Law Archives - UVA Research News

Dolly Parton waves to fans from carriage

The Conversation: Turmoil within Dolly Parton’s estate underscores the precariousness of family businesses after founders die

Dolly Parton’s death has sparked a legal dispute between her nephew Bryan Seaver and her company She’s Alive LLC, spotlighting challenges in managing celebrity estates. Drawing comparisons to Prince and Marilyn Monroe’s estates, legal scholars examine succession planning, family versus professional management, and how a founder’s unique talents affect a business’s value after death.

Law

The Conversation: When abortion and surrogacy law collide, contracts can’t answer the hardest questions

A Texas surrogacy dispute involving McKenna West, who refused to abort a fetus diagnosed with a heart condition against intended parents’ wishes, highlights how post-Dobbs abortion laws complicate surrogacy contracts. Legal scholars at UVA and GWU examine how fetal-personhood arguments, state-by-state legal patchworks, and bodily autonomy clash, leaving unresolved questions about enforceability and whose interests surrogacy law ultimately protects.

Justin Bernstein, assistant professor of philosophy at UVA, studies questions at the intersection of political philosophy and bioethics, particularly public health. His research on vaccine mandates examines how philosophical arguments about harm, justice and individual liberty can shape public-health policy.

Humanities

UVA Philosopher Challenges a Common Argument for Vaccine Mandates

UVA philosopher Justin Bernstein questions whether Mill’s harm principle truly justifies vaccine mandates, especially when herd immunity limits an individual’s impact on others. In a new paper, he argues justice-based reasoning—weighing competing entitlements rather than direct harm—may offer a stronger philosophical foundation for mandates covering diseases like measles and COVID-19.

Law

Clinic Helps Spur Hearing on Human Rights Impact of Data Centers

A recent hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights examined the human rights impact of data centers, an effort that was made possible with help from the International Human Rights Law Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Students

Inside the Research Assistant Experience

Students at the University of Virginia School of Law can shift from studying legal scholarship to helping create it as research assistants for faculty members. Five students share their experiences

Democracy

New Karsh Institute Study Informs Debate Over Virginia’s Election Calendar

A subcommittee of the Virginia General Assembly invited researchers to examine what would happen if the Commonwealth aligned its voting calendar with federal elections.

Blonde woman holds up ring finger with bling

Law

The Conversation: Legal wrangling over $12.5B Lakers sale shows how family trusts don’t guarantee a business stays in the family

Jeanie Buss opposes her siblings’ plan to sell the family’s remaining Lakers stake in a record $12.5 billion deal involving Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner. Law professors explain how Jerry Buss’s trust structure, meant to secure family control, instead sparked a legal battle echoing similar disputes over the Broncos, Chargers, and Orioles.

Law

Research Shows Clinics — Including UVA Law’s — Shape U.S. Supreme Court Docket

New research by Professor Mitu Gulati reveals that law school clinics, including UVA Law’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic and Appellate Litigation Clinic, significantly influence which cases reach the Supreme Court. Despite limited staffing, these clinics rank alongside elite firms in securing cert grants, response requests and relistings, filling crucial pro bono representation gaps nationwide.

Law

Professors’ Paper Traces Criminal Risk Assessment to Eugenic Roots

A new paper by UVA Law’s Megan Stevenson and Robynn Cox traces risk assessment’s origins to 1920s eugenic criminology, revealing how early proponents like the Gluecks and Ernest Burgess used race, family background and neighborhood as proxies to identify supposedly “irredeemable” criminals, shaping practices still echoed in today’s bail, sentencing and parole systems.

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