UNC School of Law moved up 11 spots to No. 34 out of 192 law schools ranked in the U.S. News & World Report’s 2020 edition of “America’s Best Graduate Schools,” released on March 12.

Of the 26 public law schools listed in the top 50 law schools in the U.S. News rankings, UNC School of Law is No. 14.

In the specialty areas ranking, the law school’s Research, Reasoning, Writing and Advocacy (RRWA) program, now in its eighth year as a full-year, six-credit program, ranks No. 8 in legal writing, an increase of 10 spots from two years ago.

Carolina Law also ranks No. 25 in tax law and No. 27 in health law. The school continues to be in the top 50 law schools for clinical training, environmental law, intellectual property law, international law and trial advocacy.

“We are in a time of real momentum for Carolina Law,” says Dean Martin H. Brinkley ’92. “We are proud of our trajectory and pleased to receive national recognition for the excellent work our faculty, students and staff do year-in, year-out.”

According to U.S. News, UNC continues to maintain a strong reputation among legal professionals. This year Carolina Law held steady in reputation among law school peers and moved up a spot to No. 19 among lawyers and judges.

“The rankings increase is the product of hard work by everyone at Carolina Law,” says Brinkley. “We had financial support from the N.C. General Assembly, UNC-Chapel Hill’s leadership and our generous donors. We also benefited from the efforts of our loyal alumni and employers who worked closely with our career development office to assist with increasing student employment.”

“We recognize that rankings are important not just to the school and alumni but to prospective students as well,” says Andy Hessick, professor of law and associate dean for strategy. “Moving forward, we plan to build on the momentum of this year, continue to look at the data and identify additional areas where we need to improve.”

In other rankings news, The National Law Journal recently ranked the top “50 Go-To Law Schools” according to the percentage of the schools’ 2018 graduates who took associate jobs at the largest 100 firms in the country. Carolina Law ranked No. 31. Of the 50 schools ranked, Carolina Law had the third lowest tuition rate, further confirming that a law school can charge an affordable tuition and have its graduates land associate positions at big law firms. The National Law Journal also noted that Carolina Law tied for 27 for the number of alumni promoted to law firm partnership during 2018.

“Carolina Law does an excellent job preparing students to work at private law firms, in business and industry, as well as in judicial clerkships, non-profits, public interest organizations, and government legal positions,” says Brinkley. “We provide a superb legal education at an affordable cost, while remaining committed to our mission of producing the next generation of lawyer-leaders serving North Carolina and beyond.”

-March 12, 2019

This article originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2019 issue of Carolina Law magazine.

Collaborations with students and alumni show how truly committed Carolina Law's faculty is to scholarship, research, service and educating the next generation of the legal profession.

In researching a book about mass incarceration, Joe Kennedy, the Martha Brandis Professor of Law, tapped Kasi Wahlers '17, then a second-year law student at Carolina Law, to do a literature review for the drug chapter. A data set from the National Incident-Based Reporting System harbored some stats about arrests by local law enforcement agencies, but neither Kennedy nor Wahlers had worked with big data before.

Professor Joe Kennedy and Kasi Wahlers '17 worked together on a research article about the overrepresentation of people of color in felony arrests for small amounts of drugs.

They discovered information about the race of those arrested for drug offenses and the quantity of drugs involved that no one else had written about. All three are listed as co-authors on the resulting research article that re-thinks felony liability for low-level drug offenders and documents the overrepresentation of people of color in felony arrests for small amounts of drugs.

Writing the research article, published in UC Davis Law Review in January, “was a chance to do something that would have more impact than just a grade,” Wahlers said. Many days, the paper is among the top 10 downloads, which suggests it will be cited in other research yet to come.

“To see that my work was valuable had a big impact on me,” Wahlers said. “I’m fortunate to have had professors who believed in me and took the time to mentor me.”

Connections and collaborations among faculty and students, across disciplines, around the world and even back in time, enrich the Carolina Law experience. Faculty create opportunities for hands-on learning through pro bono clinics, presenting Continuing Legal Education programs, international exchanges and reading the original law tracts used by lawyers practicing centuries ago. Professors at Carolina Law are valued for their teaching, and they produce excellent legal scholarship.

“Those two reputations don’t always go hand-in-hand,” Kennedy said, “but they do here.”

Professors Joan Krause and Rich Saver, co-faculty advisers for the Carolina Health Law Organization (CHLO), worked with members Alec Mercolino 2L, Nur Kara 2L and Nicole Angelica 1L on a grant to increase low-income access to medical resources.

Physical proximity proved a boon in the expanding curriculum of the health law program at UNC. The medical school, law school and school of public health make their home on South Campus. Research Triangle Park has many biotechnology stakeholders; some of the major health employers in the country are headquartered in the Triangle; and NorthCarolina is transforming its Medicaid system.

Richard Saver, Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor of Law, considers this “an exciting time in health law, because things are constantly changing in the highly regulated and politicized health care sector.”

He and Joan Krause, the Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor in Ethics and Jurisprudence, teach a course at the medical school in which law students and medical students work on projects in interdisciplinary groups. Law students also work pro bono at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, preparing advanced directives for patients.

Saver serves as co-faculty adviser to the student-run Carolina Health Law Organization. He knew that the N.C. Bar Association’s Health Law Section (he’s on its executive council) had taken on a project to provide information to state residents looking for free or discounted medical care. Saver connected CHLO’s president, Nur Kara, a second-year law student, with the N.C. Society of Health Care Attorneys, which had grant funding available. Kara successfully applied for a $1,500 grant and developed important pragmatic skills in project administration, including how to handle “the less-than-thrilling aspects of fundraising and the bureaucratic minefields you have to navigate to get a grant through the university system,” Saver said. The project has helped CHLO students move beyond the classroom by connecting them with health lawyers in practice.

With funding in hand, the CHLO students have been compiling and will distribute a resource for finding clinics and providers that offer free or discounted medical care.

Kara, who has a master’s in health policy, chose Carolina Law in part because of the benefit of collaborating with faculty partners at the medical and public health schools and because UNC’s health system is the largest nonprofit provider of health care in the state.

“Carolina Law is small enough to have very invested faculty,” she said. “Professors here come with diverse experience across private practice, public interest and international law. They are more than willing to mentor students inside the classroom and outside.”

Semester exchange students from Germany, Spain, Argentina and the Netherlands visited the N.C. Supreme Court in Raleigh in October to observe oral arguments as part of their Introduction to U.S. Law class with Professor Donna Nixon, center.

Those inside and outside experiences have an international mix. Donna Nixon, a clinical assistant professor of law and the electronic resources librarian, was until recently the faculty coordinator of the International Exchange Programs. Carolina Law has partnerships with 10 institutions, many in Europe, as well as Argentina and Mexico. Tar Heel JD students may study abroad for six months to a year, and students from the partner institutions may come to Carolina, often to earn an LLM. The school frequently welcomes scholars from Asia as well. Faculty, too, participate in international exchanges and scholarship and have been known to go as far afield as Australia.

“We get the opportunity for intellectual and cultural exchanges and to learn the differences in legal systems around the world,” Nixon said. Carolina Law’s participation in international moot court competitions adds another global layer.Nixon also takes students, foreign and domestic, to hear cases argued before the N.C.Supreme Court.

“Students get to see how lawyers handle themselves in court in high-stakes cases,” she said.

John Brooker '03 guest lectures in Professor Tom Kelley's public international law class.

Tom Kelley, Paul B. Eaton Distinguished Professor of Law, invited alumni with international public law experience as guest lecturers to the public international law course he began teaching this spring. He Skyped in Dan MacGuire '07, who works in Geneva for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and Rachel Braden '13, who works on women’s health issues with an NGO in Central and West Africa and now in India. He walked down the hall to the office of John Brooker '03, who spent much of his Army career living in interesting, difficult and dangerous places as he practiced humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict and now supervises Carolina Law’s Military and Veterans Law Clinic.

The three alumni talk about the interpretation and application of international law, as well as their career paths.

“If you want to be a corporate litigator, the path is clear,” Kelley said. “Finding the path to a career in public international law is much more challenging. You don’t just bump into people practicing international law, particularly public international law.”

Kelley has taken students to Rwanda for study abroad excursions, and he points to pivotal efforts by his colleagues on the faculty: Holning Lau’s work on human rights in Africa and Asia, and Deborah Weissman’s work on torture in the international realm.

“We have excellent scholarly and research faculty,” Kelley said, “and we care, maybe more than our peer schools, about classroom teaching and guiding and mentoring the next generation of leaders in law. We want to spark students’ imaginations, because we want them to have high-impact and enjoyable careers.”

Elizabeth Fisher 3L co-authors an article with law professor and Associate Dean for Strategy Andy Hessick to be published in the Alabama Law Review.

Third-year law student Elizabeth Fisher got a jump on her career by co-authoring an article with law professor and Associate Dean for Strategy Andy Hessick that will be published in Alabama Law Review. She had been published last year in North Carolina Law Review, but, she said, “it’s different to get published in a journal with a professor.”

When Hessick asked her to work with him on writing up a theory that provides justification for not incorporating the 5th, 6th and 7th Amendment jury rights, she hesitated before saying yes.

“I wanted to make sure I could do a good job and still manage school and other responsibilities,” she said. “It was very time-consuming and challenging working on something so unfamiliar.”

Fisher credits her good writing skills to Melissa Jacoby, the Graham Kenan Professor of Law, whose feedback was instrumental in shaping how Fisher thought, researched and wrote.

“The faculty here are very approachable,” Fisher said, “always willing to listen and help.

Resident Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour '97, Clinical Assistant Professor and Assistant Director for Collection and Technology Services Stacey Rowland and Jonathan Zator 3L present a CLE session on technology at the Susie Sharp Inn of Court.

Being part of the Susie Sharp Inn of Court helped third-year law student Jonathan Zator learn that judges can be approachable, too. Carolina Law pays the membership fee for a handful of students annually. The Inn meets a half-dozen times a year for dinner and a CLE presentation, enabling students to connect with lawyers and judges informally and learn about topical issues in the law field, while longtime practitioners are reinvigorated by the students’ energy and passion for law.

This year, the Carolina Law student contingent planned and presented a CLE session on technology. Resident Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour '97 advised the students on making the session relevant to practitioners from a wide range of career experience.

Zator, as the chief planner among the presenters, learned how to build a CLE from the ground up, recruit talent and interact with others in the field. He and his team chose Clinical Assistant Professor Stacey Rowland, who is also the assistant director for Collection and Technology Services for the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library, to present on the hidden powers of Word that save lawyers time and boost their efficiency.

Automating page suppression in a digital filing or autogenerating a table of authorities are useful skills for lawyers. “Since the economic downturn, professional services have been cut at law firms,” Rowland said. “Clients are not willing to pay for some of those services. Automating will help if you can’t charge for those services.”

North Carolina adopted a duty of technology competence in 2014, becoming the second state to require an hour of CLE training in technology, such as using reasonable security methods on- and offline. Rowland cites Paul Manafort, whose legal problems were compounded because he didn’t redact his court filings properly. Failing to correctly redact sensitive information is a common technical oversight and a breach of the required duty of technology competence. “Saying, ‘My secretary did it,’ is not a valid excuse,” Rowland said.

John Coyle, the Reef C. Ivey II Term Professor of Law, presents his research on choice-of-law clauses at law firms around North Carolina.

Practitioners become better lawyers through the research conducted by professors and their students.

John Coyle, the Reef C. Ivey II Term Professor of Law, has presented his research on choice-of-law and forum selection clauses to law firms around the state, helping transactional lawyers write better contracts.

“I have read hundreds upon hundreds of cases in an attempt to show how courts have interpreted specific words and phrases in these clauses,” he said. “Having done so, I wanted to pass these insights along to the lawyers tasked with contract drafting.”

In reviewing cases that may date back 130 years, Coyle finds the inflection point of when words or phrases changed or went out of fashion. He understands not only how contract language changes over time, but what forces drive that evolution. His work reveals common misperceptions and offers a roadmap to help lawyers avoid unintended consequences. Coyle’s goal is to continue presenting his choice-of-law clause work to new audiences in North Carolina and beyond.

Clinical Assistant Professor Melissa Hyland '13, the reference and faculty research services librarian, with items from the rare books collection (1) Cane – from the UNC Law Class of 1890, engraved with names of students and faculty; (2) Chitty on Pleading – an 1809 edition containing the signature of Thomas Ruffian, former Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court; (3) a first edition (1759) of Blackstone’s The Great Charter and Charter of the Forest; (4) a 1965 miniature edition of Magna Carta.

Law students learn from history through the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library’s Rare Book Collection. Clinical Assistant Professor Melissa Hyland '13, the reference and faculty research services librarian, brings rare books to the legal history class taught by John Orth, the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of Law. History comes alive for students asthey interact with law texts dating back to the mid-1500s or titles originally owned by prominent North Carolina attorneys such as William Hooper, the state’s representative to the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

“That gets students excited,” Hyland said. “They see physical evidence of how the law was used by attorneys practicing at the time, and discuss how lawyers influenced the development of American jurisprudence.”

With more than 500,000 print volumes in the law library and her own experience as a practicing attorney, Hyland helps teach the next generation of lawyers how to conduct legal research in practice.

“I watch students grow in their confidence as legal researchers,” she said. “A solid foundation of legal research skills will help students succeed in any practice area.”

Jenny Cofer 2L and Professor Carissa Hessick published an op-ed about their research on prosecutor campaign contributions in The Kansas City Star in February.

One final example of how student/faculty collaborations impact the legal profession and society’s understanding of how it works: Carissa Hessick’s Prosecutors and Politics Project. Hessick, the Anne Shea Ransdell & William Garland Ransdell Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law and associate dean for faculty development, leads students in a new initiative to discover how prosecutors are affected by and participate in the political process.

Courts typically decline to oversee or limit the discretion and power prosecutors have, because elected or appointed prosecutors are politically accountable. Prosecutors decide who is charged and with what. Over the past few decades, the criminal justice system has grown increasingly punitive. Hessick and her students conducted a study of every prosecutor election held in the country. The results showed that incumbency is one reason those elections are so rarely contested.Her research team also identified a supply problem of not enough lawyers willing and able to serve as prosecutors. Her article based on this study will come out soon.

Carolina Law also received a major donation for Hessick’s students to research prosecutors accepting political campaign contributions. They found that some district attorneys, sheriffs and judges contributed to one another’s campaigns.

“Those donations can get in the way of the separation of powers and functions,” Hessick said.

Hessick has co-authored with students a series of op-eds that have appeared in major newspapers across the country. Her students learn how to make public records requests in different places with different laws; how to distill data down to laymen’s terms; and how to write op-eds that argue for policy changes.

“These are things that lawyers do, but it’s not easy to teach,” she said. Hessick finds students at Carolina Law to mirror faculty — “really thoughtful, nice people who ask hard questions and spend a lot of time trying to be well-informed.

“People at Carolina Law work really hard, and they do it without glory.”

And the world is a better place because of it.

--Nancy E. Oates

-May 28, 2019

This article originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2019 issue of Carolina Law magazine.

Virginia Radford Niehaus, '12 JD/'13 MPH, knows the powerful ways that public health and law can work together to improve people’s lives. During a Public Health Law Fellowship sponsored by the Network for Public Health Law and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, she had the privilege of working with the City of New Orleans to draft and implement a comprehensive smoke-free ordinance.

As a student in the MPH program at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, Niehaus completed a practicum with the National Health Law Program and Network for Public Health Law that led to the fellowship opportunity.

“It was great that we went from concept to development to implementation over the time I was in New Orleans,” Niehaus says. “The ordinance had a huge public health impact, but it was also professionally rewarding to have the opportunity to work on a policy at every phase. I was fortunate to be an integral part of the entire process and be able to effect real change.”

Niehaus’s involvement with the smoke-free ordinance — which impacted more than 500 bars and a casino in New Orleans — is among her biggest career achievements. But it’s only one of a growing list of accomplishments. Last year, she was named Director of Regulatory and Legal Affairs for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health.

In her new role, Niehaus works on public health policy development through legislation and rulemaking and is Chief of Staff to the NC Commission for Public Health, the public health rulemaking body for North Carolina. She also consults with Division staff and local health departments on implementation and enforcement of public health statutes and rules, and advocates for the state’s public health policies and programs at local, state, and national meetings.

In her position, Niehaus sits on the North Carolina Local Health Department Accreditation Board.

As Director of Regulatory and Legal Affairs for the Division of Public Health, Niehaus is making an impact on issues as varied as communicable disease reporting and surveillance, environmental health permitting and inspections, and the prevention of chronic disease and injury. “The diversity of issues that come across my desk are challenging and fascinating,” she says. “I’m excited to support the excellent work that the Division is doing.”

At Carolina Law, Niehaus had diverse real-world experiences that helped prepare her for her career.

“UNC does a good job setting students up for careers,” she says, with attentive career guidance, networking and internship opportunities, and student organizations, such as the Carolina Health Law Organization. Through her classes, she worked with a variety of health laws that helped shape her career decisions, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and Medicaid and Medicare laws. She has always been interested in how the health law framework impacts underserved populations.

Niehaus’s pro bono experiences included volunteering with Disability Rights North Carolina to investigate compliance with Olmstead v. L.C. in adult care homes across the state, completing research assignments for Legal Aid of NC’s Medical-Legal Partnership, and drafting estate planning documents for low-income individuals in eastern NC. “Those opportunities were valuable because I had an opportunity to engage directly with real legal issues, meet the individuals impacted by the work I was doing, and connect with attorneys in the community,” she says.

These hands-on experiences exposed Niehaus to various aspects of the health and law intersection. “Every perspective you can get helps…in trying to understand the health care system and look at the gaps and how we can do this better,” she says.

In addition to the applied-learning opportunities, Carolina Law faculty members have had a lasting impact on Niehaus.

Professors Joan Krause and Richard Saver developed health law classes in bioethics and health regulation as well as a public health law seminar that were valuable for Niehaus. “They are excellent resources and mentors for students interested in health law,” she says. Saver was a mentor for her public health master’s thesis.

A career connecting law and health reflects the ability of Carolina Law graduates to work across disciplines. “I want to serve as a bridge,” Niehaus says, “to help public health have a seat at the table to put evidenced-based practice into policy. In this role, it is helpful to have someone who can speak both the language of public health and the language of law.”

And for Niehaus, making a difference in two fields is exciting. “Being able to see the impact and effecting real change,” she says, “makes public interest work rewarding.”

— Jessica Clarke

-May 14, 2019

Richard E. Myers II '98, Henry Brandis Distinguished Professor of Law, taught Lawrence Cameron '10, now an associate at McGuireWoods.

This article originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2019 issue of Carolina Law magazine.

Following law school, Lawrence Cameron '10 started his career as an assistant district attorney in Wake County, North Carolina. He went on to serve as an assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina where he prosecuted money laundering, narcotics trafficking, and public corruption cases. He is now an associate at McGuireWoods in Raleigh.

Professor Richard E. Myers II '98 had similar path. After clerking for the Honorable David Sentelle '68 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Myers entered private practice as a litigator for O’Melveny & Myers, LLP prosecuting white collar crimes. He then became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District of California and transferred to the Eastern District of North Carolina. Myers then joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2004.

Cameron and Myers recently reunited at Carolina Law and discussed how their roles have evolved from the early days as a student and a faculty member.

How did Professor Myers influence you as a student and what kind of impact has it had on your career?

CAMERON: Professor Myers had a tremendous impact on me as a student and as a practicing attorney. Coming into law school, I wanted to help minorities struggling with impact of the criminal justice system and assumed becoming a criminal defense attorney was the best way to make an impact. Professor Meyers challenged that view and opened up my mind to the concept of being a prosecutor. He taught me about the tremendous amount of discretion that prosecutors have and the importance of diversity in the exercise of that discretion. My first job out of law school would not have been as a state prosecutor in the Wake County District Attorney's Office but for my relationship with Professor Myers.

How important is the dynamic between students and faculty?

PROFESSOR MYERS: The students are the reason we exist. Teaching the next generation of lawyers is incredibly satisfying. On a personal level, investing energy in people who want to make the world a better place and keep us committed to the rule of law is the source of great challenges and much joy. The students keep us thinking about the future, and they will go on to change the world. Lawrence was always someone that I knew would make a difference. His personal experiences observing people from his life dealing with the criminal justice system forged a commitment to doing justice. When he was here, we had the opportunity to talk about where and how he could make the most impact. I’m very proud to have played a tiny part in Lawrence’s success.

You both have had similar career paths. How did Professor Myers’ experience influence your career path, and what is your relationship like today?

CAMERON: Professor Myers is a big reason why I began my career as a prosecutor. When I began to consider leaving the DA's office to become an Assistant U.S. Attorney, I sought out Professor Myers’ advice due to his time as a federal prosecutor. Throughout my career, Professor Myers has been someone that I can always go to whether it be with questions on how to handle a particular evidentiary issue at trial, or how to balance my responsibilities as a husband and father with my ambitions as a lawyer. I consider him to be a mentor and a friend.

As an alumnus, which professor influenced you and why?

PROFESSOR MYERS: Lou Bilionis and Ken Broun were important mentors for me. Lou taught me Criminal Law and Constitutional Law, and his brilliance at the podium inspired me to learn, and ultimately to teach. He dragged me into his office at the end of my first year of law school to explain why I was going to apply for a judicial clerkship, notwithstanding my reservations. It changed my life forever. I was Ken Broun’s research assistant and worked on his Brandis and Broun treatise on North Carolina evidence. I went on to teach Evidence, and am now a co-author on that same treatise. He has been a wonderful mentor and an inspiration for a life well-lived in the law. My mentors have played an important role at every step, and I strive to pay it forward.

-May 28, 2019

Recent UNC School of Law graduates who passed the North Carolina bar exam in February now have the flexibility to use their exam score to transfer to other jurisdictions. North Carolina administered the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) for the first time in February 2019, and Carolina Law had the highest-ranking bar passage rate among North Carolina law schools. UNC also ranked No. 1 among North Carolina law schools for first-time test takers for the July 2018 North Carolina bar exam.

Eighty-seven percent (87.5%) of the eight Carolina Law graduates who took the North Carolina bar exam for the first time in February passed, according to exam results released by the state’s Board of Law Examiners. The school’s passage rate exceeded the overall state passage rate of 71.9% for first time test takers by 15%. The school also ranked first among total test takers for North Carolina law schools at a 90% passage rate (30 total takers, 27 passing). The school’s 90% passage rate for total test takers exceeded the overall state passage rate for total test takers by 25%.

“We are pleased with such an outstanding result for our graduates for North Carolina’s first administration of the UBE,” says O.J. Salinas, director of the Academic Excellence Program and clinical associate professor of law at Carolina Law.

The UBE offers law school graduates a portable score that can be used to apply for admission in other UBE jurisdictions, such as New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston, therefore maximizing job opportunities and reducing the cost of taking multiple exams. Passing UBE scores vary by jurisdiction – North Carolina has one of the higher passing scores at 270.

-April 17, 2019

From left, Miranda Goot 2L, Leigh Wicclair '11, Lauren Toole 3L, Nicole Angelica 1L, Lashieka Hardin 3L, Grace Lempp 2L, Professor Luke Everett '08, Emily Burke '14.

The board of the UNC School of Law Pro Bono Program awarded the 2019 recipients of the Pro Bono Publico Awards at the annual Pro Bono Celebration Thursday, April 11. Graduating students with more than 75 pro bono hours were recognized, as well as the Christian Legal Society, which received UNC-Chapel Hill's Robert E. Bryan Public Service Award.

As part of the ceremony, Dean Martin H. Brinkley ’92 addressed attendees and congratulated the Class of 2019 for reaching 100 percent participation in pro bono projects. This year's award recipients included:

• Sylvia K. Novinsky Award - Lauren Toole 3L
• 3L Student of the Year - Lashieka Hardin 3L
• 2L Student of the Year - Grace Lempp 2L
• 1L Student of the Year - Nicole Angelica 1L
• Group Pro Bono Project of the Year - Environmental Law Project, accepted on behalf of ELP by Miranda Goot 2L
• Faculty Member of the Year – Lewis Moore “Luke” Everett ’08, Clinical Associate Professor of Law
• Alumnae of the Year – Emily Burke ’14 and Leigh Wicclair ’11

Learn more about the award winners. Award nominations may be submitted by alumni, legal organizations, or any member of the Carolina Law community.

-April 11, 2019

UNC School of Law congratulates 39 first-year law students who received a Eugene Gressman & Daniel H. Pollitt Oral Advocacy Award on April 16. The annual awards, given by faculty of the Writing and Learning Resources Center, recognize outstanding oral advocacy in the first-year Research, Reasoning, Writing, and Advocacy (RRWA) Program. This year marked the 24th anniversary celebration of the awards. The RRWA program, now in its eight year as a full-year, six-credit program, ranks No. 8 in legal writing by U.S. News & World Report.

The awards' sponsor is the firm of Johnston, Allison & Hord of Charlotte. Carolina Law alumnus and attorney at Johnston, Allison & Hord, Michael L. Wilson '96, worked with Professor Emerita Ruth McKinney '88 to establish the awards in 1995. Emma Chase ’18, an associate at Johnston, Allison & Hord and 2016 Gressman Pollitt Award winner, spoke at the ceremony and congratulated this year's recipients. The awards honor Eugene Gressman, William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of Law Emeritus, and Daniel H. Pollitt, Graham Kenan Professor of Law Emeritus, who both passed away in 2010.

The RRWA professors and their award recipients are:

Kevin Bennardo - Clinical Associate Professor of Law

Section 11

• William Kohake Harris

• Amy Mull

• Carleigh Zeman

Section 13

• Jacob Patrick Buckley Brannon

• Kaity Y. Emerson

• Christopher C. Patterson

Luke Everett ’08 - Clinical Associate Professor of Law

Section 4

• Bradley Anderton

• Kathryn Alexandria Johnson

• Charles Ponder

Section 9

• Katie E. Dixon

• Ryan Dovel

• Michelle P. Marchand

Pete Nemerovski - Clinical Associate Professor

Section 5

• Cannon Lane

• Camila M. Rohena-Maldonado

• Grant Thomas Pendergraft

Section 6

• Cecilia G. Rambarat

• Taylor B. Rodney

• Salonika Tiwari

Jena Reger – Professor of the Practice of Law

Section 2

• Andrew M. Benton

• Maureen Gleason

• Anastasia Kaitlyn McKettrick

Section 12

• Ryan M. Collins

• Emily Jilson

• Destiny Zapora Planter

Elizabeth Sherowski - Visiting Clinical Assistant Professor

Section 3

• William Kwadwo Aboagye-Kumi

• Robert C. DiDomenico III

• Nathan Wilson

Section 14

• Chris Armistead

• Ambar Fleites

• Sarah M. French

Craig T. Smith - Assistant Dean for the Writing and Learning Resources Center and Clinical Professor of Law

Section 7

• Foram Majmudar

• Mallory A. Morris

• Samantha L. Reeves

Sara B. Warf ’06 - Clinical Associate Professor of Law

Section 1

• Mousa A. Alshanteer

• Madiha Chhotani

• Lucas B. Earle

Section 8

• Alexandra Franklin

• Joseph E. Gerber

• Madison Leigh Scott

-April 17, 2019

The UNC School of Law has received the largest single cash gift in the school’s history from North Carolina business icon Jerry Wordsworth. The unrestricted gift supports the school’s mission to prepare outstanding lawyer-leaders. Like all gifts to Carolina Law, it is an investment in the future of North Carolina and the nation.

Wordsworth is a Rocky Mount, North Carolina native. Over nearly 40 years, he and his siblings built MBM Corporation into a multibillion dollar customized foodservice distributor serving restaurant chains nationwide. At the time of its sale in 2018, Jerry and his brother Steve were owners of the Carolina Panthers football franchise.

Wordsworth made his gift to the law school in recognition that lawyers trained at Carolina played critical roles in the growth of his business. Carolina Law Dean Martin H. Brinkley '92 served as MBM Corporation’s lead outside counsel for more than two decades.

“Although I am not a lawyer and did not graduate from UNC, I believe that lawyers who hold to the highest ethical standards, are committed to public service, and understand business are critical to the future of our country. I wanted to play a part in making sure other business entrepreneurs and communities have access to the best legal counsel,” said Wordsworth.

“Jerry is a wonderful steward of our state. As his devoted friend and admirer for the best part of 30 years, it is inspiring to me that he recognizes the importance of the rule of law and the roles that lawyers play in American communities. Jerry’s gift is a vote of confidence that Carolina Law is producing the caliber of lawyers North Carolina and the nation need,” said Brinkley, who is also Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor of Law.

Private gifts like Wordsworth’s enable the law school to pursue opportunities quickly as they arise, in support of thriving professional development programs and experiential learning opportunities.

“Jerry’s generosity will allow Carolina Law to recruit the strongest teachers and students in the country. We will use his gift to educate excellent lawyers who will work in private practice, public service, nonprofit work and public interest practice,” said Brinkley. “It takes resources to produce great lawyers. With private gifts enhancing the generous support we receive from the state legislature, the return on these investments will benefit North Carolina.”

Together, philanthropy and the dean’s leadership are propelling the school forward, both in rankings and impact.

UNC School of Law is ranked No. 34 out of the 192 law schools ranked in U.S. News & World Report’s 2020 edition of “America’s Best Graduate Schools.” Of the 26 public law schools in the top 50, UNC School of Law is No. 14.

In 2018, Carolina Law also ranked No. 1 among North Carolina law schools for first-time bar takers passing the exam.

And law students are giving back. For two years running, 100% of the graduating class have participated in pro bono projects over the course of their three years at Carolina Law. Students have contributed to cases that range from helping cancer patients complete complex legal forms to securing humanitarian aid for refugee children.

Graduates of Carolina Law have gone on to illustrious careers, including many in the service of North Carolina. Twelve of the state’s past 25 governors graduated from the law school, as did four sitting justices of the N.C. Supreme Court and numerous legislators.

As the oldest professional school in North Carolina, UNC School of Law will celebrate its 175^th anniversary in the 2019-2020 academic year.

-June 18, 2019

LeAnn Nease Brown '84, right, with outgoing NCBA President Jackie
Grant '95. Photo courtesy of Russell Rawlings/NCBA.

Ten UNC School of Law alumni and one faculty member received awards at the North Carolina Bar Association’s 121st annual meeting in Asheville, June 20-23, and six alumni were recognized for their new leadership roles within the organization.

LeAnn Nease Brown ’84 Sworn in as NCBA President

LeAnn Nease Brown ’84, a member/manager of Brown & Bunch in Chapel Hill, was installed as the 125th president of the NCBA. She will also serve as president of the North Carolina Bar Foundation. She has served as chair of three specialty practice sections (Antitrust & Complex Business Disputes, Zoning, Planning & Land Use and Dispute Resolution), as chair of the Membership Committee and CLE Committee, and as co-chair of the Legislative Advisory Committee. She served on the NCBA Board of Governors and the NCBF Board of Directors and the Audit and Finance Committee in 2010-13. Brown is a three-time graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology and history in 1977, a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling from the School of Medical Allied Health Sciences in 1981, and a juris doctor from the UNC School of Law in 1984.

C. Mark Holt ’87 Will Serve as NCBA President-Elect

C. Mark Holt ’87 of Raleigh is the new president-elect of the North Carolina Bar Association. Holt is a partner in Holt Sherlin LLP, which he co-founded in 2013. He will serve as president of the North Carolina Bar Association and the North Carolina Bar Foundation in 2020-21.

New Vice Presidents and Board Members Elected

Katherine Wilkerson ’92, of Lynch and Eatman in Raleigh, was elected to a three-year term on the NCBA Board of Governors. New vice presidents, who were elected at the spring meeting of the Board of Governors and will serve a one-year term, include

• Justice Mark Davis ’91, N.C. Supreme Court in Raleigh
• Judge Richard Allen Baddour Jr. ’97, N.C. Superior Court in Pittsboro
• Andrew Foster ’00, Duke Law School Director of the Community Enterprise Clinic and Clinical Professor of Law in Durham

Howard E. Manning Jr. ’68 Receives Judge John J. Parker Award

Retired Superior Court Judge Howard E. Manning Jr. ’68 of Raleigh is the 39th recipient of the Judge John J. Parker Award, considered the highest award bestowed by the NCBA. Manning’s great-grandfather, John Manning, was the first professor of law on the UNC faculty.

Robert “Bob” Orr ’75 Receives H. Brent McKnight Renaissance Lawyer Award

Former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert “Bob” Orr is the 2019 recipient of the H. Brent McKnight Renaissance Lawyer Award. Orr lives in Raleigh and is an adjunct professor in NC State Constitutional Law at Carolina.

Lisa Arthur ’12 Receives Charles F. Blanchard Young Lawyer of the Year Award

Lisa Arthur ’12 of Fox Rothschild in Greensboro is the 2019 recipient of the Charles F. Blanchard Young Lawyer of the Year Award. Arthur is a member of the NCBA’s Young Lawyers Division.

Charles Daye and Julius Chambers ’62 Receive Legal Legends of Color Award

The fourth installment of the Minorities in the Profession Committee’s Legal Legends of Color Awards recognized diverse attorneys of color who have made a significant impact in North Carolina.

Two of the five awards were presented to Charles Daye, Henry Brandis Professor of Law emeritus, and the late civil rights lawyer Julius Chambers ’62, who served as founding director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights. This is the first year the committee chose to honor someone posthumously.

Three Inducted into Legal Practice Hall of Fame

The General Practice Hall of Fame seeks to recognize exemplary service and high ethical and professional standards as a general legal practitioner in North Carolina. Three alumni were inducted at the meeting.

• Dan Hartzog ’73, of Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog in Raleigh
• R. Anderson “Andy” Haynes ’73, in Tryon
• L.P. “Tony” Hornthal ’63, of Hornthal, Riley, Ellis & Maland in Elizabeth City

Three Named as Citizen Lawyer Award Recipients

The NCBA announced three Carolina Law alumni as recipients of the 2019 Citizen Lawyer Award. The award was established in 2007 to recognize lawyers who provide exemplary public service to their communities.

• Joel Harbinson ’79, of Harbinson, Brzykcy & Corbett in Taylorsville
• Henry “Hank” Van Hoy II ’74, of Martin & Van Hoy in Mocksville
• Rep. W. “Lee” Zachary Jr. ’73, of Zachary Law Offices in Yadkinville

-June 27, 2019

This article originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2019 issue of Carolina Law magazine.

Virginia Radford Niehaus, '12 JD/'13 MPH, knows the powerful ways that public health and law can work together to improve people’s lives. During a Public Health Law Fellowship sponsored by the Network for Public Health Law and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, she had the privilege of working with the City of New Orleans to draft and implement a comprehensive smoke-free ordinance.

As a student in the MPH program at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, Niehaus completed a practicum with the National Health Law Program and Network for Public Health Law that led to the fellowship opportunity.

“It was great that we went from concept to development to implementation over the time I was in New Orleans,” Niehaus says. “The ordinance had a huge public health impact, but it was also professionally rewarding to have the opportunity to work on a policy at every phase. I was fortunate to be an integral part of the entire process and be able to effect real change.”

Niehaus’s involvement with the smoke-free ordinance — which impacted more than 500 bars and a casino in New Orleans — is among her biggest career achievements. But it’s only one of a growing list of accomplishments. Last year, she was named Director of Regulatory and Legal Affairs for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Public Health.

In her new role, Niehaus works on public health policy development through legislation and rulemaking and is Chief of Staff to the NC Commission for Public Health, the public health rulemaking body for North Carolina. She also consults with Division staff and local health departments on implementation and enforcement of public health statutes and rules, and advocates for the state’s public health policies and programs at local, state, and national meetings.

In her position, Niehaus sits on the North Carolina Local Health Department Accreditation Board.

As Director of Regulatory and Legal Affairs for the Division of Public Health, Niehaus is making an impact on issues as varied as communicable disease reporting and surveillance, environmental health permitting and inspections, and the prevention of chronic disease and injury. “The diversity of issues that come across my desk are challenging and fascinating,” she says. “I’m excited to support the excellent work that the Division is doing.”

At Carolina Law, Niehaus had diverse real-world experiences that helped prepare her for her career.

“UNC does a good job setting students up for careers,” she says, with attentive career guidance, networking and internship opportunities, and student organizations, such as the Carolina Health Law Organization. Through her classes, she worked with a variety of health laws that helped shape her career decisions, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and Medicaid and Medicare laws. She has always been interested in how the health law framework impacts underserved populations.

Niehaus’s pro bono experiences included volunteering with Disability Rights North Carolina to investigate compliance with Olmstead v. L.C. in adult care homes across the state, completing research assignments for Legal Aid of NC’s Medical-Legal Partnership, and drafting estate planning documents for low-income individuals in eastern NC. “Those opportunities were valuable because I had an opportunity to engage directly with real legal issues, meet the individuals impacted by the work I was doing, and connect with attorneys in the community,” she says.

These hands-on experiences exposed Niehaus to various aspects of the health and law intersection. “Every perspective you can get helps…in trying to understand the health care system and look at the gaps and how we can do this better,” she says.

In addition to the applied-learning opportunities, Carolina Law faculty members have had a lasting impact on Niehaus.

Professors Joan Krause and Richard Saver developed health law classes in bioethics and health regulation as well as a public health law seminar that were valuable for Niehaus. “They are excellent resources and mentors for students interested in health law,” she says. Saver was a mentor for her public health master’s thesis.

A career connecting law and health reflects the ability of Carolina Law graduates to work across disciplines. “I want to serve as a bridge,” Niehaus says, “to help public health have a seat at the table to put evidenced-based practice into policy. In this role, it is helpful to have someone who can speak both the language of public health and the language of law.”

And for Niehaus, making a difference in two fields is exciting. “Being able to see the impact and effecting real change,” she says, “makes public interest work rewarding.”

— Jessica Clarke

-May 14, 2019

This article originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2019 issue of Carolina Law magazine.

Carolina Law started preparing Jessica Holmes '09 for her legal career before she was even a law student. As a junior studying political science at Chapel Hill, she had a work-study placement at the UNC Center for Civil Rights. There she worked with faculty prominent in the field who became mentors. They included center founding director the late Julius Chambers '62; Anita Earls, now a North Carolina Supreme Court justice; and former Carolina Law Dean Jack Boger '74.

Before the work-study experience, most of what Holmes knew about lawyers’ work came from “Law & Order” and other TV shows.

Focusing on education inequities while at the center, she became familiar with the NAACP and the work of prominent civil rights attorneys. “It was a turning point in my understanding of what lawyers do and how they serve people,” Holmes says. “It changed the course of my life and gave me a direction. I’ve been on that course ever since,” advocating on issues related to education, voting rights, workers’ rights and poverty.

Working at the center not only affirmed her decision to be a lawyer but defined her focus on education policy making and labor and employment law. Describing her experience with mentors at the center says, “we were people with similar goals and visions for our state, coming together determined to change the world in spite of the limited resources available to us.”

Later, when she practiced law at the North Carolina Association of Educators, Holmes used her drive to change the world to achieve her biggest career accomplishment so far. She was on a litigation team that got career status — comparable to tenure — reinstated for certain educators by the state Supreme Court. The ruling overturned a state law that would have forced veteran educators to forfeit job protections they had earned.

“That passion for education equity, supporting educators and advocating for workers was very much homegrown in small offices at Carolina Law,” says Holmes, a board member of the North Carolina Foundation for Public School Children. She will receive the Outstanding Recent Graduate Award from the UNC Law Alumni Association this spring.

Re-elected in 2018 to the Wake County Board of Commissioners and to a second term as chairwoman, Holmes, of Cary, continues to work on issues of education and other challenges. “I’m able to implement policies that will hopefully address those issues for children,” she says.

Holmes hopes to implement policies at a statewide level. She is a candidate for state Commissioner of Labor in 2020. “My end goal is to help people regardless of what my title is,” she says.

UNC has influenced Holmes’ work in government as she represents more than a million constituents. “Carolina Law is very much ingrained in the fabric of who I am and how I present myself. I see it as a public-service institution, and I truly try to live by that,” she says.

In teaching a course on the legal aspects of social work at North Carolina State University, Holmes has her experiences with Carolina Law faculty and her real-world opportunities as a law student to draw on.

“My professors were patient and attentive with me whether I was dealing with personal challenges or having difficulty with a particular subject. I got the attention I needed,” she says. “They wanted you to thrive. I feel like I’ve done just that, and I want them to know their investment mattered.”

— Jessica Clarke

-May 3, 2019

Carolina students visit the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg, accompanied by Dean Brinkley and Professor Broome.

Many law students spend their summers working at a firm or doing research with a professor, but five students were selected to spend two weeks in Tübingen, Germany, with UNC School of Law Dean Martin H. Brinkley ’92, Professor Lissa L. Broome and Professor John F. Coyle as part of a new study abroad program.

Through research workshops and courses, the Tübingen-Chapel Hill Law Program facilitates trans-Atlantic collaboration among students through a strong teaching component designed to promote mutual understanding of each other’s legal systems and cultures.

Anna Huffman 2L, M-K McKinney 2L, Shay Potter 2L, Andrew Wisniewsky 2L and Carleigh Zeman 2L visited the Eberhard Karls University Faculty of Law July 1-12 to take courses—taught in English—alongside German students. They studied issues relating to corporate law, antitrust, and banking law, and participated in excursions to institutions like the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg and the European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt. The UNC students also had the opportunity to explain U.S. law and legal institutions to German law students.

Anna Huffman

M-K McKinney

Shay Potter

Andrew Wisniewsky

Carleigh Zeman

Brinkley taught Law and Legal Institutions of the U.S. as well as U.S. Competition Law and participated in a symposium on competition law, Coyle taught U.S. Corporation Law, and Broome participated in a symposium reflecting on the financial crisis.

After the program ended, Huffman worked for two weeks at international law firm White & Case in Frankfurt, and Zeman stayed another month in Stuttgart for a paid internship with Gleiss Lutz, a top-tier global law firm, working in their central office with more than 100 lawyers.

“I knew when I applied to Carolina Law that I wanted to go into international law, so this internship has been right up my alley,” says Zeman. “I was interested in pursuing a career in international arbitration before I came to Gleiss Lutz and this internship has given me a lot of helpful experience and insight into international arbitral tribunals and how they operate.”

Zeman has reviewed the German attorneys’ English publications including submissions for law journals, legal dictionaries and treatises.

“My biggest project has been working on an ongoing international arbitration dispute,” says Zeman. “All of the proceedings, rules and precedent are in English, so it helps to have a native speaker on hand.”

Professor Jonas Monast, director of Carolina Law’s environmental law center, also visited Tübingen in June to cohost a workshop on energy transitions in federal legal systems with scholars from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, South Africa, Australia and the U.S.

“International partnerships provide law students with the opportunity to develop a global mindset,” says Stephanie Schantz, director of global opportunities at Carolina Law. “Students learn about legal issues and institutions that are different than what they study in law school.”

The UNC Center for Banking and Finance, of which Broome serves as director, offered each student a stipend to defray the costs of travel and housing. One of those stipends was funded through an endowment for the center established by the law firm Williams Mullen, which was supplemented by a personal gift from Williams Mullen attorney Camden Webb ’95. Students will speak about their Tübingen experience at the August meeting of the center’s board of directors.

-July 24, 2019

Richard E. Myers II '98, Henry Brandis Distinguished Professor of Law, taught Lawrence Cameron '10, now an associate at McGuireWoods.

This article originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2019 issue of Carolina Law magazine.

Following law school, Lawrence Cameron '10 started his career as an assistant district attorney in Wake County, North Carolina. He went on to serve as an assistant U.S. attorney at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina where he prosecuted money laundering, narcotics trafficking, and public corruption cases. He is now an associate at McGuireWoods in Raleigh.

Professor Richard E. Myers II '98 had similar path. After clerking for the Honorable David Sentelle '68 on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Myers entered private practice as a litigator for O’Melveny & Myers, LLP prosecuting white collar crimes. He then became an assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District of California and transferred to the Eastern District of North Carolina. Myers then joined the Carolina Law faculty in 2004.

Cameron and Myers recently reunited at Carolina Law and discussed how their roles have evolved from the early days as a student and a faculty member.

How did Professor Myers influence you as a student and what kind of impact has it had on your career?

CAMERON: Professor Myers had a tremendous impact on me as a student and as a practicing attorney. Coming into law school, I wanted to help minorities struggling with impact of the criminal justice system and assumed becoming a criminal defense attorney was the best way to make an impact. Professor Meyers challenged that view and opened up my mind to the concept of being a prosecutor. He taught me about the tremendous amount of discretion that prosecutors have and the importance of diversity in the exercise of that discretion. My first job out of law school would not have been as a state prosecutor in the Wake County District Attorney's Office but for my relationship with Professor Myers.

How important is the dynamic between students and faculty?

PROFESSOR MYERS: The students are the reason we exist. Teaching the next generation of lawyers is incredibly satisfying. On a personal level, investing energy in people who want to make the world a better place and keep us committed to the rule of law is the source of great challenges and much joy. The students keep us thinking about the future, and they will go on to change the world. Lawrence was always someone that I knew would make a difference. His personal experiences observing people from his life dealing with the criminal justice system forged a commitment to doing justice. When he was here, we had the opportunity to talk about where and how he could make the most impact. I’m very proud to have played a tiny part in Lawrence’s success.

You both have had similar career paths. How did Professor Myers’ experience influence your career path, and what is your relationship like today?

CAMERON: Professor Myers is a big reason why I began my career as a prosecutor. When I began to consider leaving the DA's office to become an Assistant U.S. Attorney, I sought out Professor Myers’ advice due to his time as a federal prosecutor. Throughout my career, Professor Myers has been someone that I can always go to whether it be with questions on how to handle a particular evidentiary issue at trial, or how to balance my responsibilities as a husband and father with my ambitions as a lawyer. I consider him to be a mentor and a friend.

As an alumnus, which professor influenced you and why?

PROFESSOR MYERS: Lou Bilionis and Ken Broun were important mentors for me. Lou taught me Criminal Law and Constitutional Law, and his brilliance at the podium inspired me to learn, and ultimately to teach. He dragged me into his office at the end of my first year of law school to explain why I was going to apply for a judicial clerkship, notwithstanding my reservations. It changed my life forever. I was Ken Broun’s research assistant and worked on his Brandis and Broun treatise on North Carolina evidence. I went on to teach Evidence, and am now a co-author on that same treatise. He has been a wonderful mentor and an inspiration for a life well-lived in the law. My mentors have played an important role at every step, and I strive to pay it forward.

-May 28, 2019

The President recently announced his intent to nominate Richard E. Myers ’98, Henry P. Brandis Distinguished Professor of Law, to be a Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Myers is being nominated to fill the longest standing vacancy in the federal courts.

A native of Kingston, Jamaica, Myers came to UNC School of Law as a student in 1995 after a career as a journalist in Wilmington, N.C. He was a Chancellors Scholar and graduated with high honors in 1998. He served as a law clerk to Chief Judge David B. Sentelle ’68 of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and practiced for two years with the Los Angeles firm of O'Melveny & Myers, LLP. 

From 2002 through 2004, Myers was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California and the Eastern District of North Carolina, where he prosecuted white collar and violent crimes. He joined the UNC School of Law faculty in 2004.

He has taught Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Professional Responsibility and a seminar on White Collar Crime, in addition to supervising Trial Advocacy courses. He served as Associate Dean for Student Affairs under Dean John Charles Boger and has been faculty adviser to both the Christian Legal Society and the Federalist Society. In the larger University, he has been an advisor to chancellors and is currently serving on the Campus Safety Commission.

“I am particularly proud that this honor goes not just to one of our great faculty members, but to a most devoted graduate of Carolina Law,” says Martin H. Brinkley ’92, dean and Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor of Law. “Although we will miss him sorely in Chapel Hill, we rejoice in the rich contributions he will make on the Eastern District bench.”

-August 23, 2019

This article originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2019 issue of Carolina Law magazine.

Collaborations with students and alumni show how truly committed Carolina Law's faculty is to scholarship, research, service and educating the next generation of the legal profession.

In researching a book about mass incarceration, Joe Kennedy, the Martha Brandis Professor of Law, tapped Kasi Wahlers '17, then a second-year law student at Carolina Law, to do a literature review for the drug chapter. A data set from the National Incident-Based Reporting System harbored some stats about arrests by local law enforcement agencies, but neither Kennedy nor Wahlers had worked with big data before.

Professor Joe Kennedy and Kasi Wahlers '17 worked together on a research article about the overrepresentation of people of color in felony arrests for small amounts of drugs.

They discovered information about the race of those arrested for drug offenses and the quantity of drugs involved that no one else had written about. All three are listed as co-authors on the resulting research article that re-thinks felony liability for low-level drug offenders and documents the overrepresentation of people of color in felony arrests for small amounts of drugs.

Writing the research article, published in UC Davis Law Review in January, “was a chance to do something that would have more impact than just a grade,” Wahlers said. Many days, the paper is among the top 10 downloads, which suggests it will be cited in other research yet to come.

“To see that my work was valuable had a big impact on me,” Wahlers said. “I’m fortunate to have had professors who believed in me and took the time to mentor me.”

Connections and collaborations among faculty and students, across disciplines, around the world and even back in time, enrich the Carolina Law experience. Faculty create opportunities for hands-on learning through pro bono clinics, presenting Continuing Legal Education programs, international exchanges and reading the original law tracts used by lawyers practicing centuries ago. Professors at Carolina Law are valued for their teaching, and they produce excellent legal scholarship.

“Those two reputations don’t always go hand-in-hand,” Kennedy said, “but they do here.”

Professors Joan Krause and Rich Saver, co-faculty advisers for the Carolina Health Law Organization (CHLO), worked with members Alec Mercolino 2L, Nur Kara 2L and Nicole Angelica 1L on a grant to increase low-income access to medical resources.

Physical proximity proved a boon in the expanding curriculum of the health law program at UNC. The medical school, law school and school of public health make their home on South Campus. Research Triangle Park has many biotechnology stakeholders; some of the major health employers in the country are headquartered in the Triangle; and NorthCarolina is transforming its Medicaid system.

Richard Saver, Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor of Law, considers this “an exciting time in health law, because things are constantly changing in the highly regulated and politicized health care sector.”

He and Joan Krause, the Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor in Ethics and Jurisprudence, teach a course at the medical school in which law students and medical students work on projects in interdisciplinary groups. Law students also work pro bono at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, preparing advanced directives for patients.

Saver serves as co-faculty adviser to the student-run Carolina Health Law Organization. He knew that the N.C. Bar Association’s Health Law Section (he’s on its executive council) had taken on a project to provide information to state residents looking for free or discounted medical care. Saver connected CHLO’s president, Nur Kara, a second-year law student, with the N.C. Society of Health Care Attorneys, which had grant funding available. Kara successfully applied for a $1,500 grant and developed important pragmatic skills in project administration, including how to handle “the less-than-thrilling aspects of fundraising and the bureaucratic minefields you have to navigate to get a grant through the university system,” Saver said. The project has helped CHLO students move beyond the classroom by connecting them with health lawyers in practice.

With funding in hand, the CHLO students have been compiling and will distribute a resource for finding clinics and providers that offer free or discounted medical care.

Kara, who has a master’s in health policy, chose Carolina Law in part because of the benefit of collaborating with faculty partners at the medical and public health schools and because UNC’s health system is the largest nonprofit provider of health care in the state.

“Carolina Law is small enough to have very invested faculty,” she said. “Professors here come with diverse experience across private practice, public interest and international law. They are more than willing to mentor students inside the classroom and outside.”

Semester exchange students from Germany, Spain, Argentina and the Netherlands visited the N.C. Supreme Court in Raleigh in October to observe oral arguments as part of their Introduction to U.S. Law class with Professor Donna Nixon, center.

Those inside and outside experiences have an international mix. Donna Nixon, a clinical assistant professor of law and the electronic resources librarian, was until recently the faculty coordinator of the International Exchange Programs. Carolina Law has partnerships with 10 institutions, many in Europe, as well as Argentina and Mexico. Tar Heel JD students may study abroad for six months to a year, and students from the partner institutions may come to Carolina, often to earn an LLM. The school frequently welcomes scholars from Asia as well. Faculty, too, participate in international exchanges and scholarship and have been known to go as far afield as Australia.

“We get the opportunity for intellectual and cultural exchanges and to learn the differences in legal systems around the world,” Nixon said. Carolina Law’s participation in international moot court competitions adds another global layer.Nixon also takes students, foreign and domestic, to hear cases argued before the N.C.Supreme Court.

“Students get to see how lawyers handle themselves in court in high-stakes cases,” she said.

John Brooker '03 guest lectures in Professor Tom Kelley's public international law class.

Tom Kelley, Paul B. Eaton Distinguished Professor of Law, invited alumni with international public law experience as guest lecturers to the public international law course he began teaching this spring. He Skyped in Dan MacGuire '07, who works in Geneva for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and Rachel Braden '13, who works on women’s health issues with an NGO in Central and West Africa and now in India. He walked down the hall to the office of John Brooker '03, who spent much of his Army career living in interesting, difficult and dangerous places as he practiced humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict and now supervises Carolina Law’s Military and Veterans Law Clinic.

The three alumni talk about the interpretation and application of international law, as well as their career paths.

“If you want to be a corporate litigator, the path is clear,” Kelley said. “Finding the path to a career in public international law is much more challenging. You don’t just bump into people practicing international law, particularly public international law.”

Kelley has taken students to Rwanda for study abroad excursions, and he points to pivotal efforts by his colleagues on the faculty: Holning Lau’s work on human rights in Africa and Asia, and Deborah Weissman’s work on torture in the international realm.

“We have excellent scholarly and research faculty,” Kelley said, “and we care, maybe more than our peer schools, about classroom teaching and guiding and mentoring the next generation of leaders in law. We want to spark students’ imaginations, because we want them to have high-impact and enjoyable careers.”

Elizabeth Fisher 3L co-authors an article with law professor and Associate Dean for Strategy Andy Hessick to be published in the Alabama Law Review.

Third-year law student Elizabeth Fisher got a jump on her career by co-authoring an article with law professor and Associate Dean for Strategy Andy Hessick that will be published in Alabama Law Review. She had been published last year in North Carolina Law Review, but, she said, “it’s different to get published in a journal with a professor.”

When Hessick asked her to work with him on writing up a theory that provides justification for not incorporating the 5th, 6th and 7th Amendment jury rights, she hesitated before saying yes.

“I wanted to make sure I could do a good job and still manage school and other responsibilities,” she said. “It was very time-consuming and challenging working on something so unfamiliar.”

Fisher credits her good writing skills to Melissa Jacoby, the Graham Kenan Professor of Law, whose feedback was instrumental in shaping how Fisher thought, researched and wrote.

“The faculty here are very approachable,” Fisher said, “always willing to listen and help.

Resident Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour '97, Clinical Assistant Professor and Assistant Director for Collection and Technology Services Stacey Rowland and Jonathan Zator 3L present a CLE session on technology at the Susie Sharp Inn of Court.

Being part of the Susie Sharp Inn of Court helped third-year law student Jonathan Zator learn that judges can be approachable, too. Carolina Law pays the membership fee for a handful of students annually. The Inn meets a half-dozen times a year for dinner and a CLE presentation, enabling students to connect with lawyers and judges informally and learn about topical issues in the law field, while longtime practitioners are reinvigorated by the students’ energy and passion for law.

This year, the Carolina Law student contingent planned and presented a CLE session on technology. Resident Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour '97 advised the students on making the session relevant to practitioners from a wide range of career experience.

Zator, as the chief planner among the presenters, learned how to build a CLE from the ground up, recruit talent and interact with others in the field. He and his team chose Clinical Assistant Professor Stacey Rowland, who is also the assistant director for Collection and Technology Services for the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library, to present on the hidden powers of Word that save lawyers time and boost their efficiency.

Automating page suppression in a digital filing or autogenerating a table of authorities are useful skills for lawyers. “Since the economic downturn, professional services have been cut at law firms,” Rowland said. “Clients are not willing to pay for some of those services. Automating will help if you can’t charge for those services.”

North Carolina adopted a duty of technology competence in 2014, becoming the second state to require an hour of CLE training in technology, such as using reasonable security methods on- and offline. Rowland cites Paul Manafort, whose legal problems were compounded because he didn’t redact his court filings properly. Failing to correctly redact sensitive information is a common technical oversight and a breach of the required duty of technology competence. “Saying, ‘My secretary did it,’ is not a valid excuse,” Rowland said.

John Coyle, the Reef C. Ivey II Term Professor of Law, presents his research on choice-of-law clauses at law firms around North Carolina.

Practitioners become better lawyers through the research conducted by professors and their students.

John Coyle, the Reef C. Ivey II Term Professor of Law, has presented his research on choice-of-law and forum selection clauses to law firms around the state, helping transactional lawyers write better contracts.

“I have read hundreds upon hundreds of cases in an attempt to show how courts have interpreted specific words and phrases in these clauses,” he said. “Having done so, I wanted to pass these insights along to the lawyers tasked with contract drafting.”

In reviewing cases that may date back 130 years, Coyle finds the inflection point of when words or phrases changed or went out of fashion. He understands not only how contract language changes over time, but what forces drive that evolution. His work reveals common misperceptions and offers a roadmap to help lawyers avoid unintended consequences. Coyle’s goal is to continue presenting his choice-of-law clause work to new audiences in North Carolina and beyond.

Clinical Assistant Professor Melissa Hyland '13, the reference and faculty research services librarian, with items from the rare books collection (1) Cane – from the UNC Law Class of 1890, engraved with names of students and faculty; (2) Chitty on Pleading – an 1809 edition containing the signature of Thomas Ruffian, former Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court; (3) a first edition (1759) of Blackstone’s The Great Charter and Charter of the Forest; (4) a 1965 miniature edition of Magna Carta.

Law students learn from history through the Kathrine R. Everett Law Library’s Rare Book Collection. Clinical Assistant Professor Melissa Hyland '13, the reference and faculty research services librarian, brings rare books to the legal history class taught by John Orth, the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor of Law. History comes alive for students asthey interact with law texts dating back to the mid-1500s or titles originally owned by prominent North Carolina attorneys such as William Hooper, the state’s representative to the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

“That gets students excited,” Hyland said. “They see physical evidence of how the law was used by attorneys practicing at the time, and discuss how lawyers influenced the development of American jurisprudence.”

With more than 500,000 print volumes in the law library and her own experience as a practicing attorney, Hyland helps teach the next generation of lawyers how to conduct legal research in practice.

“I watch students grow in their confidence as legal researchers,” she said. “A solid foundation of legal research skills will help students succeed in any practice area.”

Jenny Cofer 2L and Professor Carissa Hessick published an op-ed about their research on prosecutor campaign contributions in The Kansas City Star in February.

One final example of how student/faculty collaborations impact the legal profession and society’s understanding of how it works: Carissa Hessick’s Prosecutors and Politics Project. Hessick, the Anne Shea Ransdell & William Garland Ransdell Jr. Distinguished Professor of Law and associate dean for faculty development, leads students in a new initiative to discover how prosecutors are affected by and participate in the political process.

Courts typically decline to oversee or limit the discretion and power prosecutors have, because elected or appointed prosecutors are politically accountable. Prosecutors decide who is charged and with what. Over the past few decades, the criminal justice system has grown increasingly punitive. Hessick and her students conducted a study of every prosecutor election held in the country. The results showed that incumbency is one reason those elections are so rarely contested.Her research team also identified a supply problem of not enough lawyers willing and able to serve as prosecutors. Her article based on this study will come out soon.

Carolina Law also received a major donation for Hessick’s students to research prosecutors accepting political campaign contributions. They found that some district attorneys, sheriffs and judges contributed to one another’s campaigns.

“Those donations can get in the way of the separation of powers and functions,” Hessick said.

Hessick has co-authored with students a series of op-eds that have appeared in major newspapers across the country. Her students learn how to make public records requests in different places with different laws; how to distill data down to laymen’s terms; and how to write op-eds that argue for policy changes.

“These are things that lawyers do, but it’s not easy to teach,” she said. Hessick finds students at Carolina Law to mirror faculty — “really thoughtful, nice people who ask hard questions and spend a lot of time trying to be well-informed.

“People at Carolina Law work really hard, and they do it without glory.”

And the world is a better place because of it.

--Nancy E. Oates

-May 28, 2019

LeAnn Nease Brown '84, right, with outgoing NCBA President Jackie
Grant '95. Photo courtesy of Russell Rawlings/NCBA.

Ten UNC School of Law alumni and one faculty member received awards at the North Carolina Bar Association’s 121st annual meeting in Asheville, June 20-23, and six alumni were recognized for their new leadership roles within the organization.

LeAnn Nease Brown ’84 Sworn in as NCBA President

LeAnn Nease Brown ’84, a member/manager of Brown & Bunch in Chapel Hill, was installed as the 125th president of the NCBA. She will also serve as president of the North Carolina Bar Foundation. She has served as chair of three specialty practice sections (Antitrust & Complex Business Disputes, Zoning, Planning & Land Use and Dispute Resolution), as chair of the Membership Committee and CLE Committee, and as co-chair of the Legislative Advisory Committee. She served on the NCBA Board of Governors and the NCBF Board of Directors and the Audit and Finance Committee in 2010-13. Brown is a three-time graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology and history in 1977, a master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling from the School of Medical Allied Health Sciences in 1981, and a juris doctor from the UNC School of Law in 1984.

C. Mark Holt ’87 Will Serve as NCBA President-Elect

C. Mark Holt ’87 of Raleigh is the new president-elect of the North Carolina Bar Association. Holt is a partner in Holt Sherlin LLP, which he co-founded in 2013. He will serve as president of the North Carolina Bar Association and the North Carolina Bar Foundation in 2020-21.

New Vice Presidents and Board Members Elected

Katherine Wilkerson ’92, of Lynch and Eatman in Raleigh, was elected to a three-year term on the NCBA Board of Governors. New vice presidents, who were elected at the spring meeting of the Board of Governors and will serve a one-year term, include

• Justice Mark Davis ’91, N.C. Supreme Court in Raleigh
• Judge Richard Allen Baddour Jr. ’97, N.C. Superior Court in Pittsboro
• Andrew Foster ’00, Duke Law School Director of the Community Enterprise Clinic and Clinical Professor of Law in Durham

Howard E. Manning Jr. ’68 Receives Judge John J. Parker Award

Retired Superior Court Judge Howard E. Manning Jr. ’68 of Raleigh is the 39th recipient of the Judge John J. Parker Award, considered the highest award bestowed by the NCBA. Manning’s great-grandfather, John Manning, was the first professor of law on the UNC faculty.

Robert “Bob” Orr ’75 Receives H. Brent McKnight Renaissance Lawyer Award

Former N.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert “Bob” Orr is the 2019 recipient of the H. Brent McKnight Renaissance Lawyer Award. Orr lives in Raleigh and is an adjunct professor in NC State Constitutional Law at Carolina.

Lisa Arthur ’12 Receives Charles F. Blanchard Young Lawyer of the Year Award

Lisa Arthur ’12 of Fox Rothschild in Greensboro is the 2019 recipient of the Charles F. Blanchard Young Lawyer of the Year Award. Arthur is a member of the NCBA’s Young Lawyers Division.

Charles Daye and Julius Chambers ’62 Receive Legal Legends of Color Award

The fourth installment of the Minorities in the Profession Committee’s Legal Legends of Color Awards recognized diverse attorneys of color who have made a significant impact in North Carolina.

Two of the five awards were presented to Charles Daye, Henry Brandis Professor of Law emeritus, and the late civil rights lawyer Julius Chambers ’62, who served as founding director of the UNC Center for Civil Rights. This is the first year the committee chose to honor someone posthumously.

Three Inducted into Legal Practice Hall of Fame

The General Practice Hall of Fame seeks to recognize exemplary service and high ethical and professional standards as a general legal practitioner in North Carolina. Three alumni were inducted at the meeting.

• Dan Hartzog ’73, of Cranfill Sumner & Hartzog in Raleigh
• R. Anderson “Andy” Haynes ’73, in Tryon
• L.P. “Tony” Hornthal ’63, of Hornthal, Riley, Ellis & Maland in Elizabeth City

Three Named as Citizen Lawyer Award Recipients

The NCBA announced three Carolina Law alumni as recipients of the 2019 Citizen Lawyer Award. The award was established in 2007 to recognize lawyers who provide exemplary public service to their communities.

• Joel Harbinson ’79, of Harbinson, Brzykcy & Corbett in Taylorsville
• Henry “Hank” Van Hoy II ’74, of Martin & Van Hoy in Mocksville
• Rep. W. “Lee” Zachary Jr. ’73, of Zachary Law Offices in Yadkinville

-June 27, 2019

The UNC School of Law has received the largest single cash gift in the school’s history from North Carolina business icon Jerry Wordsworth. The unrestricted gift supports the school’s mission to prepare outstanding lawyer-leaders. Like all gifts to Carolina Law, it is an investment in the future of North Carolina and the nation.

Wordsworth is a Rocky Mount, North Carolina native. Over nearly 40 years, he and his siblings built MBM Corporation into a multibillion dollar customized foodservice distributor serving restaurant chains nationwide. At the time of its sale in 2018, Jerry and his brother Steve were co-owners of the Carolina Panthers football franchise.

Wordsworth made his gift to the law school in recognition that lawyers trained at Carolina played critical roles in the growth of his business. Carolina Law Dean Martin H. Brinkley '92 served as MBM Corporation’s lead outside counsel for more than two decades.

“Although I am not a lawyer and did not graduate from UNC, I believe that lawyers who hold to the highest ethical standards, are committed to public service, and understand business are critical to the future of our country. I wanted to play a part in making sure other business entrepreneurs and communities have access to the best legal counsel,” said Wordsworth.

“Jerry is a wonderful steward of our state. As his devoted friend and admirer for the best part of 30 years, it is inspiring to me that he recognizes the importance of the rule of law and the roles that lawyers play in American communities. Jerry’s gift is a vote of confidence that Carolina Law is producing the caliber of lawyers North Carolina and the nation need,” said Brinkley, who is also Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor of Law.

Private gifts like Wordsworth’s enable the law school to pursue opportunities quickly as they arise, in support of thriving professional development programs and experiential learning opportunities.

“Jerry’s generosity will allow Carolina Law to recruit the strongest teachers and students in the country. We will use his gift to educate excellent lawyers who will work in private practice, public service, nonprofit work and public interest practice,” said Brinkley. “It takes resources to produce great lawyers. With private gifts enhancing the generous support we receive from the state legislature, the return on these investments will benefit North Carolina.”

Together, philanthropy and the dean’s leadership are propelling the school forward, both in rankings and impact.

UNC School of Law is ranked No. 34 out of the 192 law schools ranked in U.S. News & World Report’s 2020 edition of “America’s Best Graduate Schools.” Of the 26 public law schools in the top 50, UNC School of Law is No. 14.

In 2018, Carolina Law also ranked No. 1 among North Carolina law schools for first-time bar takers passing the exam.

And law students are giving back. For two years running, 100% of the graduating class have participated in pro bono projects over the course of their three years at Carolina Law. Students have contributed to cases that range from helping cancer patients complete complex legal forms to securing humanitarian aid for refugee children.

Graduates of Carolina Law have gone on to illustrious careers, including many in the service of North Carolina. Twelve of the state’s past 25 governors graduated from the law school, as did four sitting justices of the N.C. Supreme Court and numerous legislators.

As the oldest professional school in North Carolina, UNC School of Law will celebrate its 175^th anniversary in the 2019-2020 academic year.

-June 18, 2019

Carolina students visit the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg, accompanied by Dean Brinkley and Professor Broome.

Many law students spend their summers working at a firm or doing research with a professor, but five students were selected to spend two weeks in Tübingen, Germany, with UNC School of Law Dean Martin H. Brinkley ’92, Professor Lissa L. Broome and Professor John F. Coyle as part of a new study abroad program.

Through research workshops and courses, the Tübingen-Chapel Hill Law Program facilitates trans-Atlantic collaboration among students through a strong teaching component designed to promote mutual understanding of each other’s legal systems and cultures.

Anna Huffman 2L, M-K McKinney 2L, Shay Potter 2L, Andrew Wisniewsky 2L and Carleigh Zeman 2L visited the Eberhard Karls University Faculty of Law July 1-12 to take courses—taught in English—alongside German students. They studied issues relating to corporate law, antitrust, and banking law, and participated in excursions to institutions like the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg and the European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt. The UNC students also had the opportunity to explain U.S. law and legal institutions to German law students.

Anna Huffman

M-K McKinney

Shay Potter

Andrew Wisniewsky

Carleigh Zeman

Brinkley taught Law and Legal Institutions of the U.S. as well as U.S. Competition Law and participated in a symposium on competition law, Coyle taught U.S. Corporation Law, and Broome participated in a symposium reflecting on the financial crisis.

After the program ended, Huffman worked for two weeks at international law firm White & Case in Frankfurt, and Zeman stayed another month in Stuttgart for a paid internship with Gleiss Lutz, a top-tier global law firm, working in their central office with more than 100 lawyers.

“I knew when I applied to Carolina Law that I wanted to go into international law, so this internship has been right up my alley,” says Zeman. “I was interested in pursuing a career in international arbitration before I came to Gleiss Lutz and this internship has given me a lot of helpful experience and insight into international arbitral tribunals and how they operate.”

Zeman has reviewed the German attorneys’ English publications including submissions for law journals, legal dictionaries and treatises.

“My biggest project has been working on an ongoing international arbitration dispute,” says Zeman. “All of the proceedings, rules and precedent are in English, so it helps to have a native speaker on hand.”

Professor Jonas Monast, director of Carolina Law’s environmental law center, also visited Tübingen in June to cohost a workshop on energy transitions in federal legal systems with scholars from Germany, Switzerland, Austria, South Africa, Australia and the U.S.

“International partnerships provide law students with the opportunity to develop a global mindset,” says Stephanie Schantz, director of global opportunities at Carolina Law. “Students learn about legal issues and institutions that are different than what they study in law school.”

The UNC Center for Banking and Finance, of which Broome serves as director, offered each student a stipend to defray the costs of travel and housing. One of those stipends was funded through an endowment for the center established by the law firm Williams Mullen, which was supplemented by a personal gift from Williams Mullen attorney Camden Webb ’95. Students will speak about their Tübingen experience at the August meeting of the center’s board of directors.

-July 24, 2019

For the third time in a row, Carolina Law held the top spot for overall bar passage rate among North Carolina law schools.

North Carolina administered the Uniform Bar Exam (UBE) in July 2019, and UNC School of Law had the highest-ranking overall bar passage rate among the state’s six law schools. This is the third time in a row that UNC ranked No. 1 among North Carolina law schools for total test takers of the North Carolina bar exam.

Ninety-three percent (93%) of the 126 Carolina Law graduates who took the bar exam in July passed, according to results released by the state’s Board of Law Examiners. The school’s passage rate for total test takers exceeded the overall state passage rate for total test takers by 20%.

First time test takers also performed well with a 94% passage rate for the 124 Carolina Law graduates who took the North Carolina bar exam. The school’s passage rate for first time test takers exceeded the overall state passage rate of 83% for first time test takers by 11%.

"Measuring success in higher education is often somewhat difficult, but bar exam passage for law students is about as specific a measurement as you can get,” says Richard Stevens ’74, chair of the UNC Board of Trustees. “North Carolina is fortunate to have a law school like Carolina Law preparing students for careers that impact the economy and communities of North Carolina and beyond."

Among North Carolina’s law schools, the overall state passage rate for first time test takers was up 10 points from last July.

The UBE was administered for the first time in North Carolina in February 2019. It offers law school graduates a portable score that can be used to apply for admission in other UBE jurisdictions, such as New York, Washington, D.C., and Boston, therefore maximizing job opportunities and reducing the cost of taking multiple exams. Passing UBE scores vary by jurisdiction – North Carolina has one of the higher passing scores at 270.

The school’s Academic Excellence Program (AEP) provides all students with resources to aid their legal study, including one-on-one bar preparation for 3L students. “This year we continued our summer bar support, held bar workshops focused on the UBE, and further increased enrollment in our restructured bar preparation courses,” says O.J. Salinas, AEP director and clinical associate professor of law. “I am pleased to see such outstanding numbers for our Class of 2019, and I look forward to helping prepare the Class of 2020.”

The law school’s Research, Reasoning, Writing and Advocacy (RRWA) program ranks No. 8 in legal writing by U.S. News & World Report’s 2020 edition of “America’s Best Graduate Schools.” During two intensive semesters in RRWA, first year students work in small sections taught by full-time faculty members to develop key skills for legal practice, including legal research, writing and analysis.

“Starting the first day students enter our school, our committed faculty and staff are preparing them to think and write so that when they graduate, they have the skills to be successful taking the bar and in whatever career path they choose,” says Martin H. Brinkley ’92, dean and Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor of Law. “I want to thank O.J. Salinas for his unwavering pursuit of excellence in preparing our students for the bar and I would also like to congratulate our graduates for putting in the hard work necessary to achieve these results.”

-September 13, 2019