STAYING GROUNDED
PROSECUTION AWARD
GOVERNMENT AWARD
Vijay Shanker ’99
Jennifer Ricketts ’88
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, CRIMINAL DIVISION, APPELLATE
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, CIVIL DIVISION, FEDERAL PROGRAMS
SHANKER is an attorney in the Appellate Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice who has briefed and argued numerous criminal appeals. From June 2013 to February 2014, he served as acting deputy chief of staff and counselor to the assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division. In addition to his regular duties, he is part of a litigating team in the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, who is accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. “Mr. Shanker has secured dozens of appellate victories for the government, defending the convictions of violent carjackers and robbers, fraudsters and corrupt public officials, drug dealers, narcoterrorists and exploiters of children,” said DEE MARTIN ’01 in her nomination letter.
RICKETTS oversees an office
of more than 100 attorneys as director of the Civil Division of the Federal Program’s Branch of the U.S. Department of Justice. The branch defends against constitutional challenges to federal statutes and lawsuits against government policies and decisions. Her nominator, BRAD ROSENBERG ’99, said she ably oversees an expansive portfolio of high-profile cases, including defending against challenges to the Affordable Care Act. “Through her work at the branch, Ms. Ricketts ensures that governmental interests are well-represented before district courts, thus ensuring that governmental policies can be implemented in the face of serious, precedentsetting challenges,” Rosenberg said.
PUBLIC DEFENSE AWARD
LEGAL AID, NONPROFITS AWARD
HUMAN RIGHTS, CIVIL RIGHTS AWARD
Lt. Jacqueline Leonard ’11
Robert E. Lee ’92
Stephen Pevar ’71
VIRGINIA CAPITAL RESOURCE REPRESENTATION CENTER
ACLU, RACIAL JUSTICE PROGRAM
As executive director of the Virginia Capital Resource Representation Center, LEE manages a team of attorneys who have saved the lives of numerous death row inmates—his mission for the last two decades. His nominator, TERESA HEPLER ’17, said that Lee is known for his easy management style and his passionate and creative methods of humanizing his clients. “Mr. Lee is always looking for novel ways to make an argument to the court, or finding a more provocative method to tell his clients’ stories to the public,” Hepler said.
PEVAR is a senior staff at-
U.S. NAVY JAG CORPS
LEONARD, a judge advocate
general in the U.S. Navy, has rendered legal service, including pro bono help, to more than 400 active-duty and retired members of the armed forces. Nominator BENJAMIN ALAN ROBLES ’09 said her work is highly regarded, and cited a writ petition on behalf of a client that she had to write on very short notice. “She wrote so convincingly, the trial judge reversed himself despite the appellate court’s declining to hear the case,” Robles said.
torney with the American Civil Liberties Union who specializes in Indian rights and prisoners’ rights, free speech of public employees, and the separation of church and state. He began his career as a staff attorney with South Dakota Legal Services on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation. He is also the author of the Oxford University Press book “The Rights of Indians and Tribes.” KING GOLDEN ’71, who made the nomination, said “for over 40 years [Pevar] has continued a career devoted to the welfare of some of the most marginalized people in our country….”
LIFETIME ACHIEVENT AWARD James Hingeley ’76
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SPRING 2017 UVA LAWYER 19