Update - January 2023    Jump to the update of Micah Schwartzman' story below.

Our renowned faculty in the School of Law have long been recognized for their scholarly contributions to the legal issues of our time. Many are now providing expertise on the legal and policy effects of COVID-19. The three inaugural Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professors—Micah Schwartzman (Col ’98, Law ’05), Mila Versteeg, and Michael Gilbert—are examples of distinguished scholars and teachers working on important issues while continuing their commitment to academic excellence and teaching.

Micah Schwartzman

“The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged democratic institutions at every level, and recent protests for racial equality raise longstanding and profound questions about how to achieve a fairer and more inclusive democratic society. The Karsh Center is dedicated to supporting research, teaching, and intellectual community to address these and other significant problems for sustaining a pluralistic democracy committed to the rule of law.”

Law professor Micah Schwartzman has spent his career researching and writing about issues related to democratic decision making. As director of the Karsh Center for Law and Democracy, he leads the center in promoting civil discourse, civic engagement, ethics and integrity in public office, and respect for the rule of law. 

A prolific scholar, Schwartzman writes extensively on topics such as law and religion, jurisprudence, political philosophy, and constitutional law. His work has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Virginia Law Review, and other publications. Most recently, he has published a series of opinion pieces in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, focusing on religious freedom and challenges to the separation of church and state during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Schwartzman’s connection to UVA runs deep: He received his bachelor’s degree and J.D. from the University. He then earned his doctorate from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. In addition to being named a Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor, Schwartzman serves as the Hardy Cross Dillard Professor of Law. He joined the faculty of the School of Law in 2007. 

In 2015, Schwartzman co-edited “The Rise of Corporate Religious Liberty” (Oxford University Press), and he co-authored the forthcoming “Constitutional Law and Religion” (West Publishing Company).

Mila Versteeg

“One of the most remarkable features of the current crisis is the extent to which courts have been involved. Although the traditional view is that, in times of crisis, courts will defer to the executive, this has not been the case during the current pandemic. In many democracies (from Brazil to Germany to the United States) courts have involved themselves in the pandemic response. The same is true for legislatures and subnational entities such as states and cities. Thus, in many democracies, the crisis response has been one of dialogue between branches of government, not a unilateral executive one.”

 

Professor Mila Versteeg researches and teaches comparative constitutional law, public international law, and empirical legal studies. She has published over 50 articles and book chapters in legal and social science journals. Her publications have appeared in such journals as the Harvard Law Review, Columbia Law Review, New York University Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, American Political Science Review, and many others. A number of her works have been translated into Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, and Turkish.

In the course of her work, Versteeg estimates she has read over 700 of the world’s constitutions. She is a faculty senior fellow at the Miller Center, where she will contribute to the designing and building of a new UVA Institute of Democracy.

For her forthcoming book "How Constitutional Rights Matter" (Oxford University Press), Versteeg and co-author Adam Chilton conducted worldwide case studies, statistical analyses, and surveys to document constitutional rights enforcement globally. In 2017, she was named Andrew Carnegie Fellow, which helped fund much of her research. 

Versteeg came to the Law School in 2011 from the University of Chicago, where she was an Olin Fellow and lecturer in law. She earned her B.A. in public administration and first law degree from Tilburg University in the Netherlands in 2006, her LL.M. from Harvard Law School in 2007, and a D.Phil. in socio-legal studies in 2011 from the University of Oxford.

Michael Gilbert 

All-University Teaching Award Winner, 2020

When Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law Michael Gilbert graduated from Tulane University, he spent three years as a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C., rubbing elbows with many of the board’s governors, including Ben Bernanke. It was there that he decided to combine his interest in economics with a career in the law. He went on to receive his Ph.D. from the Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program at the University of California, Berkeley, and his J.D. from Berkeley Law School.

After clerking for Judge William A. Fletcher on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, Gilbert discovered that his true calling was a career in academia. A member of the UVA law faculty since 2009, Gilbert teaches courses on election law, legislation, and law and economics. 

Gilbert’s research focuses on constitutional entrenchment, campaign finance law, corruption, and the design of courts. He has recently written about voter ID laws and the downside of public disclosure laws meant to encourage more transparency in politics and government. His research has appeared in multiple law reviews, peer-reviewed journals, and edited volumes, and he has lectured throughout the United States and around the world. He is working on a book-length project on public law and economics. In 2015 he won the UVA Student Council Distinguished Teaching Award, and in 2020 he received the All-University Teaching Award, which recognizes top-notch instruction across Grounds.

As part of UVA’s Democracy Initiative, Gilbert is one of the inaugural scholars in the Corruption Lab on Ethics, Accountability, and the Rule of Law, also known as CLEAR.

Read Michael Gilbert's Reflective Statement for the All-University Teaching Award Nomination