RobBlog

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!