Twenty-three members of the Class of 2021 received academic honors, journal awards, citizenship and leadership awards, or recognition from the Vanderbilt Bar Association. Award recipients recognized in the Commencement program are listed below:
Academic Awards
Thomas Scott Davidson received the Founder’s Medal for First Honors.
Alton Spencer Davies of Louisville, Kentucky, received the Weldon B. White Prize, awarded for submitting the best paper in fulfillment of the law school’s advanced writing requirement.
Léa Theresa Ghalié of San Diego, California, received the LL.M. Research Prize, awarded to the student in the graduating LL.M. class who submitted the best research and writing project.
Nathan T. Campbell of Collierville, Tennessee, received the Stanley T. Rose Memorial Book Award, awarded to the law student who has submitted the best legal writing in the field of jurisprudence or legal history in fulfillment of the Law School’s advanced writing requirement.
Katherine Ann Cohen of Bellevue, Washington, received the G. Scott Briggs Transnational Legal Studies Award, awarded to the third-year student who has exhibited a high degree of scholastic achievement in transnational legal studies and made the most significant contribution to the development of international legal inquiries while a student at Vanderbilt.
Alexandra Sasha Gombar of Wilmington, North Carolina, received the Richard Nagareda Award from the Cecil D. Branstetter Litigation and Dispute Resolution Program, which recognizes extraordinary achievement in the study of litigation and dispute resolution.
Chloe Margaret Anderson of Danville, Kentucky, received the Carl J. Ruskowski Clinical Legal Education Award, which recognizes the student who, in his representation of clients in the law school’s clinical program, demonstrated excellent in practice of law and best exemplified the highest standards of the legal profession.
Citizenship and Leadership Awards
Ramon Ryan of Suitland, Maryland, received the Bennett Douglas Bell Memorial Award, which is awarded “to the student of the senior law class, who is not only well versed in the law, but who embodies the highest conception of the ethics of the profession, and who would strive to ‘Do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God,’ as did the one in whose memory the prize is given and whose name it bears, Bennett Douglas Bell.”
Kira Alexandra Benton of Jacksonville, Florida, received the Damali A. Booker Award, presented annually to the third-year law student who has a keen dedication to legal activism and a demonstrated commitment to confronting social issues facing both Vanderbilt Law School and the greater Nashville community, and the Junius L. Allison Legal Aid Award, which honors the graduate judged to have made the most significant contribution to the work of the Vanderbilt Legal Aid Society during his tenure at Vanderbilt.
Samantha La’ren Furman of Staten Island, New York, received the Philip G. Davidson Award, presented to the graduate “chosen by the Vanderbilt Bar Association Board of Governors, who is dedicated to the law and its problem-solving role in society, and who provides exemplary leadership in service to the Law School and the greater community.”
Asha Lal Menon of Athens, Georgia, received the Chris Lantz Award, awarded each year to a student who demonstrates a dedication to developing a sense of community among his or her classmates with a strong capacity for leadership and commitment to his or her legal studies. The award was endowed by the Class of 2011 to honor the memory of their dear friend and classmate Chris Lantz.
Esther Lee of Fort Lee, New Jersey, received the Jordan Quick Memorial Award, awarded to the student judged to have made the greatest contribution to the quality of life at the Law School through her leadership with the Vanderbilt Bar Association.
Molly Katherine Harwood of Nashville, Tennessee, received the National Association of Women Lawyers’ Outstanding Law Student Award, which includes membership in the NAWL.
Journal and Moot Court Awards
Chandler Ray of Lawrenceville, Georgia, received the K. Harlan Dodson Moot Court Staff Award, awarded to the senior member of the Moot Court staff other than the chief justice who has rendered the most outstanding service throughout the school year in all aspects of the Moot Court Program.
Nathan T. Campbell of Collierville, Tennessee, and Margaret Edith Dillaway of Weston, Massachusetts, shared the Morgan Prize, awarded to the graduate who submitted the outstanding piece of writing to the Vanderbilt Law Review during the school year.
Brettson James Bauer of Franklin, Tennessee, and Shivam Manoj Bhakta of Memphis, Tennessee, shared the Law Review Editor’s Award, which goes to the third-year editorial board member who has made the most significant contributions to the Vanderbilt Law Review.
Shivam Manoj Bhakta of Memphis, Tennessee, and Christina Maxine Claxton of Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, shared the Law Review Candidate’s Award, awarded by the second-year staff of the Vanderbilt Law Review to the third-year staff member who made the most significant contribution to their development as Law Review staff members.
Ryan Andrew Everette of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, received the Grace Wilson Sims Medal in Transnational Law, which goes to the editorial board member, other than the editor-in-chief, judged to have done the most outstanding work on the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law during the academic year.
Gabriela Barriuso Clark of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, received the Grace Wilson Sims Prize for Excellence in Student Writing in Transnational Law, award to the member of the graduate class contributing the best Note submitted for publication in the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law.
Kevin Leddy of Huntington Beach, California, received the Grace Wilson Sims Medal in Transnational Law, Third Year, which goes to the member of the third-year staff selected as having done the most outstanding work on the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law during the academic year.
Ramon Ryan of Suitland, Maryland, received the Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law Student Writing Award, which goes to the student who submitted the most outstanding piece of student writing for publication in the journal.
Carrie Lewis Cobb of Jackson, Tennessee, received the Christopher S. Lantz Memorial Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law Outstanding Service Award, which goes to the student, other than the editor-in-chief, who has made the most significant contribution to the advancement of the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law.
