James Comey
It is an honor and a thrill to be back here in a community I love at a school that made such a difference in my life and that still feels like home to me. I want to offer just very briefly one reflection from my career in government, then a piece of advice about public service.
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W. H. Bryson *
Professor Helmholz writes with knowledge and authority on the use of natural law in the courts of law in early modern Europe, England, and the United States. This necessarily includes a discussion of the teaching of natural law to the students who would in due course practice in those courts and sit on those benches.[1] It is apparent that natural law was not taught in the schools of law systematically, as it was in the schools of philosophy and theology.
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Rob Poggenklass *
In November 2011, a trooper from the Virginia State Police pulled over a car on Interstate 95 near Emporia, Virginia, for traffic violations.[2] The trooper, who alleged that the driver was both traveling 86 mph in a 70 mph zone and following another vehicle too closely, never issued a citation or pressed charges against either of the two men inside the car.[3] Instead, the trooper seized $28,500 in cash.[4] Lawyers for Victor Guzman, the passenger in the car, had to convince a U.S. Attorney that the money consisted of cash donations to help build a church in El Salvador.[5] Guzman and his brother-in-law, the driver, were transporting the funds to Atlanta at the church’s request when the trooper stopped them.[6] The trooper had not accepted their attempts to explain the situation, in part because they said—honestly and accurately—that the money was not their own. Four months later, in March 2012, federal immigration authorities finally cut a $28,500 check to the church, returning the money seized by state police.[7]
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Kevin C. Walsh *
Before President John Adams appointed him as Chief Justice of the United States in 1801, John Marshall was a soldier, a state legislator, a federal legislator, an envoy to France, and the Secretary of State.[1] He also maintained a thriving practice in Virginia and federal courts, occasionally teaming up with political rival and personal friend Patrick Henry. Forty-five years old at the time of his appointment to the Supreme Court, Marshall had been serving his state and his country for a quarter century before he took judicial office.
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Robert Luther III *
Many law reviews are only open to the top 10% of the class or to students who excel in a writing competition.[1] While a high percentage of law schools now have at least one journal in addition to the law review, the reality is that well over half of the students enrolled in law school today do not have the opportunity to serve as a law review or journal staff member. Without that experience, those students-turned-lawyers who wish to publish legal scholarship after graduation are left in the dark about where to begin the process. I was one of those individuals, but over the last eight years, I have regularly published legal scholarship. Recently, my former students and other young attorneys have started asking me for advice. This essay—directed at emerging scholars who seek to publish their scholarship shortly after entering the legal profession—is a compilation of the advice I have shared.
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Carl Tobias *
Scholars and politicians who closely track the federal judicial selection process appreciate that confirmations slow and ultimately halt over presidential election years, a phenomenon which has greater salience in a chief executive’s last administration. That policy comprises numerous strands.
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Dean Wendy Collins Perdue *
The last five years have been difficult ones for American legal education. With applications to law schools declining 40% nationally, many schools are struggling to maintain quality in the face of significant budgetary pressures. But one component of the legal-education world has been robust: there is a boom market in books, articles, reports, websites, and blogs filled with criticism and even anger at the current state of legal education.
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Jennifer E. Wuebker *
Firms pursuing growth strategies often perceive mergers and acquisitions as the most efficient means to obtain additional resources and increase firm value. But who decides which firm to acquire and when? And what factors motivate this decision?
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P. Thomas DiStanislao III
Carter R. Nichols
In the spring of 1958, William T. Muse, Dean of the T.C. Williams School of Law, introduced the first volume of the University of Richmond Law Notes by stating that it was “purposefully a modest beginning,” which he hoped would “be of some value to lawyers of Virginia.”[1] As the University of Richmond Law Review celebrates its fiftieth volume, we hope to undertake a similar endeavor by launching our Online Edition.
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