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An Interview with Jayne Barnard
Jayne W. Barnard and Aidan Rossman
"But I think William & Mary Law School has got a huge number of very entrepreneurial students and faculty members who make things happen. And not because somebody told them it had to be done, but because they just decide that they'll do it." -- Jayne Barnard.
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This interview took place in the Reeder Media Center at William & Mary on April 27th, 2023, from 12:00 to 2:00 pm. It begins by discussing Barnard’s career prior to law school, and how there was a movement of women to law schools to find careers where they would be better recognized for their hard work. She discusses joining Jenner and Block, and what it meant for them to have women already working there. She discusses her return to government by working for the mayor of Chicago, Harold Washington, and how she “cleaned up” the law department. From there, she moves to how she came from Illinois to Virginia to join William & Mary faculty in 1985. Barnard then shares her many roles at the law school, from the classes she taught to being a faculty advisor for multiple journals. Through these roles, she highlights her commitment to supporting women, which is further revealed as she talks about her involvement in the ACLU, William & Mary’s Faculty Women’s Cause, and role as Coordinator of the 100th Anniversary of Women at William & Mary. She then discusses her work in corporations, business, and white-collar crime, coming to a head in her article about victim impact statements which helped in passing the Crime Victims’ Rights Act of 2004 and got her a seat in the courtroom during the Bernie Madoff case. The interview finishes with Barnard sharing a few different stories and comments about the general community and entrepreneurship of the students and faculty of William & Mary Law School.
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An Interview with Alemante Gebre-Selassie
Alemante Gebre-Selassie and Gongyu (Jerry) Zhang
"So when I came here, I wrote back that experience of Law and Development as an important subject... We have to study the actual realities of a country, their culture, their geography, their history, their economic conditions, their social conditions before you propose some kind of recommendation to them." -- Alemante Gebre-Selassie
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The interview starts with Professor Gebre-Selassie’s background and family. He was educated first as a law student at University of Haile Selassie in the 1960s, followed by a J.D. in UW-Madison. He discusses life prior to teaching at W&M and about his home country.
Professor Gebre-Selassie emphasizes that the single most important value for the legal profession is dedication. He also stresses the importance of U.S legal scholars to respect regional differences and traditions of other countries before applying “universal” legal doctrines.
Professor Gebre-Selassie stresses several times the importance of a closely-knit community of faculty members, which he believes has been diminished, possibly as a result of the global pandemic, during his years as emeritus faculty.
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An Interview with Timothy J. Sullivan
Timothy J. Sullivan and Brendan Clark
"If you know from whence we came, let's just say from 1920, to where we are today, it's an extraordinary story." -- Tim Sullivan.
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The interview of Timothy J. Sullivan, Dean Emeritus of William & Mary Law School and President Emeritus of the College of William & Mary in Virginia, occurred on Tuesday, March 28, 2023, from approximately 2:00 P.M. to 3:00 P.M. in the Media Center of Swem Library. The interview concerned Timothy Sullivan’s tenure at the law school, beginning with his time as a member of the faculty in the early 1970s and continuing to the conclusion of his time as dean of from 1985 to 1992.