General News

Former EPA Administrator Carol Browner to deliver inaugural Distinguished Lecture on Climate Change Governance Sept. 19

Sep. 1, 2022—Browner’s lecture is made possible by the Sally Shallenberger Brown EELU Program Fund and sponsored by the Energy, Environment and Land Use Program. Browner became the longest serving EPA administrator in history under President Bill Clinton and was director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy in the Obama administration. She now practices as a senior counsel with Covington & Burling.

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Francesca L. Procaccini joins VLS faculty as assistant professor

Aug. 2, 2022—Procaccini was a Climenko Fellow at Harvard Law and taught at Yale Law. Her scholarship focuses on constitutional law, First Amendment law, federal courts and civil procedure.

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Why designating Russia a state sponsor of terrorism is a bad idea: Washington Post Opinion by Ingrid Wuerth

Aug. 1, 2022—Wuerth is a foreign policy expert and holds the Helen Strong Curry Chair in International Law. "The state sponsor of terrorism designation is not a symbolic act to chastise states that behave badly," she writes. "It is a legal trigger embedded in an extremely complex statutory and regulatory framework. The effects of pulling that...trigger are not easy to identify and untangle."

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Sean Seymore joins Vanderbilt Law faculty as Centennial Professor of Law

Jul. 22, 2022—Seymore is a patent law expert who holds a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry. He is also a professor of chemistry. He previously served on the VLS faculty from 2010 to 2021.

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Russia should not be designated a state sponsor of terrorism: Opinion by Ingrid Wuerth

Jul. 20, 2022—Wuerth's column, published in Just Security and in the Transnational Litigation blog, suggests the designation would be largely symbolic and could ultimately harm the interests of the Ukrainian government and the people of Ukraine.

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Jackson Hill named 2022 George Barrett Social Justice Fellow

Jul. 8, 2022—Hill will work with the Powell Project, offering resources and assistance to capital defense teams.

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“Is the Establishment Clause Dead? A Message From SCOTUS” – Bloomberg Law opinion piece by Matthew Shaw

Jun. 24, 2022—Shaw argues that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that Maine cannot exclude faith-based schools from a state program that pays for private school tuition in areas of the state that lack public schools could erode the Constitution’s Establishment Clause.

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Social Justice Reporter, new scholarly journal, to launch at Vanderbilt in 2022-23

Jun. 7, 2022—The Social Justice Reporter will publish cutting-edge intersectional scholarship and expert perspectives on social justice, civil rights and public-interest lawyering after it launches next year. Its name acknowledges the legacy of the historic Race Relations Reporter, which was published at VLS from 1956 to 1972.

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Chris Giancarlo ’84 named Chevalier in the National Order of Merit by French government

May. 19, 2022—J. Christopher Giancarlo, Class of 1984, former chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has been awarded the rank of Chevalier in the French National Order of Merit by President Emmanuel Macron. Giancarlo is a Wall Street lawyer and business figure renowned in the financial world for his expertise in cryptocurrency. The award will be presented to him...

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John Ryder ’74, former RNC general counsel and partner at Harris Shelton, dies

May. 16, 2022—Ryder was a partner at Harris Shelton in Memphis, His public service most recently included serving on the board of directors of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

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Bryan J. Teresi receives 2022 Founder’s Medal for First Honors

May. 13, 2022—22 members of the class of 2022 were honored with academic, citizenship and journal awards at Commencement.

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22 members of the Class of 2022 recognized at commencement with academic and citizenship awards

May. 13, 2022—Bryan J. Teresi received the Founder's Medal for First Honors. Teresi and Jackson Hill, who received the Bennett Douglas Bell Memorial Award, and Samantha Smith, who received the Weldon B. White Prize, were recognized at the law Commencement ceremony.

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$17.5M bequest from W. Weldon Wilson ’86 will extend scholarship program

May. 11, 2022—Wilson and his wife Elaine have documented a $17.5 million bequest to support their existing Weldon Wilson Scholarship at VLS. The scholarship was established in 2011 in honor of Weldon’s 25th reunion. Weldon Wilson is vice chair of Resolution Life Group Holdings, a global life insurance group focusing on the acquisition and management of portfolios of life insurance policies.

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Climate Change Research Network scholars Michael Vandenbergh and Jennifer Cole featured on Free Range podcast

May. 4, 2022—Listen to Mike Livermore's interview with Climate Change Research Network director Michael Vandenbergh and social psychologist Jennifer Cole, a post-doctoral fellow of the CCRN, who discuss political polarization and its impact on climate change policy on the Free Range podcast.

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Ryan Buchanan ’05 sworn in as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia

May. 4, 2022—Buchanan joined the Department of Justice in 2010 at an assistant U.S. attorney in Birmingham, Alabama. He has worked as a federal prosecutor in Atlanta since 2013.

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Miles Malbrough ’22 to address estate planning in Nashville’s Black community as Equal Justice Works Fellow

Apr. 28, 2022—Malbrough will focus on preventing houses from becoming “heirs property” by promoting estate planning as an EJW Fellow at the Legal Aid Society of Middle Tennessee and the Cumberlands. His two-year fellowship is funded by the Albert & Anne Mansfield Foundation.

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Students work at Tennessee Justice Center during Pro Bono Spring Break 2022

Apr. 27, 2022—A student team headed by Raghav Gupta ’24 worked with attorneys at the Tennessee Justice Center to observe and interview pro se litigants.

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Students work at Appalachian Citizens’ Law Center during Pro Bono Spring Break 2022

Apr. 27, 2022—A student team headed by Emma Harrison ’24 traveled to Whitesburg, Kentucky, to collaborate with attorneys at the Appalachian Citizen’s Law Center on cases involving mine safety and disability benefits for former coal miners.

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Michael Vandenbergh named 2022 Carnegie Fellow to tackle polarization and climate change

Apr. 27, 2022—Vandenbergh's award of $200,000 will support his research into overcoming political polarization to address the causes of climate change and the issues it is creating. He is one of 28 Andrew Carnegie Fellows selected for the 2022 cohort.

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Yesha Yadav’s article, “The Failed Regulation of U.S. Treasury Markets,” selected as one of the Best Corporate and Securities Articles of 2021

Apr. 26, 2022—Yadav’s article was published in the Columbia Law Review. Eleven articles were recognized by the Corporate Practice Commentator from among more than 400 articles for recognition as the best articles published in legal journals addressing topics in corporate and securities law.

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Rebecca Allensworth, Ed Cheng, Jeff Schoenblum and Chris Serkin honored with 2022 Hall-Hartman Awards for Outstanding Teaching

Apr. 22, 2022—Cheng and Allensworth were honored for their first-year courses in Torts and Contracts. Schoenblum and Serkin were honored for upper-level courses. Adjunct Professor Arjun Sethi was recognized for teaching short courses. The annual awards are based on a student poll.

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Samantha Smith ‘22 selected for the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics law program

Apr. 21, 2022—Smith is one of 14 law students selected for the program, through which they visit Germany and Poland and examine the conduct of lawyers in Nazi-occupied Europe.

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Robert Barsky receives 2022 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship to study the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees

Apr. 20, 2022—Barsky is a professor of French, European studies, Jewish studies and law. His multidisciplinary research combines social justice, human rights, and border and refugee studies with lterary and artistic insights into the plight of vulnerable migrants. The fellowship will support his research for a book examining the role of the U.S. in the negotiation of the 1967 Protocol.

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“Implicit Bias, Structural Bias and Implications for Law and Policy,” April 21 lecture by California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu

Apr. 20, 2022—The Dean’s Lecture Series on Race and Discrimination for spring 2022 will conclude with Justice Liu's lecture in Flynn Auditorium from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Thursday, April 21. The public is invited to attend the lecture via Zoom.

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