RobBlog

A "friend" request

Each year, we debate ways to get more alumni involved and ways to educate alumni about our efforts without drowning them in too much information. I'm a huge proponent of using social networks to open new doors for donors and to allow us, as development professionals, to disseminate information in a more efficient manner.

Many schools have built and begun to offer their own proprietary online social networks. UVA, for example, offers the HoosOnline network to engage and connect alumni. Other schools are tapping into Facebook, probably the world's leading social networking site with more than 70 million registered users or MySpace. Personally, I use Facebook. If you do too, then "friend" me. You'll find the Law School's official page there too.

There are several advantages to social networking sites. First, it allows people to feel like they're part of something bigger. The UVA Law network spans the globe. We have someone just about everywhere doing just about everything. Being able to connect to someone in a specialized industry sector halfway around the globe is a convenience that social networking sites readily provide.

Second, the sites allow a school to build interest around important events like reunions. Showing who has registered or beginning dialogue about which professors to invite to a class dinner generates excitement and gets alumni motivated to attend. We are using Facebook on a limited basis for just that purpose with this year's reunion classes.

Finally, it's a great way to get personal with alumni. My experience tells me that alumni are much more responsive to asks and requests from classmates than from me or even the Dean for that matter. A site like Facebook allows class agents and managers to get personal with their peers and to find out about their families and their lives. Engaging alumni in this manner reduces the risk of alienating them by having someone who doesn't truly know them ask for money right away.

No one knows who the future big donors will be. But, almost universally, future major donors give between $5 and $500 in the first five to ten years after graduating. Accordingly, it is important to engage as many alumni as soon as possible after graduation. Using Facebook and other social networking technologies to communicate that every gift matters and every gift counts to alumni is often times the key to a successful and mature fundraising program.

Will we find you there?

Bienvenido a Miami

Nothing recharges the battery like a trip to warm and sunny Florida in the middle of winter.

I just returned from a week in Miami, where I get to see several classmates and friends who are practicing in the area and meet several other alumni.

I have been trying to convince Lu Alvarez '88 and Dean Mahoney that opening a satellite office for the Foundation in Miami from mid-December to mid-March is a smart and sensible thing to do. Several of the alumni I met make Miami their winter home and I can’t understand why I can’t do the same. I remember calling my mother one of the days I was there and telling her it was cold outside. She asked me the temperature and as I looked at the dashboard of my car and told her that it was 60 degrees, I remembered cold is a relative term. It was 4 degrees where she was.

We have a little more than 120 alumni in the greater Miami area. The list I have includes Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and all the cities in between.

My classmate Samantha Kavanaugh ’96 helped me organize a breakfast for local alumni at Akerman Senterfitt. We had 12 people at the breakfast. It was an excellent networking opportunity for our local alumni and a great opportunity for me to share the state of the Law School through a PowerPoint presentation that I had put together.

Despite the great winter weather, the sentiment from our alumni in Miami is the same as it is in other  areas of the country.  Lawyers are anxious about the economy and worried about their employment opportunities. The news of firm layoffs and closings travels quickly in the  legal circles and Miami is not immune to the stormy economic weather that other cities are enduring.

I did get to visit with Josh Hartshorn ’08 and his wife, Sarah. For those of you who don’t know, Sarah  worked with us at the Foundation in the accounting and finance department while Josh was in Law School.  She was loved by everyone at the Foundation and we were all sad to see her leave when Josh accepted a position as an associate at White & Case in Miami. When we had Sarah’s going away party in June of last year, we all were discussing how much we would miss her and what life at the Foundation would be like without her. Secretly, I was happy. I had already begun planning a visit to Miami in the winter.

You win some . . .

The Association of American Law Schools (AALS) 2009 Annual Meeting took place January 6-10 in San Diego, California. More than 4,500 participants representing over 100 law schools from across North America participated in the conference. The Law School Foundation was represented by David Ibbeken '71, Kathy Boase, and me.

The AALS is comprised of 72 state law schools and 49 religiously affiliated law schools, all of whom strive to excel in teaching, scholarship, academic freedom, and diversity. The theme of this year’s conference was institutional pluralism. Specifically, the conference focused on the value of institutional differences, despite the powerful market and regulatory norms that push law schools toward uniformity. ABA accreditation and the US News & World Report ranking system were just two examples of efforts designed to conform all law schools to a specific set of standards, often times at the expense of any unique or distinct qualities that might make up a particular law school’s identity.

The conference was divided into 6 main sections: (1) Academic Support and Teaching Methods Joint Program; (2) Clinical Legal Education and Professional Responsibility Joint Program; (3) Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Issues; (4) Student Services; (5) Institutional Advancement and (6) Socio-Economics.

Despite an array of interesting topics and speakers, it was impossible to attend multiple sessions over the course of the conference. Accordingly, we spent most of our time attending the Section on Institutional Advancement events – after all that’s where all development and alumni initiatives were discussed; more than 350 participants had registered.

On January 8, Kathy Boase and I participated on a panel called: Law School Alumni Reunions and Class Funds: How Do Decades Differ? We discussed the importance of reunions, when reunions occur, how reunions tie into fundraising, etc.

In addition to the conference, we used our time in San Diego to meet with UVA Law alumni in the area. Jerry Coughlan ’69 graciously hosted us for a breakfast at his firm Coughlan, Semmer & Lipman on January 7. More than 20 people attended, including Diana Strauss Casey '95 (who, along with Jerry, manages the region for our annual giving efforts). That evening we had a wonderful dinner with George Howard ’77, Craig Fravel ’82, and David Brown ’79. The evening concluded with some time with my good friend and classmate Cory Caouette ’96.

I had intended to stay through the weekend and visit with other alumni, but on the 8th I learned that I had front row seats for the Chargers/Steelers playoff game on the 11th. We assembled some friends and alumni (including Mike Brown ’96) for a viewing of the NCAA football championship before taking the red-eye back to Charlottesville.

I drove to Pittsburgh Sunday morning for the Chargers game.

We lost, but at least I got my photo in the North County Times. 

We’ll get them next year. Maybe the Saints will be hosting the Chargers during the 2010 AALS Annual Meeting in New Orleans!

Sage Advice from Professor Whitebread

Not rain, cold or the threat of snow could keep almost 250 people (alumni [mostly former students], former colleagues, family, and friends) from gathering at the Law School on Saturday, December 6 to pay their final respects to Professor Charlie Whitebread.

The event entitled “A Remembrance of Charles H. Whitebread: 1943-2008” was designed to celebrate the life of a man who in some ways was bigger than life itself.

Former Dean John C. Jeffries '73, who just returned to the Law School from a semester at Columbia, emceed a very elegant event that featured speakers who knew Professor Whitebread from various times in his life. The speakers included: his brother Joseph Whitebread '77, Professor Paul Stephan '77, Claire Gastanaga '74, Hon. J. Harvie Wilkinson III '72, and Michael Graetz '69.

The ceremony also included a slide show and a BarBri video presentation of some of Professor Whitebread's famous advice to students taking the bar exam.

Interestingly, after watching the BarBri videos, I remembered some of this advice. If you took the BarBri review course, you may as well.

His first bit of advice wasn’t advice at all. He described the stress and anxiety he felt when he sat down to take the bar exam after he graduated from law school in 1968. He described the ensuing incident as one of the most generous things anyone has ever done for him. Upon sitting down, the stranger sitting in front of him turned around and said, “Can you believe that some of the people in here actually took a review course to prepare for this exam?” He said that a smile immediately came across his face and any stress he was feeling quickly dissipated.

His second bit of advice involved what he called the three levels of legal learning:
The first was a very basic, almost glib, understanding of a particular area of the law. The third was a profound insight into that area of the law. The second was the land of confusion.

    He reminded us not to even consider trying to leave level one.

 Professor Whitebread will be missed. 

"Steel"ing a Weekend in Pittsburgh

When the schedule for the San Diego Chargers was released earlier this year, I circled November 16. I always try to see a handful of Chargers’ games on the East Coast and November 16 featured my beloved Chargers at the Pittsburgh Steelers.

I called my classmate John Chapas, who lives in Pittsburgh and is a partner at Reed Smith, and asking him to secure tickets. John, being the gracious host he is, said no problem. I also remember thinking about what the weather would be like in Pittsburgh in mid-November. Having been around Charlottesville weather for so long, I thought perhaps mid-40s in Pittsburgh since the weather in Charlottesville during that time of year is usually mid-50s.

So on Thursday, November 15, I packed my car and headed north.

Pittsburgh is the city of 1,000 bridges. It sits at the intersection of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers and is known colloquially as the “Steel City” because the city’s economy was historically built on the steel industry. Today, Pittsburgh’s economy has diversified away from just steel and features companies focused on healthcare, technology, and financial services. Pittsburgh is home to some of the country’s most recognizable companies: Heinz, Alcoa, US Steel and PNC Financial Services. In fact, we have several alumni who are employed by these great companies, including Barbara Jeremiah ’77 who is Executive Vice President of Corporate Development at Alcoa.

I had the opportunity to visit with several alumni during my visit to Pittsburgh. The highlight was a lunch with Barbara Bower ’84 of K&L Gates, Brendan Stuhan ’03 of Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney, John Chapas ’96 and Tonya Sulia Goodman ’00 of Reed Smith.  I also got to see my old classmate Dina Johnson ’96, who just relocated to Pittsburgh with her family from New York City.

After spending Saturday with my cousin Sam who is Associate Food Technologist of Condiments & Sauces at Heinz, I woke up on Sunday morning ready for the Chargers/Steelers game. I bundled up in my Chargers gear and met up with Sam and John. As we settled into our seats at Heinz Field, the gray sky above started spitting small flakes of snow. Shortly thereafter, it turned into a blizzard.  My thoughts (and hope) for temperatures in the mid-40s was replaced by a desire to simply stay dry and warm. At one point, so much snow had accumulated on the bill of my cap that I turned to John to say something and basically pummeled him in the face with flying snow.

I was hopeful that the Chargers would be able to pull out the win (especially since they made me watch them in the snow), but they lost 11-10. Next year, I won’t be so quick to pull the trigger on a Chargers game north of D.C. in November.  I’m thinking Miami or Tampa would be a better venue that time of the year.

 

(ESPN photo)