LSC Vice Chairman
Lillian R. BeVier
One of the most rewarding parts of teaching for Lillian R. BeVier is watching her students walk across the stage at graduation. Even after over 20 years of molding legal minds as a professor at University of Virginia School of Law, Ms. BeVier is still invigorated by the challenge of training some of America's brightest aspiring attorneys.
"Teaching keeps you connected to the world as it emerges," she says. "You're watching the evolution of the country as it comes through your classroom."
Every year Ms. BeVier helps the students who come in and out of her classroom wade through Constitutional quandaries and complex intellectual property cases. While her areas of specialty are some of the most demanding in the legal arena, Ms. BeVier always makes time to impart a lesson that cannot be found in the casebooks: the importance of public service. She makes a particular point to emphasize pro bono, given that roughly three-quarters of graduating students opt for careers in private practice.
"The most important thing for me is for students to think about public service as giving," she says. "It can be the most rewarding experience they will ever have… This is precisely what my career is about-training people to provide the best legal services possible to whomever needs it. The whole point of what I've been investing my life in is the rule of law, and that means law for everyone."
Ms. BeVier says that U.Va.'s law school has always stressed to its law students that they take seriously their commitment as guardians of justice. She notes that U.Va. students organize (and the faculty supports) an annual public service conference. The school helps place graduates interested in public interest work and even hosts a public-service auction to raise money for pro bono and legal aid fellowships. "The commitment to public service is very much integrated into the law school," Ms. BeVier says. "What I hope students take away from my courses is how deeply interesting law is and, secondly, how very important it is in terms of being the glue that keeps society together. I try to give my students this sense of abiding respect for law."
Outside the classroom Ms. BeVier makes the best use of what little free time she has. She has served as Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees of the Martha Jefferson Hospital, Charlottesville's community hospital. She now serves as a member of the Board of the Martha Jefferson Health Services Corporation. She also serves on the Board of CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), a group that works with children who have come under the supervision of the court. She views her selection as Vice Chairman of the LSC Board as another unique opportunity to serve her profession and her community.
"It is extremely satisfying to work with an organization that has such a clear sense of its own mission, what it's there for, and what it is we are trying to accomplish," she says. "It makes you feel as though you are not wasting your time or effort. It makes you feel you are making a contribution."
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