Fishman and his co-author, Kristelia Garcia of Colorado Law, have documented the growing use of “prior art,” a concept that once applied only in patent law cases, in music copyright litigation.

Their study, “Authoring Prior Art,” recently published in the Vanderbilt Law Review, traces the history of “prior art,” which has played a critical role in patent litigation since the nineteenth century, and connects its recent use in copyright litigation with another growing trend: the use of expert witnesses.

In patent law, “prior art” is the term historically used to describe the scope of society’s current knowledge, which was the bar a new invention needed to exceed to merit a patent.

“Historically, the significance of ‘prior art’ within IP law begins and ends with patents,” Fishman said.

However, he and Garcia documented the recent use of “prior art” in several prominent music copyright cases. They also connected the concept’s emergence in music copyright litigation, which happened over several years, to expert witnesses whose testimony was once optional in music copyright litigation but is now viewed as essential by judges hearing these cases.

“To be patentable, an invention must be both novel and unconventional in some form or fashion—different from prior inventions in a way that extends beyond the obvious.

Measuring an invention’s level of ‘unconventionality’ has always required an assessment of

known information to gauge just how obvious or non-obvious that invention truly is. That universe of known information is known as the ‘prior art,’ ” Fishman explained.

Long used by judges, the term was codified in the 1952 Patent Act and in its revision in 2011.

Historically, the search for “prior art” as a way to determine if an invention is legitimately new contrasts sharply with copyright law, which addresses works of authorship. For decades, courts in copyright cases consistently found that works created independently of one another can receive their own copyrights regardless of their similarities, provided that the similarity was coincidental. Challenges based on “prior art” arguments over the last century had largely failed until recently.

In their study, Fishman and Garcia examine several recent music copyright infringement cases where decisions hinged on reviews of “prior art” to determine if alleged similarities are legally significant.

They also highlight a growing reliance on the testimony of expert witnesses in music copyright cases. Fifty years ago, the California-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, whose outsized influence on copyright matters has earned it the nickname “The Hollywood Circuit,” spoke of expert testimony as potentially “appropriate” for proving an infringing level of similarity. But in 2004, the same court declared that, in music cases, such testimony was “required.”

“Over the last two years, some judges have embraced this position so firmly that they are all but ignoring plaintiffs’ experts in music infringement cases if those experts haven’t performed a ‘prior art’ search,” the co-authors note.

Fishman and Garcia also found that expert witnesses view “prior art” research as “a central part of their job,” which runs counter to traditional expectations of the role expert testimony plays in copyright cases. They conclude that “more often than it’s typically given credit for, ‘prior art’ can win or lose some copyright infringement cases,” including music copyright cases.

They write, “Forensic musicologists’ perspective seems to be affecting not just the courts’ view of the facts in discrete cases, but more fundamentally the legal standard that is to be applied across cases,” adding that “When [experts] agree on basic principles...courts ought to pay attention.”

Their conclusions yield recommendations for attorneys representing both plaintiffs and defendants in copyright infringement cases.

Defense attorneys, they write, “are leaving something on the table” if they don’t leverage ‘prior art’ to mitigate the perceived substantiality of similarities, and plaintiffs are taking an “underappreciated risk” if they choose to attack the premise of “prior art.”

FALL 2023

17

Randall Thomas and co-authors explore the continuing dominance of the Delaware Chancery Court.

Randall Thomas and former VLS colleague Robert Thompson (BA’71), who now teaches at Georgetown Law, first set out to explore the outsized role the Delaware Court of Chancery plays in corporate law with a 2004 study that examined all of the lawsuits filed in the court in 1999 and 2000. At that time, most cases brought to the court involved disputes over the governance of publicly traded corporations.

To document the Delaware Chancery Court’s continuing influence on laws governing public and private companies, Thomas

18

VANDERBILT LAW

and Thompson recently joined with Harlan Wells of Temple University to revisit their 2004 study. The three scholars examined all cases filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery in 2018 and comparing the results with those of their prior study. Their findings, published in The Business Lawyer in November 2022, revealed “fundamental changes in corporate law issues brought to court” as a result of a shift over the past two decades from cases mainly involving fiduciary responsibilities of publicly held corporations to a broader variety of cases involving privately held companies.

Their article, “Delaware’s Shifting Judicial Role in Business Governance, also confirms that the Delaware Court of Chancery remains the dominant jurisdiction for corporate law in the U.S. and continues to serve as a barometer for the current state of corporate litigation.

Delaware long ago established itself as an attractive home for publicly held corporations—a reputation the state still promotes. The authors found it has recently also become an attractive haven for private firms.

The shift of corporate entities from public to private governance their study documents is notable enough that Delaware’s state budget has grown more reliant on limited liability corporations choosing to form in the state. These private entities have in turn diversified the caseload of the Delaware Chancery Court and expanded the types of decisionmaking in which judges on the court now routinely engage.

However, the authors found scant proof that Delaware actively competes with other states to attract LLCs or LPs or that its Chancery Court competes for LLC litigation. While the number of LLCs and LPs registered in Delaware has grown considerably over the past two decades, the state does not appear to offer any legal benefits to private entities that would differentiate its legal regime from those of other states or to offer more favorable registration fees.

They also found that the highly customized nature of litigation brought

by LLCs and LPs makes it difficult for the Chancery Court to establish a body of legal precedent that would attract litigants or organizations, which stands in direct contrast with Delaware’s storied approach to public entities, which find the state’s legal offerings, historical precedent, and sophisticated Chancery Court so attractive that Delaware can charge a premium for incorporation there.

Key takeaways from Yesha Yadav’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on the cryptocurrency meltdown Yesha Yadav, who holds the Milton R. Underwood Chair, was one of three financial regulation experts who testified in a full committee hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on Feb. 14. Here are the key takeaways from her testimony:

• Cryptocurrency is here to stay and involves a broad and diverse group of stakeholders that include crypto-customers, individual and institutional investors, professional traders, and crypto-ventures. “Digital asset markets have become popular, sophisticated, institutionalized, financialized, and interconnected,” Yadav stated, citing two recent studies indicating that 15 percent of individuals in the U.S. were estimated to have transacted in crypto and that the crypto assets had proven especially appealing to minority Americans.

• The cryptocurrency market evolved rapidly and without stable and clear guardrails to protect assets and investors. Yadav emphasized that many cryptocurrency investors and exchange customers were unaware that the cryptocurrency market was not government-regulated.

• Cryptocurrencies’ risks—technological, financial, and legal—remain poorly understood by most investors. At the same time, crypto-exchanges provide “an easy on-ramp into cryptocurrencies for retail as well as institutional users,” Yadav testified.

• The urgent need for regulation that provides safeguards for cryptocurrency investors cannot be overstated. Developing a regulatory scheme now is a “bid to play catch-up.”

Cryptocurrency exchanges have grown in size, stature, and organizational complexity, largely absent the guardrails of federal regulation, an issue exacerbated by a debate among regulatory agencies about “what legal categories cryptocurrencies fall into.”

• The government can and should require cryptocurrency exchanges to work together to write rules governing custody, trading, and sale of crypto-assets, and then operate as SelfRegulatory Organizations. “As SROs, crypto ventures would have to demonstrate their organization’s capacity to provide oversight,” Yadav testified, emphasizing that her proposal “is not designed as a substitute for public regulation.”

• As Self-Regulatory Organizations, the cryptocurrency industry should “assume the costs for its own selfprotection,” Yadav stated. Government regulators would be tasked with vetting crypto firms to ensure they are capable of performing self-oversight.

Yadav concluded by emphasizing that “establishing a mandate for self-regulation within the crypto-currency market will require careful, difficult work from federal regulators as well as prospective SROs.” But she recommends this approach. “Opting into an SRO model gives the industry a chance to take advantage of this crisis to engage in reform, mature, and innovate,” she said.

FALL 2023

19

Shaw Advances a Novel Argument for the Right to Public Education Education is not currently recognized as a fundamental right in the United States. In 1973’s San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, the Supreme Court found that education is not explicitly protected under the U.S. Constitution, and this precedent has stood for over 30 years. While advocates for the right to public education have challenged the ruling, no case has succeeded in federal court.

Matthew Patrick Shaw, assistant professor of law, offers a novel approach in his paper The Public Right to Education, which received the Education Law Association’s 2023 Steven S. Goldberg Award for Distinguished Scholarships in Education Law. Rather than advocating for education as a fundamental right or liberty, Shaw argues that states have created a substantive property interest in education, thus making it eligible for Due Process protection under the 14th Amendment.

Since all states provide public education as a benefit and require schoolage residents to attend school, Shaw contends that the rules, regulations, funding schemes, and other measures by which education is governed and delivered “define the dimensions of the state’s educational guarantee,” triggering due process entitlement.

Job Satisfaction Lower Among Black Women and Asian Women Law Graduates

Shaw cites to Plyler v. Doe, in which the Supreme Court prohibited the state of Texas from withdrawing its educational entitlement from undocumented migrants. In his opinion, Justice William Brennan described public schools as a “public right” which, while not explicitly granted by the constitution, is “a most vital civic institution for the preservation of a democratic system of government.” Justice Powell added that “A legislative classification that threatens the creation of an underclass of future citizens and residents cannot be reconciled with one of the fundamental purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

As state-mandated property and a “public right," Shaw argues that that claims regarding public education should be reviewed “under some form of heightened scrutiny that acknowledges the state’s policy authority in education, its substantial interest in public education, and the public’s reliance on the same.”

He concludes by acknowledging that, while this “public right” approach is new, it is based on public education precedent and could serve as effective resource for governments and members of the public. “This article begins to fill the constitutional void between the protection of fundamental rights and the protection of ordinary state-created benefits,” he writes.

20

VANDERBILT LAW

Despite concerns over mental health and burnout among lawyers, job satisfaction rates remain high across the legal profession, and those rates are similar between men and women. However, a new study finds that two subsets of law graduates—Asian women and Black women— report “strikingly low” job satisfaction rates.

Gender, Race, and Job Satisfaction of Law Graduates: Intersectional Evidence from the National Survey of College Graduates, a study by Joni Hersch, uses data from nearly 13,000 law graduates surveyed between 2003 and 2019 to examine if job satisfaction differs by race and whether there is an intersectional relationship between gender and race/ethnicity.

Hersch found that satisfaction gaps were not related to differences in personal characteristics, social class background, elite educational degrees, breadwinner and parenthood responsibilities, student debt, job descriptions, values placed on aspects of work such as contributions to society or salary, or earnings. Given the large number of variables that Hersch’s models accounted for, she finds it unlikely that individual circumstances explain the disparities.

“Black women and Asian women report strikingly lower job satisfaction with salary, intellectual challenge, and level of responsibility relative to White men and relative to men of their own race,” she reports. “Asian women are also much less satisfied with job security and opportunities for advancement. White women have lower satisfaction relative to White men with these work characteristics, but with a smaller gap.”

Rebecca Allensworth Named Associate Dean for Research Rebecca Allensworth began serving as Associate Dean for Research in January 2023.

Her responsibilities include supporting and promoting faculty research.

Dean Allensworth is a David Daniels Allen Professor of Law and studies antitrust law and professional licensing. Her work on antitrust law focuses on how to adapt competition policy to address problems posted by tech platforms, and her research on professional licensing explores how lawmakers should balance the need for expertise in regulating the professions with the problems that can arise from self-regulation.

Allensworth earned her undergraduate degree from Yale University and an M.Phil. from Cambridge before earning her J.D. at Harvard Law School, where she was an article editor of the Harvard Law Review. She clerked for Judge Richard A. Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and then was a Climenko Fellow at Harvard Law before joining Vanderbilt’s law faculty. She held the Tarkington Chair of Teaching Excellence before her appointment to a David Daniels Allen Chair in 2022.

She teaches Contracts, Antitrust Law, and an advanced antitrust course focusing on Big Tech.

Jennifer Safstrom Named Director of the Stanton Foundation First Amendment Clinic Jennifer Safstrom has been named the full-time Director of the Stanton Foundation First Amendment Clinic.

Safstrom previously taught the clinic as a Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor of Law. Before joining Vanderbilt’s law faculty, Safstrom was the Dunn Legal Fellow at the ACLU of Virginia, where she litigated in federal and state court. Following her fellowship, she served as counsel to the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law Center and as supervising attorney and clinical teaching fellow in the Civil Rights Clinic, where she litigated cases and co-taught skills classes. She has published and presented on a range of civil rights topics, including First Amendment issues.

Students in the Stanton Foundation First Amendment Clinic are responsible for representing clients in civil litigation cases implicating First Amendment rights of persons and organizations otherwise unable to afford counsel for those matters. Casework focuses on free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly.

Professor Safstrom revitalized my passion for the law at a critical juncture in my legal education. Her client-focused approach to running the First Amendment Clinic taught me invaluable practical skills, and her students-first approach to teaching helped me both identify and hone my voice and style as a legal advocate. I will be a better lawyer to my clients because of her, and I think Vanderbilt is very lucky to have her.

Samantha Hunt, Class of 2023

FALL 2023

21

Three Tenure/Tenure Track Faculty Join VLS

Sudeall

Heydari

Lauren Sudeall, Professor of Law Sudeall, whose scholarship and teaching focus on constitutional law, criminal procedure, and access to justice, joined the VLS faculty from the law faculty at Georgia State College of Law. At Vanderbilt, Sudeall will launch and direct the Vanderbilt Access to Justice Initiative as part of the George Barrett Social Justice Program.

Her research has been published in the Harvard, Columbia, California, Minnesota, UCLA, and Fordham law reviews and the Yale Law Journal Forum, among other scholarly journals. She has also published in the popular press.

After earning her J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, Sudeall was a law clerk for Judge Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and for Justice John Paul Stevens of the Supreme Court. She received her B.A. in political science with distinction from Yale University.

After her clerkships, Sudeall joined the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, first as a Soros Fellow and then as a staff attorney. She joined the Georgia State Law faculty in 2012.

Sudeall is a member of the American Law Institute. She has previously served on the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defendants and the Southern Center for Human Rights’ board of directors.

She is a past chair of the AALS Section on Constitutional Law. 22

VANDERBILT LAW

Langston

She was recognized in 2015 with Georgia State’s Patricia T. Morgan Award for Outstanding Faculty Scholarship and in 2018 with the Steven J. Kaminshine Award for Excellence in Service.

While practicing law with the Southern Center on Human Rights, she received the Anti-Defamation League’s Stuart Eizenstat Young Lawyer Award and was named by the Fulton County Daily Report as one of 10 “On the Rise” Georgia Lawyers under 40. In 2011 she was recognized as one of National Law Journal’s Minority 40 Under 40 lawyers.

Farhang Heydari, Assistant Professor of Law Heydari joins Vanderbilt from New York University School of Law, where he was the founding Executive Director of The Policing Project, a multi-disciplinary center focused on improving police accountability.

At Vanderbilt, Heydari will teach Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and other courses focusing on policing. He also joins the Criminal Justice Program.

Heydari’s scholarship examines different aspects of the criminal justice system, including artificial intelligence, as well as the federal government’s impact on local policing.

His work has been published or is forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review, the University of Virginia Law Review, the George Washington Law Review, and the Berkeley Technology Law Journal.

After earning his J.D. from Columbia Law School, Heydari clerked for Judge Diana G. Motz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Judge Kimba M. Wood of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A James Kent Academic Scholar at Columbia, he served as Editorin-Chief of Columbia Law Review and was named Outstanding Public Interest Student of the Year. He received his A.B. in government cum laude from Harvard University, where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

After his clerkships, Heydari spent several years at Neufeld Scheck & Brustin, representing victims of government misconduct in complex civil rights actions.

Heydari currently serves as an appointed member of the federal government’s National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee, Subcommittee on AI and Law Enforcement.

He was named to Government Technology’s 2021 Top 25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers.

Nicole Langston, Assistant Professor of Law Langston joins Vanderbilt from Boston College Law School, where she was a Visiting Assistant Professor and taught a Consumer Bankruptcy Seminar. At Vanderbilt, she will teach Bankruptcy and the Consumer Bankruptcy Seminar.

Langston’s research examines the interplay between bankruptcy, commercial law, consumer law, and the social cost of debt to address economic inequality. Her most recent work, published in the California Law Review, examines how the inconsistent treatment of debt in the consumer bankruptcy system follows recognizable racial and socioeconomic lines of vulnerability and marginalization.

After earning her J.D. magna cum laude from University of Illinois College of Law, Langston clerked for Judges Peter J. Walsh and Laurie Selber Silverstein of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, and for Judge Bernice Donald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. At Illinois Law, she was named American College of Bankruptcy Distinguished Law Student from the Seventh Circuit. She received her B.A. from Georgetown University.

Langston practiced as a bankruptcy litigator with Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins before entering the legal academy.

Cruz brings significant public interest law experience from Nashville Public Defender’s Office.

Beth Cruz ’10 Named Assistant Dean & Martha Craig Daughtrey Director for Public Interest

Beth Cruz ’10 has joined the VLS staff as Assistant Dean and Martha Craig Daughtrey Director for Public Interest. Cruz is responsible for creating public interest law opportunities and facilitating public interest law careers for VLS students through career advising and employer engagement. She also oversees Vanderbilt’s pro bono program and leads the externship and summer public interest stipend programs.

Cruz previously led the Education Rights Project in the Metropolitan Nashville Public Defender’s Office for over 12 years. Under her leadership, the Education Rights Project achieved over 3,400 positive outcomes on behalf of Nashville’s youth and provided legal and advocacy training to over 2,200 community stakeholders. She began her legal career as a legal reseacher and writer with the Northwestern University Center on Wrongful Convictions and has taught on Vanderbilt’s adjunct law faculty.

She is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Rochester.

The Martha Craig Daughtrey Public Interest Directorship was endowed by James Cuminale ’78 in honor of Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey ’68 (BA’64). The gift, which provides permanent funding for the leader of Vanderbilt Law School’s public interest program, recognizes Judge Daughtrey’s commitment to public service and impact on the Vanderbilt Law community, both as a ground-breaking professor and judge in federal and state courts.

FALL 2023

23

2023 BLSA Alumni Dinner March 4 BLSA alumni and friends enjoyed a gala dinner at Bass Berry & Sims in Nashville organized and hosted by current BLSA members. BLSA Chapter President Toni Cross ’23 and Fundraising Chair Zo Malakpa ’24 welcomed guests and introduced panelists who spoke about their careers: Joycelyn Stevenson ’01, Managing Shareholder of Littler’s Nashville office, Nerdwallet General Counsel Ekumene Lysonge ’01, Etsy Chief Human Resources Officer Kim Seymour ’95, and Nashville Assistant Public Defender Kevin Coker ’18, now CEO of Restoring Justice in Houston.

Our thanks to: Diamond Sponsors Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz and Bass Berry & Sims; Platinum Sponsors Balch & Bingham, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, Haynes and Boone, King & Spalding, Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart, and Squire Patton Boggs; and Gold Sponsors Alston & Bird, Asurion, Butler Snow, Dickinson Wright, Neal & Harwell, Weil Gotshal & Manges, and the VLS Dean’s Office and Alumni Office.

24

VANDERBILT LAW

FALL 2023

25

Kent Halkett ’81 Finds Mentoring a Rewarding Retirement Job Much of Kent Halkett’s 40-plus year career has been well-documented in legal publications. A staunch advocate for mental health in the legal profession, Halkett has used his story as a fast-rising BigLaw partner whose career was altered by recurring bouts with clinical depression to push for more mental health support, resources, and education for law students and attorneys.

After wrapping up another phase in his compelling and impactful career, a new chapter in the story of Kent Halkett needs to be written.

From 2018 until earlier this year, the former trial lawyer worked with VLS students at the Shade Tree Clinic, where Vanderbilt Medical School students provide free care to uninsured patients. Under a Medical Legal Partnership established in 2011, teams of law students provide legal needs assessments and referral services to clinic patients, offering thorough, high-quality help to Nashville’s disadvantaged individuals while developing a generation of excellent and socially minded practitioners.

2017, the semi-retired attorney inquired with the Career Services team about opportunities in the area. They connected Halkett to Spring Miller, then Associate Dean for Public Interest and a board member of the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services.

Miller needed attorney volunteers, and Halkett was seeking a chance to practice his craft on a part-time basis. He joined TALS as a Senior Help Line attorney, offering legal advice to seniors over the phone on issues ranging from medical care to housing and insurance.

Miller and Emily Sachs ’20 recruited him to Shade Tree a year later.

interviews with non-English speaking clients, volunteers employ a Language Line and on-site interpreters.

Halkett believes that Shade Tree offers a unique opportunity for law students to develop critical professional skills. “The clinic helps students realize the power of a ‘can do’ attitude,” he said. “The real practice of law isn’t clear-cut.

It’s often messy. Interacting with real people with real problems isn’t linear. It’s fun to see students realize that and learn how to get the full picture.”

It is estimated that the Shade Tree legal team helped over 300 clients from 2018 to

The clinic helps students realize the power of a ‘can do’ attitude.

Kent Halkett

In the early years of the Shade Tree MLP, interactions between law student volunteers and clients were limited. Without the presence of a licensed attorney, volunteers could do little more than distribute a questionnaire and refer clients to available legal services and related materials.

Halkett’s arrival in 2018 immediately elevated those interactions; he could provide legal advice, guide detailed interviews, and facilitate a more impactful learning experience for law students.

“It was a great idea for everyone involved,” Halkett said. “Even the med students could see the positive benefits provided by attorneys.”

Halkett’s journey to Shade Tree is a testament to the strength of the VLS community. After moving back to Nashville in 26

VANDERBILT LAW

Halkett’s impact on the clinic goes beyond client interviews. He worked with Sachs to organize training sessions that helped students prepare for the range of issues they might uncover, from landlord/tenant disputes to child custody, divorce, medical bills and more.

Halkett and his wife Kim hosted annual Sunday brunches at their home where students and professors such as Susan Kay ’79 could rub elbows outside the classroom.

Now in its second decade, the Shade Tree MLP is a fixture among the experiential learning opportunities at VLS, rising above challenges both existential and specific to the work. When COVID eliminated in-person consultations, Shade Tree switched to the phones for almost two years. To conduct

2023. Roughly 50 law students worked in the clinic during Halkett’s tenure.

When he reflects on his time with the clinic, the interactions with students stand out. " I got to see them develop new skills quickly, and I got to know them as individuals. In the downtime, I shared war stories, and they talked about their projects, arguments for moot court, job interviews and so on,” he said.

He remains in touch with graduates he mentored, who keep him apprised of developments in their careers and lives. “Seeing them develop as young professionals and people has been the most rewarding part of the journey for me,” he said.

Honoring David Williams’ Legacy “David Williams: Lawyer, Professor, Mentor, and Leader,” a symposium celebrating the career accomplishments and impact of the late Vice Chancellor and Vanderbilt Athletic Director David Williams, was hosted by Dean Chris Guthrie and Associate Dean for Research Rebecca Allensworth Sept. 22.

The day-long event featured panel discussions moderated by Allensworth, Assistant Professor of Law Matthew Shaw, and Samar Ali, JD’06, BA’03, which focused on Williams’ work on equity in education and amateurism in collegiate sports and highlighted careers Williams helped shape.

Guests of honor included William’s wife Gail Williams and his daughter and son Samantha Williams ’17 and Nicholas Williams.

Panelists included Vanderbilt Athletic Director Candice Storey Lee, former Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos, Titans Chief External and League Affairs Officer Adolpho Birch III ’91, and University of Illinois Assistant Athletic Director for Strategic Initiatives Kamron Cox ’17.

Judge Waverly Crenshaw JD’81, BA’78 of the Middle District of Tennessee delivered the keynote address, which he based on Williams’ 2002 Vanderbilt Law Review article, “We Still Have a Ways to Go—Equality and Civil Rights Over Four Decades.”

A fund to endow a new David Williams Scholarship at the Law School has been established. Interested donors should email clay.cline@vanderbilt.edu.

FALL 2023

27

Construction of the first Law School building on campus in 1961, with Furman Hall and the Kirkland Hall tower in the background.

VLS at 150:

Historic Milestone Vanderbilt Law School opened in fall 1874 as the Law Department of Vanderbilt University. Here’s how VLS became one of America’s top law schools.

The Law School was located in Kirkland Hall until 1962.

28

VANDERBILT LAW

Dean John Wade with Associate Dean John Beasley, a 1954 VLS Graduate, in 1969. Wade stepped down as Dean in 1972 and from the law faculty in 1975.

Vanderbilt Law School rose to national prominence under the leadership of John W. Wade, who joined the faculty in 1947 and served as Dean for 20 years starting in 1952. At the time of his arrival, the Law School occupied the third and fourth floors of Kirkland Hall. Wade began his tenure by securing a commitment from University trustees to build a dedicated law school building, which opened in 1962. He then set his sights on attracting outstanding students to VLS from undergraduate schools throughout the nation, hiring John S. Beasley II ’54 (BA ’52) to launch and lead a nationwide student recruiting program throughout the 1960s.

Wade cultivated the Law School’s distinctive mix of accomplished faculty scholars who were also excellent teachers and rigorous academics. Together with Beasley, he set the tone for the collegial culture instilled in VLS faculty and students. Students and faculty continue to be attracted to VLS by that unique combination of demanding academics and a strong, supportive community, which has solidified Vanderbilt’s place among the top law schools in the nation.

In honor of the sesquicentennial, we take a look at some of the Law School’s milestones over its first 150 years.

Thomas H. Malone served as Dean of the Law School from 1875 until 1904.

Fall 1874 – The Vanderbilt University Law Department opens in the main university building, later named Kirkland Hall, with four enrolled students. The first full class does not convene until 1875, with 35 students and three part-time faculty members, including Dean Thomas Malone.

1875 – William Van Amberg Sullivan becomes Vanderbilt’s first law graduate. Sullivan returns to his home state of Mississippi to practice law and ultimately serves in the U.S.

1889 graduates William Wirt Hastings

and William P. Thompson, both members of the Cherokee Nation, become law partners in Tahlequah, Indian Territory. Hastings is named Cherokee Nation Attorney General and later represents Oklahoma in Congress for nearly two decades, and Thompson eventually serves as a commissioner of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma.

Joseph Goforth, James Burney McAlester, and Jacob Thompson, members of the Chickasaw Nation, and James Willoughby Breedlove of the Cherokee Nation, earn law degrees between 1897 and 1899. McAlester is a Vanderbilt football star. Breedlove serves in the Oklahoma state legislature and serves as a U.S. Commissioner. Goforth becomes a county judge, and Thompson serves in a number of administrative positions for the Chickasaw Nation.

They are among 12 Vanderbilt graduates currently featured in an exhibit curated by legal historian Daniel J. Sharfstein.

Senate. Vanderbilt negotiates a lease with three prominent local attorneys, under Dean Thomas Malone, to run the Law School while continuing their local practices that continues until 1904.

1881 – The Tennessee Bar Association is

1876 – Law students organize a Moot Court

1889 – The Law Department moves to a

performance for University Commencement, which becomes a popular annual tradition.

1878 – The American Bar Association is founded, with the goals of setting academic standards for law schools and a code of ethics for the legal profession.

1879 – Tuition settles at $100 a year.

founded and forms a Committee on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar, which endorses formal law school education over apprenticeship arrangements.

new off-campus headquarters in downtown Nashville. The Law Library, which comprised two bookshelves, is assigned two rooms in the new building, and William Barclay becomes the first law librarian. By 1900, the law library collection had 8,000 books.

1898 – Charles N. Burch’89, becomes the first Vanderbilt Law graduate to serve on the law faculty.

FALL 2023

29

1936 – Pauline LaFon becomes the law school’s

tenth woman graduate. She practices law in Arkansas before marrying future Senator Albert Gore Sr.

“I was greatly influenced by the stories my father told about his struggles helping both my mother and his mother with the problems of inheriting land rightly belonging to them instead of all of it going to their brothers. As a young child, I thought about such inqualities and thought that was something I could help change.”

— Pauline LaFon Gore ’36 on why she earned a law degree, in her 1994 Florrie Wilkes Sanders Lecture, “Life of Women in Political Families”

1956 – Melvin Porter,

former student body president at Tennessee State University, and Frederick Work, a Nashville native and Fisk University graduate, enter Vanderbilt Law School as the first two African America students. This same year, Vanderbilt publishes the first volume of the Race Relations Reporter, which includes the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Work

Porter

One evening in fall 1956, Fred Work ’59 received a warning phone call from classmate Melvin Porter ’59. Work and Porter had arrived on their first day at VLS to find white sheets of paper covered with black dots. “That was not a sign of welcome,” Work recalled. His parents were professors at Fisk University, and Work was home alone, studying in his bathrobe, when Porter informed him that a carload of white people would soon arrive at his house. He considered not answering the door and then remembered that his family owned an antique pistol. He tucked it into his robe pocket and answered the door when the knock came. To his surprise, he was greeted by a well-intentioned group of Vanderbilt Law alumni embarrassed by their reception who wanted to express their support.

Work invited the visitors in. When they left, he exhaled and took the gun out of his pocket. “It went off, barely missing my foot,” he said. “You can imagine the commotion that caused when my parents got home."

Shown here with classmates, Clara Marie Weber became the first woman to graduate from Vanderbilt Law School in 1919.

1900 – The Association of American Law

1914 – Annie Mary Elliott, librarian of the

1925 – Theresa Scherer Davidson ‘22

Schools is formed to promote and shape legal education provided at law schools. The University reorganizes the Law Department, and the faculty increases to five members, including James C. McReynolds, who will later sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. New faculty member J.C. Bradford represents Vanderbilt at the AALS organizational meeting.

law department, becomes one of the first two women listed to the Vanderbilt Faculty Register.

becomes the female VLS graduate to join the law faculty.

1916 – The Law School moves back to the

1926 – The Law School is stripped of its

main campus to permanent quarters on the third floor of Kirkland Hall and moves from a department to a full-fledged school.

AALS accreditation, granted in 2010.

1907 – Vanderbilt head football coach Dan

1919 – Clara Marie Weber of Bridgewater,

1930 – Vanderbilt hires Earl C. Arnold as

South Dakota, becomes Vanderbilt’s first female law graduate and receives the Founder’s Medal, then given to the student regarded as the “best lawyer” in the class.

the Law School’s dean for an annual salary of $7,000. With a faculty of six full-time and four part-time members and 63 students, there is talk of bankruptcy.

1922 – After the Law School all but ceases

1944 – The Law School closes after three

operation during World War I, returning soldiers increase attendance to 230 students.

years during which more than half of each class leaves to enter military service. Its 1,400 alumni receive a fundraising letter. The response and the availability of GI Bill tuition benefits enables VLS to re-open in 1946, admitting a class of World War II veterans.

Cecil Sims ’14 plays a major role in securing funding for the school’s revival.

McGugin is added to the law faculty to teach Constitutional Law and Commercial Law.

1910 – Allen G. Hall, an 1885 Vanderbilt graduate, becomes the Law School’s first fulltime dean. Hall was also the law school’s first full-time faculty member when he became professor, secretary, and librarian in 1903.

Hall is a strong advocate of the case method of teaching, which is now required in all regular courses.

30

VANDERBILT LAW

1924 – The first endowed funds dedicated to the Law School are received when the father of Archie Martin, who died suddenly after starting law school in 1923, endows a medal in his son’s honor. The Archie B. Martin Memorial Prize is still awarded each year.

1929 – Enrollment plummets to 83 students.

1957– Dean John Wade negotiates a Law School building as a condition for remaining at Vanderbilt after he is offered the deanship at Duke Law.

The Class of 1957 made its mark nationally and locally; members included Watergate prosecutor and defense attorney Jim Neal, labor and civil rights lawyer George Barrett, Federal Communications Commission Chair William Henry, Department of Agriculture General Counsel Jim Gilliland (BA’55), Judge Thomas Higgins of the Middle District of Tennessee, longtime Nashville D.A. Thomas Shriver (BA’55), John Jay Hooker, later a serial candidate for Tennessee governor, and Arnold Schickler (BA’55), founder of a New York-based corporate law firm.

“Neal, Barrett, and Higgins and many of their law school classmates viewed the law as an honorable profession—one that safeguarded an open and democratic society. To them, being a lawyer wasn’t just a job; it was both a civic obligation and an extension of one’s intellect.”

— “They Might Be Giants: How the Vanderbilt Law School Class of ‘57 Shaped a City,” by Matt Pulle, Nashville Scene, Feb. 14, 2002

Students moving the Law Library’s collection to the new building in the summer of 1962.

A moot court presentation in 1950: Frank Gilliland is presenting to “appellate judges” James H. Roberts, Henry McCall, and Abner McGehee. Seated (from left) are David Rutherford, Harold Dedman, and Sydney Keeble.

1947 – John Webster Wade joins the faculty in

1952 – John Wade is named Dean of

the same year that students found the Vanderbilt Law Review. He becomes faculty editor, responsible for all phrases of the publication, a year later. Paul Sanders, who served on the law faculty from 1948 to 1974, would later write, “Without question [John Wade] was the person most responsible for the firm and early establishment of the Vanderbilt Law Review as a nationally recognized major legal publication.”

Vanderbilt Law School. During his 20 years as VLS Dean, Wade builds a faculty of nationally renowned legal scholars who are also devoted and engaged classroom teachers and raises Vanderbilt’s profile to that of top-20 law school with national reach. Wade serves under Vanderbilt University Chancellor Harvie Branscomb.

1949 – The first honorees are inducted into

grant from the Ford Foundation to launch the Race Relations Reporter, a legal journal that printed statutes, court decisions, administrative rulings, and other legal developments dealing with race and civil rights. Professor Paul Sanders is named director, and the journal becomes as the only legal reporting service dealing exclusively with race relations. At the time the Reporter is established, Vanderbilt is forbidden to admit Black students by Tennessee state law.

The Reporter is published until 1972, when

the newly formed Vanderbilt chapter of the Order of the Coif. Thirty-seven graduates from prior years who would have been eligible for Coif membership return to Vanderbilt to attend the initiation ceremony. Vanderbilt University, under the leadership of Chancellor Harvie Branscomb, becomes the 36th member of the Association of American Universities, a move signifying its stature as a national university.

1950 – VLS offers 43 law classes.

1955 – Vanderbilt receives a $200,000

The Law School Building entrance in the early 1970s.

grant funding ends. Professor Ted Smedley later serves as its director.

1957 – Work with the Nashville Legal Aid Clinic is listed as an opportunity for upperlevel students to gain work experience for course credit.

1959 – Melvin Porter and Fred Work become VLS’s first two Black graduates. Porter returns home to Oklahoma City, where he later becomes the first Black man to serve in Oklahoma’s state senate, and Work moves to Gary, Indiana, where he practices law until his death in 2010.

1962 – The law school moves into its new building on 21st Avenue South, less than two years after the Vanderbilt Board of Trustees authorizes $1.1 million for its construction.

Building Chair Cecil Sims ‘14 is recognized

by Chancellor Harvie Branscomb at the building’s dedication on April 6, 1963, for four decades of leadership at VLS.

FALL 2023

31

Students in the lounge of the new Law School building in the early 1960s.

1962 – John S. Beasley II ’54 (BA’52) is named assistant dean and assistant professor

of law. Beasley becomes a recognized authority in oil and gas law but makes his mark on the Law School as Dean of Admissions, taking to the road in his Plymouth Fury to meet potential applicants nationwide. During fall 1963, Beasley and other VLS faculty visit 91 colleges and universities, most outside the Southeast, to recruit students. Wayne Hyatt ’68 (BA’65) becomes one of a group that fondly labelled themselves “Beasley’s bastards.”

When I graduated from Vanderbilt Law School in 1954, the Dutchman (Professor Paul Hartman) recruited me briefly to the spy trade. He was a secret big deal with the Office of Naval Intelligence, and for the next four years, I had a terrific experience as an air intelligence office all over the Far East.

After the Navy I practiced a little law before coming to work full time for Vanderbilt as Executive Secretary of the Alumni Association in 1959.

In 1962 the Dutchman called again, this time to sound me out on joining the law faculty (don’t laugh) and overseeing admissions. He’d had me in class, so I knew he wasn’t after my expertise in Creditors’ Rights. The Law School was moving from its cramped quarters on the third and fourth floors of Kirkland Hall to the new building that it would inhabit. John Wade had assembled a small but powerful faculty that included people like Paul Sanders, Herman Troutman, Tom Roady, and Ted Smedley, laced with luminaries like Elliott Cheatham and Eddie Morgan, and trailing a few gifted children like Bob Covington and Jim Kirby.

32

VANDERBILT LAW

Gil Merritt had just left when I arrived, and I was to pick up his briefcase and his pace.

The class that was graduated in 1962 had roughly 40 students, mostly from within 100 miles of Nashville. But the faculty was up to a great student body, the space was now at hand, and the school needed the intellectual, not to say the economic, stimulation that a great student body would provide. If Vanderbilt was going to be a national law school, it had to attract successfully on a national basis. The task we faced was the spread the seed, fertilize copiously, and harvest lots of grand students! ... The Dutchman, Paul Sanders, and I composed the first admissions committee for the class that would enter in 1963. ...Soon we were recruiting all around the eastern half of the United States. I took the New England schools, an annual three-week trip, and several other swings that included schools like Denison, Millsaps, Rhodes, and Sewanee.

I remember that first trip to Amherst. Dean Wade had said we might offer an Amherst student a full-tuition scholarship...and

let their pre-law advisor make the pick.

I broached this with the haughty faux Englishman who reluctantly saw me, and he asked me how much was our tuition. When I told him $830, he said incredulously, “You mean you wish to buy one of our students for $830?” I subsequently remembered the story told of Corning when it introduced Steuben Glass. No one bought it until they tripled the price, when it took off like a rocket. The next year we raised the tuition to $1,230. It didn’t help a lot of Amherst, but it certainly helped the budget.

Actually there was plenty to sell that was unique about Vanderbilt. The Ford Foundation had picked five universities around the country for major support, including Vanderbilt in the South. We told about a front-ranked Law Review, the Race Relations Law Reporter, a great moot court, an impressive and yet accessible faculty that included the King of Torts, and a oneto-one writing program that was and still is distinctive. We painted a city that had lots of music and other cultural attainments.

Above that, we had a student body that cared about each other rather than cutting one another’s throats.”

— John S. Beasley II, “Is It Granada I See, or Only Asbury Park?”

Beasley wrote this article for the Summer 1995 Vanderbilt Lawyer.

1972 – The Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law publishes its first issue with

the help of faculty director Harold G. Maier. The journal grew out of a Xeroxed bulletin, The Vanderbilt International, produced by students in the International Law Society starting in 1967. “The Law School procured its first Xerox machine in the fall of 1966. Without Xeroxing, The International would likely never have been born,” Maier later wrote. JTL’s debut occurs in same year that noted international law expert Jonathan I. Charney joins the faculty, giving Vanderbilt a creditable international law program.

In the fall of 1970, two angry law students came into my office. Charlie Burr and Steve Edmondson were seething. The results of the Law Review write-on had just come out, and neither had made the cut. Both had an interest in international legal studies, and both realized that membership on the Law Review was a virtual prerequisite to their obtaining positions with firms large enough to have an international specialization. They asked me if I had any objections to their trying to turn The International, which was a Xeroxed bulletin because we had no money for printing, into a ‘real’ law journal. Paul Sloan '72 had a summer clerkship that brought him into contact with a partner who represented the Clark Foundation, an organization interested in educational philanthropy and international affairs. One thing led to another, and Clark promised $1,500 to support the publication of one printed issue of a new journal at Vanderbilt to be called ‘The Journal of Transnational Law.’ The name was drawn from writings by Professor Phillip Jessup, then the United States judge on the International Court of Justice. ...Judge Jessup published one of his last articles in that first printed issue.”

— “Good Offices: A Reminiscent History,” by Harold G. Maier, published in the Spring 1992 Vanderbilt Lawyer

1973 – Sixty-two women enroll in VLS,

a jump from 38 in 1972, 24 in 1971, and 14 in 1970.

The Law School’s single women’s bathroom, which has one stall, is suddenly inadequate. Unsatisfied with a decision to allow female students to share a staff women’s room, female students commandeer the most centrally located men’s room in the law school building by putting a hand-lettered “Women” sign on the door. A twoweek stand-off ensues during which students of both genders use the facility before Dean Robert Knauss officially ratifies the conversion of the restroom for use by women.

A “high tech” classroom in the late 1960s.

Dec. 28, 1962 – Martin Luther King

1964 – Janie Greenwood Harris becomes

delivers an important speech, “The Ethical Demands of Integration,” in the Law School’s newly constructed Underwood Auditorium.

Dean John Wade’s decision to host the speech, part of a conference organized in the wake of Vanderbilt University’s expulsion of Divinity School student James Lawson, sparks a backlash from the university’s administration, which issues a memo stating that all requests for use of University facilities must be approved by the Board of Trust Executive Committee.

Vanderbilt’s first Black female law graduate.

1965 – The VLS student body votes overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution that publicly chastised the segregated Nashville Bar Association, which votes to admit Black attorneys the following month.

1966 – The Patrick Wilson Merit Scholarships are established through an endowment from the Justin and Valere Potter Foundation. The full-ride scholarships are awarded to five entering students after 15

students attend an interview weekend. Eight of the 10 prospective students who did not receive the Wilson Scholarship that year enroll in Vanderbilt Law School, a trend that would continue. The program was never endowed and ended in 1986.

1967 – Vanderbilt officially changes its law degree from the LL.B. to the J.D. and grants the degree to alumni retroactively. Almost half of Vanderbilt’s living alumni return to campus for the J.D. Investiture Ceremony in 1969, making it the largest gathering of living alumni in the law school’s history.

FALL 2023

33

The Law School added the North Atrium, with its four auditorium-style classrooms, and officially changed its name from Vanderbilt University School of Law to Vanderbilt University Law School as part of an expansion project led by Dean Kent Syverud (far left above), who joined Vanderbilt’s faculty as Dean in 1997.

Wayne Hyatt ’68 (BA’65) (far right, above) endowed the Hyatt Room as part of this renovation with his late wife, Amanda. When completed in 2002, the renovation project increased the Law School’s total square footage by 70 percent. Pictured right, the Law School as it appeared after the second expansion project launched in the late 1970s, which included the construction of the Alyne Queener Massey Law Library.

1968 – VLS launches programs through

1975 – Robert Belton, the Law School’s first

1986 – A $1.1 million bequest to Vanderbilt

which students provide legal assistance to indigents through local nonprofits and government law offices. By 1970, almost 100 law students are providing pro bono legal aid through the Legal Aid Society.

African-American faculty member, joins the faculty. A labor and employment expert and former litigator for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund noted for his role in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. and Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, Belton becomes the university’s first tenured Black professor in 1982.

Law School from the estate of Ucolo Collier Katzentine in honor of her husband, Arthur F. Katzentine ’24, is used as a founding endowment for the full-tuition John W. Wade Scholarship Program.

1968 – Martha Craig Daughtrey ’68 (BA’64) becomes the first woman appointed to a full-time faculty position at VLS. Daughtrey will later serve for 26 years as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, including 10 as a senior judge.

1971 – VLS’ average LSAT score reaches the 90th , and students come from 42 states and foreign countries.

1982 – The Law School building is significantly enlarged, and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor speaks at the dedication of the renovated and upgraded Alyne Queener Massey Law Library on Sept. 24. Professor Tom McCoy serves as faculty chair of the building committee.

1983 – Allaire Urban Karzon becomes the first female faculty member to be granted tenure.

34

VANDERBILT LAW

1993 – Mary Moody Wade, wife of the late Dean John Wade, is honored with the Law School’s Distinguished Service Award for helping to create and foster the school’s communal character through her care of faculty and student wives, entertaining visiting alumni and speakers, and standing in for the dean when he was out of town. “She was legendary. Her influence went much farther than being the Dean’s wife,” the late Jim Cheek ’67 said.

2002 – Under the leadership of Dean Kent Syverud, the Law School completes

a building renovation and expansion that adds the North Atrium classrooms and social and study spaces. The project increases total classroom square footage by 70 percent.

Working in the Law School Building during a major renovation had its perils, former administrative dean Don Welch recalls. Dean Kent Syverud was working in his office when a drill suddenly bored through the floor of his office, missing his foot by inches. Professor Jim Ely was working at his desk when a crane crashed through his window, leaving him unscathed but destroying his office furniture.

Faculty, students, and staff endured dust, noise, and inconsistent heat and air-conditioning. “We spent an inordinate amount of time planning and raising the funds for that renovation,” Welch said. “But the result—one of the best law school buildings in the country—was worth the short-term discomfort.”

Justices Sonia Sotomayor (far right), Stephen Breyer, and Sandra Day O’Connor are among the 11 Supreme Court Justices who have spoken at VLS through the Cecil Sims Lecture Series, endowed in 1972 in honor of Cecil Sims ’14. Justice O’Connor spoke at the 1982 dedication of the Alyne Queener Massey Law Library and returned in 2008, after her retirement, for a conversation with Professor Suzanna Sherry (above).

1995 – Under the leadership of Assistant

2001 – Randall Thomas is hired to lead the

Dean Kay Simmons, over $20 million in contributions, pledges, and bequests are raised by fall 1995 through a Capital Campaign, which also enables VLS to extend more scholarships to students, enlarge the faculty, and bolster the library’s collection.

Law and Business Program, which offers a Certificate in Law and Business and becomes one of the Law School’s most popular academic programs.

2001 – The LL.M. program admits five

1999 – VLS offers 146 law classes.

foreign attorneys to the Class of 2002. The program starts as a thesis-track program and expands in 2010 to offer a general LL.M. degree. Faculty Director Randall Thomas also adds the Law and Business Certificate track in 2010. The program reaches a pre-pandemic peak when 72 students are admitted in fall 2019 to the Class of 2020.

2000 – Suzanna Sherry becomes the first

2001 – The Vanderbilt in Venice study

women named to a faculty chair.

abroad program launches under the leadership of program director Randall Thomas. Now led by Professor of the

1998 – The Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment Law and Practice is launched. It is later renamed the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law.

Practice of Law Mike Newton, the popular program allows students to take upper-level international law electives before they start their 2L year.

2003 – Nancy J. King and Rebecca Brown become the first two women to rise through the faculty ranks and receive endowed chair appointments.

2005 – J.D. enrollment reaches a peak at 641 students, an increase of almost 50 percent from 1970. The school begins reduce the size of the J.D. class to maintain its historical advantages of small class sizes and personal attention.

FALL 2023

35

2010 – Nashville receives an unprecedented

14-inch rainfall within 36 hours. Dean Chris Guthrie finds that standing water in the law school basement was the least of his worries. “Some faculty, staff, and students were forced to evacuate their homes or trapped in them until flood waters receded,” he writes in a 2010 message to alumni. “While Nashville and Vanderbilt face a difficult period of clean-up and recovery, I have never been as proud of the Vanderbilt Law community as I am this week. ...As Dean, it’s become particularly important to me that our students appreciate the tremendous importance of community service and community leadership. The individual acts of generosity and kindness I’ve witnessed during this extremely stressful week tell me that all members of the Vanderbilt Law community not only share but live these values.”

Joseph Kimok ‘10 recruited VLS classmates to help with clean-up after his home and those of his neighbors are inundated by flooding on May 3, 2010.

The flooding occurs during final exams.

“I woke up to the sound of water bubbling up through the vents in my floor. In the 10 minutes it took for me to put on pants, shoes, and socks, and grab my wallet and my dog Oscar, the water had risen to my knees.

When Oscar and I got out into my street, Delray Drive had become a bustling river. With the water now at chest-high level, I carried Oscar to safety. When my neighbors and I returned to our homes the next day, the devastation was unimaginable. ...My car had floated to my neighbor’s yard and was completely destroyed.”

— Joseph Kimok ’10

2005 – Dean Ed Rubin works with faculty to build on the successful Law and Business Program model by developing additional academic programs. The Cecil D. Branstetter Program in Litigation and Dispute Resolution is launched with funding from a cy pres settlement and named in honor of Cecil D. Branstetter ’49. The International Legal Studies Program is also established, followed by programs focusing on Energy, Environment, and Land Use, Intellectual Property, Law and Government, Social Justice, and Criminal Justice.

2006 – Vanderbilt launches the J.D./Ph.D. in Law and Economics program, co-directed

by University Distinguished Professor W. Kip

36

VANDERBILT LAW

Viscusi and Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Law Joni Hersch. The program’s first graduates include Jennifer Bennett Shinall JD/PhD’12, who joins the VLS faculty after graduation. The program admits one to three students each year and has graduated 20 students as of 2023.

2008 – Nicholas S. Zeppos becomes the first former law faculty member to serve as Chancellor of Vanderbilt University. Zeppos had joined the law faculty in 1987 and received five teaching awards before moving into university administration. He steps down as chancellor in 2019, rejoins the law faculty in 2020, and retires after receiving a 2021 HallHartman Outstanding Teaching Award.

2014 – VLS and the Owen Graduate School of Management launch the J.D./Masters in Finance program as a three-year dual-degree program.

2015 – The Social Justice Program is named in honor of pioneering civil rights attorney George “Citizen” Barrett ’57 in 2015 through an endowment gift from Darren Robbins ’93.

Dean Chris Guthrie works with Professor J.B. Ruhl to launch the Program in Law & Innovation, a practice-oriented program anchored in Ruhl’s upper-level course, Law 2050.

Staff worked throughout summer 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, to enable VLS to safely offer in-person classes to incoming 1Ls in fall 2021.

Professor Jim Blumstein was one of several professors who taught classes in the Alyne Queener Massey Law Library, which was converted into a classroom, and many halls and stairways were designated one-way-only to support social distancing.

VLS welcomed 168 J.D. students to the Class of 2026 on August 14.

Members of the class hail from 37 states, Washington, D.C., and Canada.

Sources

2020 – The global Covid-19 pandemic

2022 – VLS completes a major internal

forces all Vanderbilt schools to move classes online at Spring Break. Faculty and staff work frantically over the summer so VLS can offer in-person classes incoming 1Ls in 2020–21 while providing adequate social distancing.

The library is converted into a classroom, with professors lecturing from the atrium to students on all three stories.

renovation funded by a $10 million gift from Justin Ishbia ’04, which creates a new, integrated Student Services suit that houses Career Services and the Student Affairs office.

2022-23 – With support from the Public Interest Office and George Barrett Social Justice Program, students launch the Social Justice Reporter, a new online journal.

2021 - Martin Brown ’92 endows the Sally

2023 – The Weaver Family Program in law,

Shallenberger Brown Energy, Environment, and Land Use Fund to support a significant expansion of the EELU Program.

Brain Sciences, and Behavior becomes the Law School’s first research program, and Owen Jones, who holds the Glenn M. Weaver, M.D., and Mary Ellen Weaver Chair in Law, Brain, and Behavior, as director.

• The Vanderbilt Law School: Aspirations and Realities, by D. Don Welch, a detailed history of Vanderbilt Law School published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2012.

• Back issues of The Reporter, The Vanderbilt Lawyer, and Vanderbilt Law alumni magazines published between 1978 and 2020.

• Vanderbilt Law School online news archives.

• “They Might Be Giants: How the Vanderbilt Law Class of ’57 Shaped the City,” by Matt Pulle, Nashville Scene, Feb. 14, 2002.

• “Cherokee and Chicasaw Students at Vanderbilt, 1885 to 1899,” an exhibit curated by Daniel J. Sharfstein at the Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University, fall 2023.

• Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt Law School photography archives.

FALL 2023

37

Founders Circle Dinner 2023: Honoring Weldon Wilson ’86 and Professor Jim Blumstein Weldon Wilson ’86 was honored as the 2023 Distinguished Alumnus and University Distinguished Professor James F. Blumstein with the Distinguished Service Award at the Founders Circle dinner on April 20. Weldon founded a successful reinsurance company before his retirement. A long-time supporter, Weldon established a VLS scholarship, served on the Law School Board of Advisors, including two years as President, hosted alumni events, and assisted with student recruitment efforts. He and his wife Elaine live in New York City, where they contribute their time and resources to a range of charitable causes in New York and Connecticut. Jim has over 53 years of service on the VLS faculty. He ranks among the nation’s most prominent and influential scholars of health law, law and medicine, voting rights, and constitutional law. He is a director of the Vanderbilt Health Policy Center, Professor of Management at Owen, and a revered VLS professor who has taught Con Law to generations of VLS students.

38

VANDERBILT LAW

CLASS NOTES 1977

The J. Michael Campbell Scholarship has been established in honor of Mike Campbell (BE’65) with an endowment commitment of $1 million. Mike has practiced real estate law in Atlanta since 1972 and formed Campbell & Brannon with partner Camille Brannon in 1998.

Pat Mulloy (BA’75) was named to the newly created positions of Deputy Mayor for Economic Development for Louisville, Ky., by Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg. In his new role, Pat oversees Louisville’s Cabinet for Economic Development, which includes the Department of Economic Development, Office of Housing and Community Development, Codes and Regulations, and an Office of Planning.

1971 Bob King is serving as Interim President of the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Fla., a position to which he was appointed in June 2022. Bob served three terms in the New York State Assembly before serving as Chancellor of the State University of New York and as president of the Kentucky Council for Postsecondary Education. He served as Assistant Secretary for Post-Secondary Education in the U.S. Department of Education from 2019 to 2020.

1973 Wilson A. Copeland II was honored with the Civility Award, which recognizes those who exemplify the highest levels of professionalism, competence, civility, and ethics, by the Michigan chapter of American Board of Trial Advocates.

Wilson is a partner with Grief Copeland & Williams in Detroit.

1972

SUBMIT T E D

1968

1979 Judy Bond-McKissack (BA’76) retired from service with the Tennessee Supreme Court as Executive Director of the Tennessee Commission on Continuing Legal Education in January 2022. Judy had served in the role since January 2011 and served the State of Tennessee in various capacities for 30 years.

1982 Deborah Taylor Tate retired from serving as Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts for the Tennessee Supreme Court, where she had served since 2015, in January 2022. Debi is credited with

1991

Mark Wildasin is serving as U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee.

He was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in March 2022. modernization of the Tennessee court system, child welfare reforms, and innovative national pilot projects that included the implementation of 12 Safe Baby Courts and a “Justice Bus” to deliver legal and other support service to rural communities.

1984 Paul Ney, JD/MBA, joined Momentus Inc. as Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary. Paul served as general counsel to the Department of Defense from 2018 to 2021.

1987 Dianna Baker Shew is Chief Deputy of the Tennessee Office of Attorney General, where she oversees the substantive legal work of all four sections of the office.

1989 Lonnie T. Brown Jr. began serving as Dean of the University of Tennessee College of Law and Elvin E. Overton Distinguished Professor of Law in July 2022. Lonnie had previously served as associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Georgia School of Law, where he had taught since 2002.

He practiced law with Alston & Bird in Atlanta for eight years before entering the academy.

1991

Ashley Wiltshire published a memoir, Everyday Justice, chronicling the history of the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands, where he worked for 37 years and served for decades as executive director before retiring in 2007. Ashley signed copies of his book and discussed the challenges of providing legal services for indigent clients with Miles Malbrough’22 and 2023 VLS graduates Justin Brooks, Karalyn Berman, Divya Bhat and Victoria Mayhall on Feb. 27.

Adolpho Birch III was appointed by the Tennessee Supreme Court to serve on the Access to Justice Commission.

Adolpho is Senior Vice President of Business Affairs and Chief Legal Officer for the Tennessee Titans.

1993 Jessie Zeigler was elected to the board of directors for the International Associate of Defence Counsel. Jessie is a member of Bass Berry & Sims in Nashville.

1995 Stephen R. Kaufman was promoted to the rank of Colonel in the U.S. Air Force. Steve is an assistant U.S. attorney in Charlotte, N.C. He served in the JAG Corps for four years and has served in the Air Force reserve for 23 years.

Kim Seymour was named Chief Operating Officer at Etsy in 2022.

1996 Joseph Peterson is Managing Partner of Kilpatrick Townsend’s Silicon Valley office.

Monique Winkler is Regional Director of the San Francisco office of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

1992

Courtney Stout is Chief Privacy Officer at The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, which she joined in 2021 after 4 years at S&P Global. Courtney was included in Global Data Review’s 2022 Women in Data list.

1997 Jennie Menzie is President and CEO of Cumberland Trust in Nashville.

Joe Gette is Deputy General Counsel and Secretary at PPG in Pittsburgh, Penn.

FALL 2023

39

CLASS NOTES

1998

2002

2006

2017

Elizabeth Gray is a founding partner of Gray Ice Higdon, an intellectual property firm in Louisville, Kentucky.

Laina Reinsmith Hammond is Managing Director and a co-founder of Validity Finance, a U.S.-based commercial litigation funder.

Matthew McCarthy is Chief Legal Officer and Secretary for U.S. Bancorp Investments in Minneapolis.

Tiffany Burba (MSF’17) was recognized as the inaugural Intellectual Property Section Member of the Year by the North Carolina Bar Association. She is an associate with Parker Poe in Raleigh.

Anne Marie Seibel started her term as chair of the ABA Litigation Section in August 2023.

2000

2007

Katherine Knight is Chief Legal Office, Human Resources and Corporate Governance, at Mitsubishi Motors North America in Nashville.

Ashley Ebersole is General Counsel at Ox Labs, a finance software firm in San Francisco.

Jeffrey Baker is Associate Dean of Clinical Education and Global Programs at the Caruso School of Law at Pepperdine University.

Todd Overman is the Managing Partner of Bass Berry & Sims.

2009

2003

Nick Lynton is Chief Legal and Privacy Officer at Cardytics, Inc. in Atlanta.

Derek P. Linde is Chief Operating Officer, General Counsel and Secretary of Viad Corp. in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Judge Jeffrey Usman was appointed to the Tennessee Court of Appeals, Middle Division, in May 2022.

Judge J. Logan Murphy sits on the 13th Judicial Circuit of Tampa, Florida.

2001

2004

Courtney Urschel spoke about her work as Deputy Chief of the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Sectin of the Department of Justice in a March 24 talk co-sponsored by the Woman Law Students Association and the International Law Society.

Courtney’s government service also includes prosecuting terrorism and counterespionage in the U.S. Attorneys and serving as Deputy Director of the Division of Investigations at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Meredith Werner is a founder of Werner Ahari Mangel, a new national boutique law firm in Washington, D.C.

2005 Ryan Buchanan is the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.

Auste Graham is General Counsel and Secretary at Alto Ingredients in Chicago.

Rachana Desai Martin is Chief Government and External Relations Officer at the Center for Reproductive Rights in Washington, D.C. She previously served in the Biden administration as an assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Labor.

2018 Kevin Coker is CEO of Restoring Justice in Houston. He was previously an assistant public defender in Nashville.

Nicholas R. Nash is Company Secretary at Boart Longyear Group in Salt Lake City, Utah.

2011

Have you moved, changed jobs, or married?

Andrew Connor has founded Connor Law, a consumer protection firm in Charleston, South Carolina.

Lauren Kilgore was listed by Billboard Magazine as a 2023 Top Music Lawyer.

2015

Let us know!

Update your contact info using this QR code.

Cyle Catlett was selected for the 2023 Leadership Counsel on Legal Diversity Fellows and Pathfinders program and the National Employment Law Council Academy. Kyle is an associate at Littler.

2023 Social Justice Fellows Vanessa Demaral is representing unaccompanied minors facing deportation as a fellow in the Immigrant Justice Corps.

Demaral

Dimnwaobi

Jane Dimnwaobi is representing clients in Medicaid benefit denials at the Tennessee Justice Center as an Equal Justice Works Fellow.

Samantha Hunt is working at A Better Balance, a New York-based legal nonprofit, as an Equal Justice Works Fellow advocating for students who are pregnant or parenting.

Madison Lowery is helping formerly incarcerated clients navigate re-entry as a George Barrett Social Justice Fellow at the Tennessee Innocence Project.

Hunt

40

VANDERBILT LAW

Lowery

IN MEMORIAM

SUBM IT T ED

Emil William Henry of Memphis, Tenn.

Jan.21, 2022. Bill served as chair of the Federal Communications Commission from 1963-66 after his appointment

by Pres. John F. Kennedy and later as chair of the U.S. Advanced Television Standards Committee and trustee for PBS and WETA-FM.

1973 James Warren Bradford, Dean Emeritus of the Owen Graduate School of Management, July 27, 2023. Jim joined the Owen faculty in 2003 after a successful career as a corporate CEO and general counsel. He served as Owen’s Dean from 2005 until his retirement in 2013. “Jim loved business and he loved academia. He was that rare mix of business executive and scholar,” said Owen Dean-Emeritus Eric Johnson.

1974 John Louis Ryder of Memphis, Tenn., May 15, 2022. John was an expert in election law who served as General Counsel to the Republican National Committee from 2013 to 2017. He was a delegate or active participant at every Republican National Convention between 1984 and 2016 and taught Election Law as a member of the VLS adjunct faculty. He was a partner at Harris Shelton in Memphis.

1971 Judge C. Roger Vinson of Pensacola, Fla., April 1, 2023.

Roger served on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida and was chief judge from 1997 to 2004.

A native of Cadiz, Kentucky, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1962 and served as a naval aviator until 1968. He was a Patrick Wilson Scholar at Vanderbilt and practiced law for 12 years before taking the bench.

Dean C. Dent Bostick of Nashville, Jan. 8, 2023. Dean Bostick was named acting dean in 1979 and served as Dean from 1980 to 1985. He served on Vanderbilt’s law faculty from 1968 to 1992. He served as associate dean and director of admissions from 1975 to 1979. Dean Bostick led a significant expansion of the original Law School building. He hosted U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who spoke at the dedication of the Alyne Queener Massey Law Library in 1984, and the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who dined at his Nashville home.

Dean Bostick was distinguished by his Savile Row style of dress, his old-style manners, and his sharp-edged wit.

OBITS 1958 Judge William W. Bivins of Gilbert, Az., June 2, 2022; Federico RodriguezPagan of Mayaguez, P.R., May 12, 2022 1959 Joe D. Matheny of Titusville, Fla., Aug. 30, 2022 1960 John B. Maxwell Jr. of Memphis, Tenn., Jan. 22, 2022

SUBMIT T E D

1957

1961 James Edward Holmes (BE’55) of Tampa, Fla., March 26, 2022; Thomas Lawwell of Columbia, Tenn., Feb. 12, 2022; James H. Woodson (BA’55) of Birmingham, Ala., June 30, 2022

1968 Alan S. Cooper (BA’64) of Louisville, Ky., May 11, 2022; Barney Brooks Regen of Dickson, Tenn., May 23, 2022; Ogden Stokes (MS’62) of Nashville, Feb. 1, 2022

1962 Alexander Porter Looney, March 17, 2022

1971 Scott Lucillious Kirkpatrick III (BA’68) of Memphis, Tenn., Sept. 18, 2022

1963 Judge W. Baldwin Ogden of Ada, Mich., April 25, 2022

1972 Bruce Weaver of Houston, Tex., Feb. 5, 2022

1964 William F. McGowan of Tampa, Fla., Sept. 11, 2022

1973 Robert W. Sullivan of Fort Mill, S.C., May 2, 2022

1965 Judge Sidney H. McCollum of, Little Rock, Ark., April 13, 2022; Kenneth W. Sain of Lincolnwood, Ill., June 18, 2022

1974 Ralph Crandall Oser of Arlington, Vir., Jan. 26, 2022; Colby Shannon Morgan Jr. of Memphis, Tenn., May 24, 2022

1966 Robins H. Ledyard (BA’65) of Nashville, Jan. 21, 2022; James Monroe of Kingwood, Tex., March 2, 2023; David Thomas Moody (BA’63) of Jacksonville, Fla., Sept. 14, 2022

1978 Steven Craig Grosland of Elgin, Ill., May 1, 2022

1967 Anna Carylon Fox Hinds of Knoxville, Tenn., May 25, 2022

1985 David Dallas Willoughby of Atlanta, April 9, 2022 2009 Carsten Rauch of Frankfurt, Germany, LL.M., May 2023. Survived by his wife, Rita Thomas, JD’09

SU BMITTED

1979 Roy Herron, JD’79, MDiv’80, of Dresden, Tenn., died July 9 of injuries sustained in a jetski accident. Roy served a combined 26 years in the Tennessee House and Senate and chaired the state Democratic Party from 2013 to 2015. A dedicated public servant beloved by constituents and colleagues on both sides of the aisle, Roy is survived by his wife, Nancy Carol MillerHerron, JD/MDiv’83, and their three sons.

1981 Robert Clive Marks Sr. of Spring Hill, Tenn., March 27, 2022; Roger A. Milam of Nashville, Jan. 17, 2023

FALL 2023

41

Congratulations, J.D. & LL.M. Classes of 2023!

Molly Teague received the Founder’s Medal for First Honors as we celebrated the Commencement of 200 J.D. amd 42 LL.M. graduates in the Class of 2023 on May 12. Scott Jeffrey and Zachary Sturman also received Ph.D.s in Law and Economics; 6 graduates also received an M.S. in Finance, and 3 earned JD/MBAs. Professor Daniel J. Sharfstein delivered an inspiring Commencement address.

42

VANDERBILT LAW

FALL 2023

43

Dear alumni and friends:

By Clay Cline

I

t’s been a genuine pleasure to meet and work with many of you during my six years at the Law School, and I’m grateful for the generous support so many of you have shown since I stepped into the role of Assistant Dean for Development and Alumni Relations last fall. I’m glad that the Law School and I will continue to benefit from the talents and leadership of Scotty Mann, whose responsibilities have expanded significantly across campus.

This is an exciting year for VLS. We are celebrating our sesquicentennial as a university and a Law School in the same year that Vanderbilt launched our forward-looking Dare to Grow campaign. Thanks to your generosity, we are well on our way to meeting the Law School’s goal of $195 million. Notable gifts kick-started the Law School’s campaign launch, including $11.5 million in gifts from Justin Ishbia ’04; a $3.85 million gift from Ellen Weaver and the Weaver Foundation; a $1 million gift from Martin ’92 and Cathy (BA ’86, MBA’90) Brown; a $17.5 million bequest by 2023 Distinguished Alumnus Award winner Weldon Wilson ’86; and other major gifts from

44

VANDERBILT LAW

donors who prefer to remain anonymous, but whose support will also have a lasting and positive impact on students and faculty and secure our school’s strong future.

I invite you to join me, Dean Guthrie, and these generous alumni as we Dare to Grow by supporting the Law School in a way that is most meaningful to you. Your support is essential to such Law campaign priorities as scholarships, endowed faculty chairs, new and expanded academic programs, and support for students pursuing public interest careers, and we need your help to achieve our ambitious campaign goal.

We are fortunate to have many capable volunteers working with us to support fundraising, host events, and help VLS graduates stay connected through their work as class agents, firm reps, and Reunion volunteers.

I want to extend a special thank you to our Campaign Cabinet and Board of Advisors members for their significant contributions of time and resources to the Law School. As Dean John Costonis said in 1995, “It’s a pleasure to deal with our Law School alumni because they enjoyed their time here, and they love the place.” This sentiment is as true today as it was 30 years ago.

Our Board of Advisors continues to advocate for the school, provide wise counsel to Dean Guthrie and other leaders, and supply resources that ensure our growth. I am grateful that JP Motley JD/MBA ’99, Partner-in-Charge of Cooley in Los Angeles, will serve as president of our Board for the next two years. JP talks

candidly about his Vanderbilt experience in this edition of Vanderbilt Law, including his inspiration for endowing a scholarship in honor of his grandmother. I also extend my sincere thanks to Jim Cuminale ’78, who provided capable leadership, serving an extended term as our Board president as we navigated the Covid-19 pandemic.

Returning to the normal cadence of events has deepened my appreciation for the joy of our community coming together for events like Reunion, our BLSA Alumni Dinner in March, and our Founders Circle Dinner in April. I urge you to join us for upcoming campaign events in your area, to return to campus for Reunion and other events, and to consider joining the Founders Circle with an annual gift of $2,500 or more ($1,000 during the first 10 years following graduation). I’m grateful for your involvement, engagement, gifts, and service, and I look forward to working with you on behalf of our outstanding students, accomplished faculty, and strong community as we Dare to Grow!

Sincerely yours, Clay Cline

Assistant Dean for Development and Alumni Relations

A university of courage. Vanderbilt University was created to unite a fractured country through civil discourse, rigorous inquiry and big-picture thinking—values more crucial than ever today.

Now, 150 years after our founding, we’re committed to bold new levels of achievement through Dare to Grow, a $3.2 billion campaign—the largest fundraising effort in our history.

At the Law School, we are harnessing this ambition through our commitment to expanding access for talented students from all backgrounds. In addition to our robust merit scholarships, Access2VLS, a first-of-its-kind program, aims to reduce barriers to legal education by meeting students’ financial need with scholarships. Both types of support are vital to cultivating an environment that empowers students to pursue careers that align with their passions and interests.

Dare to grow. Giving to scholarships is one way to join us on our quest to empower our bright and enterprising students. Be a part of Vanderbilt University’s courageous future.

Volunteer. Participate. Give.

Visit our website and learn about all the ways you can help propel Vanderbilt University and the Law School into our next 150 years. vu.edu/daretogrow

FALL 2023

45

131 21st Avenue South Nashville, TN 37203

In compliance with federal law, including the provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972, Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, the ADA Amendments Act of 2008, Executive Order 11246, the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 as amended by the Jobs for Veterans Act, and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, as amended, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008, Vanderbilt University does not discriminate against individuals on the basis of their race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, military service, covered veterans status, or genetic information in its administration of educational policies, programs, or activities; admissions policies; scholarship and loan programs; athletic or other university-administered programs; or employment. In addition, the university does not discriminate against individuals on the basis of their gender expression consistent with the university’s nondiscrimination policy. Inquiries or complaints should be directed to Anita J. Jenious, J.D., Director; Equal Employment Opportunity Office; Baker Building; PMB 401809, 2301 Vanderbilt Place; Nashville, TN 37240-1809. Telephone (615) 343-9336; FAX (615) 343-4969.

Coming in 2024!

Experience the Excitement in a City Near You Miami | Dallas | Atlanta | Los Angeles | San Francisco