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Law@Vanderbilt Newsletter [Vanderbilt University]
September 2021
Dear alumni and friends:

It was such a pleasure to welcome 154 students to the J.D. Class of 2024 and 54 students to the LL.M. Class of 2022 during Orientation Week Aug. 9–13. Our faculty, students and staff returned to campus when classes began, excited to see each other and eager to meet our 1L and LL.M. classes. We continue to navigate the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, but I am confident that the health and safety protocols Vanderbilt University has implemented will allow us to maintain our high standard for classroom instruction. We can also host many of the annual lecture series, panel discussions, Blackacre socials, and other extracurricular activities that introduce students to great lawyers and scholars and allow them to meet each other and form lifelong friendships.

Three faculty members received well-deserved appointments to endowed chairs this summer, including two to newly endowed chairs! Terry Maroney is the first holder of the Robert S. and Theresa L. Reder Chair in Law, endowed by Professor of the Practice of Law Bob Reder ’78, who teaches on our Law and Business faculty, and his wife, Terri Reder. Rob Mikos is the first holder of the LaRoche Family Chair in Law, endowed by the LaRoche Family Foundation in honor of three generations of LaRoche family members who attended Vanderbilt Law School, including foundation trustee Ted LaRoche ’70. Ganesh Sitaraman was appointed to the New York Alumni Chancellor’s Chair in Law, established in 1997 by a generous group of Vanderbilt Law alumni. A chair appointment recognizes faculty for their career accomplishments, and I invite you to read about their impactful work and teaching.

I am also pleased that Lisa Bressman, who holds a David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair in Law, has returned to serve as associate dean for academic affairs for a second term. Lisa previously served in this position from 2010 to 2016, and I appreciate her willingness to serve again in this vital leadership role. She will provide invaluable support as we work together to navigate these challenging times.

Vanderbilt has made the difficult decision to postpone Reunion Weekend until 2022. Although we were looking forward to celebrating in October, COVID-19 made this change of plans necessary. While this is disappointing, the health and safety of our campus, alumni and guests remain a top priority. Thank you to all our volunteers for their leadership and fundraising efforts thus far. I look forward to the time when we can celebrate at the law school again.

I close with the sad news that Jim Cheek ’67, a nationally renowned expert in securities law and corporate governance, died Aug. 27. Jim started and ended his legal career here at VLS—he taught here from 1968 to 1970 after earning his LL.M. at Harvard Law and then returned to our Law and Business faculty as a professor of the practice of law in 2014, after retiring to part-time practice at Bass Berry & Sims, where he had a storied career. Jim was a dedicated alumnus who had a positive impact on VLS, his firm and the legal community throughout his career, and we miss him.

Sincerely yours, 

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

Kate Uyeda ’22 receives Garrison Social Justice Scholarship

Uyeda worked at the Fair Elections Center, a nonprofit advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C., this summer with support from the scholarship.
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Tasia Harris ’23 receives Garrison Social Justice Scholarship

With support from the scholarship, Harris spent the summer as a consumer law intern for the Legal Aid Society for the District of Columbia, where she supported low-income clients whose income was negatively affected by the pandemic.
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Ramon Ryan ’21 named to 2021 Law Program of the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics

Ryan is one of 16 FASPE Ethics Fellows chosen for the program, which examines the conduct of lawyers in Nazi-occupied Europe as a way to reflect on legal ethics today.
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Sara Mayeux wins 2020 David J. Langum Sr. Prize in American Legal History for her book, Free Justice

The prize is awarded annually by the Langum Foundation to “the best book in American legal history that is accessible to the educated general public.” Mayeux’s book chronicles the history of public defenders in 20th-century America.
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Kyle Brinker ’22 wins Tennessee Bar Association Administrative Law writing competition

In his paper, “A Gundy Revival in the Age of Public Health Crises,” Brinker argues for a more lenient interpretation of the nondelegation doctrine during public health emergencies such as the COVID-19 global pandemic.
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JD/PhD in Law and Economics student Scott Jeffrey ’23 wins second place in the Louis Jackson Memorial student writing competition

The competition recognizes the best legal writing in the field of labor and employment law among current law students. Jeffrey received a $1,000 scholarship prize for his paper, “The Occupational Illness of COVID-19: New Presumptions in Workers’ Compensation.”
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Chris Slobogin’s new book suggests using algorithms may reduce prison sentences and increase use of evidence-based rehabilitative programs

Slobogin’s book, Just Algorithms: Using Science to Reduce Incarceration and Inform a Jurisprudence of Risk, was released by Cambridge University Press in July.
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Research by Erin Meyers JD/PhD’21 shows arrests have high economic costs even when no conviction results

Meyers found that more than half of Black men had been arrested by the time they were young adults but that Black men were much less likely to be convicted than white men. Her dissertation, The Criminal Justice System and Social Mobility in the United States, documents the negative impacts of over-arrest on the employment and educational opportunities of Black men.
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W. Kip Viscusi featured on “The Economists” podcast from Australian Broadcasting Corp. addressing “Lockdowns and the Path Forward”

Viscusi co-directs the Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics. He talks about how to measure the costs and benefits of lockdowns.
Listen Here
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