UVA Law professor Leslie Kendrick, who is teaching Torts, Constitutional Law II: Speech and Press, and First Amendment Theory this year, joined the faculty in 2008, just two years after she graduated from the school. Before law school, she received her master's and doctorate in English literature at the University of Oxford, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. After law school she clerked for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III '72 of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter.
Where are you from originally?
I’m from East Point, Kentucky, in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The Law School does an Alternative Spring Break to Prestonsburg, Kentucky, 6 miles from where I grew up. I highly recommend it to everyone, in part because you have a high probability of running into my dad.
What's the best way for a student to develop professional relationships/increase their number of professional references while in law school?
One of the best relationships students can develop is with the great people at Career Services. They are wonderful at advising students on developing relationships according to their particular needs and interests. I would trust their advice much more than my own.
When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a teacher. I feel very lucky!
What have you learned from a student that still sticks with you?
Students have all sorts of personal experiences that can bear on class, particularly something like torts or property. They've worked at ski resorts, driven trucks, designed things as engineers, used chainsaws and power tools, and had crazy medical experiences. They've had bad landlords, or bad co-tenants, or lease conflicts. These are experiences that influence their intuitions, and in class we try to make these intuitions into arguments. They already know a great deal that is useful for that enterprise.
What one class should every law student take?
Torts. It's the ultimate common law class. Luckily everyone has to take it.
What's your favorite spot in Charlottesville?
I love a lot of places in Charlottesville. Before I started teaching here, I lived here as a law student and as a judicial clerk. Micah [Schwartzman] and I got married here, and now we’re here with three small kids. The great thing about this area is that it has something for everybody, at every stage in life. But one thing I never noticed before having kids is how great the Charlottesville parks system is. I drove right by parks that we now spend a lot of time in. One of our favorites is Riverview Park. You can walk or ride your bike, you can walk your dogs, and it’s all along the river. It’s very pretty. It was sitting there all the time I was a student, and I didn’t know.
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