T H E GEORGE WA SHI NGTON U N I V ER SIT Y L AW SCHOOL
GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT LAW
Perspectives
PROGRAM ESTABLISHED 1960
Student Writers Sweep ABA Public Contracts Writing Competition
SUMMER 2018 ISSUE PROGRAM NEWS 1–6, 8 FACULT Y HIGHLIGHTS 7
Pictured (l-r): Professor Collin Swan, JD ’12; Program Director Karen Thornton; Eric Valle, JD ’18; Jessica Berrada, 4LE; Chung Kun “Kevin” Park, JD ’18; and Professor Steven Schooner
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essica Berrada, 4LE, and Chung Kun “Kevin” Park, JD ’18, shared first place in the 2018 American Bar Association’s Division I Public Contracts Writing Competition. Murray Schooner Scholar Eric Valle, JD ’18, took third place. Mike Pangia, LLM Class of ’19, Jesse Greene, LLM ’17, and Francis Kiley, LLM ’17, brought home all three prizes in Division II of the competition, marking another clean sweep for GW Law. The annual writing competition provides monetary awards to law students and young lawyers for outstanding papers that address a topical issue of interest to the public contract and grant law community. Ms. Berrada presented her paper, “Zen and the Art of Suspension and Proposed Debarment: A Call for Pre-Exclusion Notice and Opportunity to Respond,” at the Federal Procurement Institute on March 15, 2018. Ms. Berrada’s note proposes a FAR amendment that would make pre-exclusion notices compulsory except when the government requires immediate protection from a contractor that presents continuing, likely, and
immediate future risk to the government’s reputation or operations. “I am deeply honored by the Public Contract Law Journal’s selection of my note as firstplace winner. Having the opportunity to contribute to the prestigious Public Contract Law Journal and speak at the section’s Federal Procurement Institute are exciting ways to contribute to the legal community’s intellectual trust,” Ms. Berrada said. Kevin Park’s paper, “Removing Uncertainty for the Most Uncertain Times: The Need for Amending the Anti-Assignment Acts to Better Prepare for a Financial Crisis,” which focused on a 2005 case from the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Anchor Sav. Bank v. United States, was published in the winter 2018 issue of the PCLJ. “Ever since I came to GW Law, I had been looking for an opportunity to write an in-depth analysis about an aspect of the 2008 financial crisis,” Mr. Park said. “This topic fascinated me, and I worked with Professor Steven Schooner and Professor Collin Swan to find an intersection between it and government contracts.” n
Stephanie Villalta, Women In Government Contracts Summer Fellow
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tephanie Villalta, JD Class of ’19, has achieved her dream of launching a career in public service. This summer, she is an intern at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of the Assistant General Counsel for Procurement and Financial Assistance, an opportunity made possible in part by a summer stipend funded by the GW Law Women in Government Stephanie Villalta, 3L Contracts. Stephanie’s outstanding professionalism and work product on bid protests and procurementrelated policy and rule-making issues have resulted in a 3L clerkship that will become an attorney position once she graduates and passes the bar. Beth A. Kelly, JD ’89, a DOE Deputy Assistant General Counsel who runs the internship program, says Stephanie will join two other GW alumni who were previously interns. “The fact that DOE has hired so many interns as attorneys is a true testament to the strong Government continued on page 5