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The University of Virginia School of Law has recently added 17 high-profile academics as faculty members. In the last six months, the University of Virginia has hired Danielle Citron, Rachel Bayefefsky, Payvand Ahdout, Mitu Gulati, Jay Butler, Kimberly Krawiec, Craig Konnoth, David Law, Bertrall Ross, and Joy Milligan. Two of them have joined the faculty on the tenure track and the remaining have made lateral moves with most of them joining the faculty this summer.
These recent additions include former Rhodes Scholars and United States Supreme Court clerks, and emerging academics. The diverse group of the new faculty members includes seven people of color and nine women. These appointments come after the additions made to the faculty in the past school year including professors Kristen Eichensehr, Naomi Cahn, Thomas Frampton, Richard Re, Megan Stevenson, Cathy Hwang, and Lawrence Solum.
Professor Payvand Ahdout has formerly worked as a clerk at the United States Supreme Court for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and as an attorney at the Justice Department. Ahdout was a Bristow Fellow in the Solicitor General’s Office at the United States Department of Justice. She has also worked as a litigator at a New York-based law firm and has held an academic fellowship at the New York University Law School. She completed her graduation from Columbia Law School and has held fellowships there for the last two years with a focus on modern Federal Courts.
Professor Rachel Bayefsky, who will join the faculty as an associate professor in the fall, has most recently worked as an attorney with Akin Gump in Washington, District of Columbia, where she handled Supreme Court and appellate cases. During her law practice, among other cases, she has represented Native American tribes, served as lead counsel in a Federal Circuit appeal for Veterans’ Claims, and briefed bankruptcy-related issues. Before working as an attorney for the firm, Bayefsky served as a clerk at the United States Supreme Court for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. She completed her graduation from Yale Law School and has an interest in how courts address concepts including intangible harms and dignity.
Professor Jay Butler, who has an interest in international law and corporate social responsibility, will join the faculty in the fall. He has served as an associate professor at William & Mary Law School, a teaching fellow at Columbia Law School, and has taught as a visitor at the George Washington University Law School and Yale Law School. Butler was awarded the Lieber Prize in 2018 by the American Society of International law in 2018 for his paper “Amnesty for Even the Worst Offenders”. He is a Rhodes Scholar who completed his bachelor’s degree in history before earning a bachelor’s in jurisprudence from Oxford University. He completed his J.D. from Yale Law School.
Professor Naomi Cahn, a recognized scholar in the fields of family law, feminist jurisprudence, and trusts and estates, will join the faculty in the fall. Since 1993, she has been a faculty member of the George Washington University Law School. She won the Harry Krause Lifetime Achievement in Family Law Award from the University of Illinois College of Law and has co-authored the casebook “Contemporary Family Law”. She completed her J.D. from Columbia Law School and her undergraduate degree from Princeton University.
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Professor Danielle Citron is a leading law professor in the field of data privacy and has assisted now-Vice President Kamala Harris in combating nonconsensual pornography. She is the first Jefferson Scholars Foundation Schenck Distinguished Professor in Law and received a 2019 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for her work in intimate privacy and cyberstalking. In 2013, Citron helped in founding the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, and her book, “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace” was published by Harvard University Press in 2014. The book was named one of the “20 Best Moments for Women” by Cosmopolitan magazine. During her time advising Vice President Kamala Harris, Citron also served briefly on the Attorney General’s Cyber Exploitation Task Force. She also served as a clerk at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York for two years after completing her graduation from Fordham University School of Law.
Professor Kristen Eichensehr, an national security law expert, will join the faculty as a tenured professor. She has previously served as a clerk for Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Sandra Day O’Connor at the United States Supreme Court. She has also served as a special assistant to the United States State Department Office of the Legal Advisor. She was also an attorney at Washington, District of Columbia-based firm Covington & Burlington where she focused her practice on international and national security law, cybersecurity issues, and appellate litigation. She won the 2018 Mike Lewis Prize for National Security Law Scholarship and has published in several law journals. She also served as the executive editor of the Yale Law Journal and completed her graduation from Yale Law School.
Professor Cathy Hwang is an expert in business law and will join the University of Virginia School of Law faculty in the fall. She has served as an associate professor at the University of Utah and her articles have been recognized as top securities and corporate articles. She has also previously worked as an associate for a New York City-based law firm where she primarily worked on mergers and acquisitions. Before joining the University of Utah, Hwang also served as a fellow at Stanford Law School’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance. She completed her education at Pomona College and University of Chicago Law School.
Professor Richard Re, who is an expert in criminal procedure, constitutional law, and federal procedure will join the University of Virginia School of Law faculty. He has previously served as a professor of law at the University of California in Los Angeles. He has also clerked for the then United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh and for Justice Anthony Kennedy on the United States Supreme Court. He practiced law at a Washington, District of Columbia-based law firm and also served as an attorney in the Criminal Appellate Section of the Department of Justice. Re completed a bachelor’s degree in social studies from Harvard University and completed his graduation from Yale Law School.
Professor Thomas Frampton has experience in criminal law and constitutional procedure. He has been a Climenko Fellow at Harvard Law School where he was a lecturer and taught legal research and writing. He had also maintained a pro bono law practice in Louisiana. He also served as a public defender at Orleans Public Defenders where he focused on race and justice-related problems including jury fairness. He served as a clerk to Judge Diane P. Wood of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He completed his graduation from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and will teach criminal law and criminal procedure to first-year students at the University of Virginia School of Law.
Dean Risa Goluboff, while explaining the hiring process at the Law School, said, “Our appointments committee and our faculty have worked tirelessly over the past several years to bring supremely talented and diverse scholars and teachers to our already stellar faculty. Our new and incoming faculty are either already academic superstars or superstars in the making – highly influential voices in their fields whose scholarship will have an impact at UVA Law, both inside and outside of the classroom, and well beyond it.”
Fellow legal professors from other law schools have also commented on the University’s hires. Northwestern School of Law’s Paul Gowder wrote on Twitter, ”HOW IS @RisaGoluboff doing it? Did she sell her soul at a crossroads, Robert Johnson-style, for the unholy power to recruit amazing faculty?”. Further, Rutgers Law School’s David Noll tweeted, “Soon, there will be a single U.S. law school–@UVALaw–and people will talk about other schools the way we talk about “independent” bookstores.”
