The VLW Blog

A committee has been appointed to find a successor to U.Va. president John Casteen, who will retire in August 2010.
The 19-person committee is made up of nine members of the Board of Visitors, six faculty members, two former rectors and two students, according to The Daily Progress.

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Starting this fall, the University of Virginia law school will offer a clinic designed to help low-income families resolve legal issues through mediation or other options outside of a courtroom.
According to a press release from the law school, the Family Alternative Dispute Resolution Clinic will partner with the Mediation Center of Charlottesville and focus primarily [...]

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Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice Leroy Hassell will address the free speech implications of the state’s cross burning statute today at U.Va..
According to the Daily Progress, Hassell will give the presentation at 5 p.m. in the University of Virginia School of Law’s Caplin Auditorium.
The chief justice will focus on Virginia v. Black, the 2003 U.S. [...]

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Founders of the Innocence Project will receive the 2009 Thomas Jefferson Foundation medal in law.
Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld created the Innocence Project in 1992 as a nonprofit legal clinic in New York City, according to the U.Va. Web site. The organization advocates for post-conviction DNA testing to exonerate the wrongfully convicted and [...]

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President Obama has named University of Virginia law professor Jon Cannon to the No. 2 post at the Environmental Protection Agency.
His position as deputy administrator of the EPA is subject to Senate approval, according to The Daily Progress.
If approved, he will take a leave of absence from the law school.

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The vote was 2-to-1 against an overhaul of U.Va.’s single sanction honor system.
The proposal had needed at least 60 percent of the student body voting in its favor to pass, but 70 percent of students who voted on the referendum voted against it, The Daily Progress reports.
Currently, students found to be in [...]

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Three justices of the Supreme Court of Virginia will enlighten law students at U.Va. on Friday.
Justices Barbara Keenan, Donald Lemons, and Bernard Goodwyn, all U.Va. law grads, will discuss court structure and appellate issues.
According to an announcement from Prof. Kent Sinclair, Justice Keenan’s remarks will include discussion of defamation and intentional infliction of emotional harm, [...]

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The Obama administration has tabbed U.Va. law professor David A. Martin for principal deputy general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security.
Martin will be the second-highest ranking lawyer among the 1,700 attorneys at the department, according to the U.Va. Web site.
Martin will take a two-year leave of absence from teaching.
Posted by Peter Vieth

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Ever heard a comedian tell a joke you heard somewhere else? Turns out, there’s a whole series of unwritten rules that, more or less, govern the otherwise-lawless world of stand up comedy material.
Now, two University of Virginia law professors have taken a scholarly look at how the people who make us laugh avoid killing each [...]

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Thieves used the Social Security number of a University of Virginia microchemistry professor to steal $22,000 from his credit card account, reports The Daily Progress. Patrick Grant’s personal information was among the data on U.Va. faculty that was breached twice within the past year.
By Paul Fletcher

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