Adolpho Birch's decision to move back to his hometown of Nashville this summer was advantageous for the community in many ways. For Vanderbilt, it meant even more access to a law school alumnus and Board of Trust member with valuable insight into issues of diversity and inclusion, just as a nationwide push for more racial justice was underway.
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Jan. 11, 2021
Ali will serve in the Office of the White House Counsel. She most recently served as a trial litigator at Wilkinson Stekloff in Washington. Before entering private practice, she was a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, for Judge Sri Srinivasan of the D.C. Court of Appeals and for Judge Amul Thapar on the Eastern District of Kentucky.
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Dec. 21, 2020
In a co-authored opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the authors discuss the need for a national climate change strategy based on the same sort of public-private collaboration that led to the rapid production of COVID-19 vaccines.
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Dec. 18, 2020
Sharfstein is a legal historian whose work addresses race and citizenship in the United States. He is the author of two award-winning books, “The Invisible Line” and “Thunder in the Mountains,” and received a 2013 Guggenheim Fellowship.
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Dec. 18, 2020
An expert in complex litigation, Fitzpatrick is most recently the author of The Conservative Case of Class Actions, a 2019 book published by University of Chicago Press.
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Nov. 13, 2020
Professor Meyer’s conversation with Justice Gorsuch was sponsored by the Cecil Sims Lecture Series. Meyer clerked for Gorsuch on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Oct. 6, 2020
When a doctor breaks the law, who decides whether he can keep his medical license? Rebecca Allensworth's work on how medical licensing boards decide whether to revoke a doctor's license to practice medicine is featured in Act One of the This American Life podcast in a segment titled "Trust Me, I'm a Doctor."
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Sep. 17, 2020
All members of the VLR staff donated the fees they would customarily use to pay for meeting space and supplies to the ABA's Legal Opportunity Scholarship Fund, which provides $15,000 scholarships to up to 20 diverse law students each year.
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Sep. 4, 2020
Vandenbergh's Sept. 4 interview with Kristoffer Tique appears in Inside Climate News.
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Sep. 4, 2020
The report reflects the results of a community-wide survey and input from three anti-racism task forces representing VLS students, faculty and staff. It recommends short- and long-term actions designed to address racial inequities and injustices in the VLS community and beyond.
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Attorney at Coronel & Pérez, Guayaquil and Professor of Civil Law at Universidad Espíritu Santo, Samborondón, Ecuador
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Hired as an international intern by Holland and Knight in Jacksonville, Florida, recruited by partner Ricardo Bedoya, J.D. Class of 2003.
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Clerk, Judge R. Lanier Anderson III, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Macon, Georgia
“Being a foreign lawyer first and then a law student in the U.S., I felt like I lived the complete American law school experience.”
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Editor-in-Chief, Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law
2020-21 Clerk, Judge Joan L. Larsen, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
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Editor in Chief, Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law
Associate Lawyer, Castro Advogados Associados, Londrina, Brazil
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2019-21 Clerk, Judge Marcia Morales Howard, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida
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2020-21 Clerk, Judge Eduardo C. Robreno, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
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Clerk, Judge James K. Bredar, U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Baltimore
Clerk, Judge Julia Smith Gibbons, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Memphis
2020-21 Clerk, Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr., U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky
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2017 Public Interest Law Initiative Fellow, Roger Baldwin Foundation, ACLU of Illinois
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2015 Summer Associate, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings and Neal & Harwell, Nashville
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"Vanderbilt taught me the value of being engaged in your surroundings."
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"I knew my time at Vanderbilt would be worth the investment I was going to make."
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We, at Vanderbilt Law School, mourn the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Daniel Prude, Breonna Taylor and so many other Black people who have been the victims of police brutality and racial injustice. We also condemn the shooting of Jacob Blake. As our nation is gripped by this moment of historic reckoning, we are reminded of its scarred beginnings, the constant struggle for freedom and civil rights for all, and the enormity of the work that remains to be done for our country to truly realize the ideals set out in the Constitution.
As a law school, we resoundingly reject racism and discrimination in all its forms. We strive to create an environment that is welcoming of all, inclusive, and committed to ensuring that every member feels themselves to be a full part of its community. Moreover, we are also deeply mindful of our role in teaching new generations of lawyers whose words and actions will continue the fight for racial justice, civil rights, equality of opportunity, and the rule of law. Put simply, we know that it is our responsibility to foster and maintain an anti-racist environment within our walls, as well as to equip our graduates with the educational and experiential tools they need to become anti-racist and productive members of the legal profession and society at large.
To that end, we are committed to building an engaged and visible program of Diversity, Equity and Community that underscores the significance of anti-racism and anti-discrimination across all aspects of law school life from the curriculum to our engagement with the broader community. Over the summer, we convened student, staff, and faculty task forces to develop a set of actionable recommendations to ensure the School can achieve the highest standards of inclusivity, diversity and community belonging. We are eager to begin this work.
We see that the lived reality of Black people and people of color falls far short of what is promised by our country's founding principles, laws, and guarantees. Looking forward, we are committed to harnessing the power of a legal education to continue the work of generations of Vanderbilt lawyers in the fight for the fullest attainment of the civil rights, equality and justice offered by the Constitution.
