BLSA Alumni Action in 2011

We love when our BLSA alums come back on Grounds and we aim to support all of the events you all give your valuable time to. Below are some of the events our alumni participated in last year. Please drop us a line at [email protected] if you will be attending or speaking at an event on Grounds or in the Charlottesville area. We would love to meet with you and publicize your event to our membership.

Kim Keenan ('87), general counsel of the NAACP, Virginia Supreme Court Justice S. Bernard Goodwyn ('86), and Virginia Supreme Court Justice Cleo Powell ('82), the first African-American woman to serve on Virginia's Supreme Court, spoke at the Law School as part of a conference on increasing diversity in the legal profession in November 2011.  

Listen to Ms. Kennan's speech "Pro Bono and Professionalism: Keys to a Winning Career" here.

Listen to Justice Goodwyn's speech "The Value of Diversity on the Bench" here. 

Watch Justice Powell's ('82) keynote address "Justice? Unlikely!" here.

Retired Judge James Benton Jr. ('70), a former judge on the Virginia Court of Appeals, visited Professor Anne Coughlin’s Law and Public Service class in February 2012 to speak about his life, his influences, and his practice of law, particularly the litigation of civil rights and civil liberties cases. Benton was one of the first African-American graduates of the Law School. Listen to the class's discussion here.


DeMaurice Smith ('89), executive director of the NFL Player's Association, paid the Law School a visit when he served as keynote speaker for the "State of Sports Law" symposium sponsored by the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Journal and the Virginia Sports Law Society in March of 2012.  Read the story here. Watch his keynote address here.

U.S. Judge Raymond A. Jackson ('73) gave the Student Legal Forum's 2012 Ola B. Smith Lecture, titled "Federal Sentencing Post-Booker: An Insider's View" in April 2012. View the story here.

Patton Boggs LLP Associate and MABLSA Hall of Fame inductee Dana Weekes ('09), gave the keynote address at the 2012 BLSA Awards Banquet. Everyone in attendance thoroughly enjoyed her candid conversation.

If we omitted you or a classmate, please let me know by sending an email or leaving a comment below. 

We look forward to seeing more of you in 2012!

Amanda Turner ('14)
BLSA President, 2012-2013
[email protected]