DISCOVERY
UNCOVERING THE HIGH COST OF KATRINA JOBS RYAN EZELLE ’17, a student in the Program
in Law and Public Service, volunteered at the Mississippi Center for Justice as part of the Law School’s annual Alternative Spring Break. He was asked to perform several tasks for the center, which provides advocacy for low-income and minority residents in the state. One of his jobs was crunching numbers that would fill in the post-Katrina employment picture and demonstrate the bang-for-the-buck of federal incentives. Ezelle discovered that federal grant spending cost taxpayers $81,658 per job to create or retain 7,394 jobs in the state—a dollar amount that could change over time as jobs are multiplied, kept or lost. (The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s usual limit is $50,000 in grants per job, but that limit was waived because Katrina was a natural disaster.) Ezelle found that spending at the state port of Gulfport ballooned the per-job dollar amounts, which otherwise would be at just under $50,000. Also, fewer than half of the projects were in the state’s three coastal counties, he found. His research was first featured in the Mississippi Sun Herald. Reilly Morse, president and CEO of the center, said Ezelle was a “terrific volunteer.” “Ryan was a quick study and careful researcher,” Morse said. “His analysis headlined the local paper within a week of his arrival, highlighting the jobs reported and the questions raised. … We’d say send more like him, except that this is the caliber of talent we see from UVA. So, just keep sending us more volunteers.”
8 UVA LAWYER SPRING 2016
7 Sent to DOJ HONORS Program TWO GRADUATING
UVA Law students and five recent alumni now serving as clerks have been selected to join the U.S. Department of Justice through its Attorney General’s Honors Program. The program is the largest and most prestigious federal entry-level attorney hiring program of its kind, and the only way for newly
minted lawyers to join the department in an attorney position. The department has selected Class of 2016 members Rebecca Caruso and Heather Diefenbach; 2015 graduates Thomas Johnson, Rachel Kincaid, Charlie Merritt and Katie Robeson; and 2014 graduate Sarah Buckley. Each year, thou-
sands of students and clerks apply for relatively few new positions. This year’s hiring of seven UVA Law candidates was the largest class the school has sent to the DOJ in recent history, and builds on the class of six students and clerks hired last year.
▲ HEATHER DIEFENBACH ’16, REBECCA CARUSO ’16 and five alumni will join the Justice Department.
CAROLYN RUMER ’14 will use the
HELPING OTHERS FIND FINANCIAL FOOTING
Equal Justice Works Fellowship she recently landed to help domestic abuse victims hoping to regain financial stability. Through the prestigious two-year fellowship, which is sponsored by the law firm Latham & Watkins, Rumer will work starting in the fall in the Public Benefits Law Unit of the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia. The goal of her project is to help break the cycle of violence for low-income abuse survivors by increasing their economic security using legal advocacy. Rumer will focus on employment, public benefits and child support. “I’ll work on connecting with clients at the critical moment when they are seeking to leave an abusive situation,” Rumer said.