U.Va. Law dean: ‘I see myself as a steward of this place’

Editor’s note: This story by Jason Boleman originally appeared in Virginia Lawyers Weekly.

Few in the legal profession can say they attended depositions and kindergarten at the same time.

But that was Leslie Kendrick’s reality growing up.

The daughter of a “small town mineral and property lawyer” in Floyd County, Kentucky, Kendrick recalled attending depositions when her dad was watching her.

“I got to see some of that work close up without really thinking about it as a possibility for me,” Kendrick said.

Her journey has taken her from day care depositions in Kentucky to two decades at the University of Virginia School of Law, beginning as a law student fresh from a doctoral program at the University of Oxford and culminating in her July 1, 2024, promotion to dean.

With her first semester as dean in the books, Kendrick reflected on a place she called “a true home” for her and her family.

“I see myself as a steward of this place,” she said. “We’re here for a short time in the history of this institution, it’s a great place, and above all, I want to continue what’s great about it, the combination of excellent legal education and legal scholarship and a true sense of community.”

Early life

Despite being the daughter of an attorney, Kendrick did not initially see the law as her career path.

“I wanted to be a teacher, and my sister wanted to be a bus driver, and we wanted to work at the same school. That was our plan,” she said. “The nice thing about that is I did get to be a teacher, just in a way that I never would have imagined.”

The oldest of three sisters, Kendrick and her siblings learned basic legal research and summarized depositions with their father while growing up in the unincorporated community of East Point.

“It was home to us,” Kendrick said. “In hindsight, I think there were so many wonderful things about that, and I feel so lucky to have grown up in a place where we were surrounded by extended family.”

Kendrick went on to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying classics and English. After graduating from UNC, she continued her education in English at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

Before attending Oxford, Kendrick had been overseas once on a weeklong trip to England.

“I came in with very big eyes and was completely awed by the place,” Kendrick said. “It was a place where you felt, anywhere you went, everywhere you looked, there were people thinking deeply, thinking fast about all sorts of things.”

At Oxford, Kendrick studied the works of William Shakespeare and John Milton; some of their books had been in Oxford’s library since they were printed centuries before, she said.

“It just felt like a gift to get to study English literature there and to get to spend the years there that I did,” Kendrick said.

She earned a Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy at Oxford in English literature. While there, Kendrick met her husband, Micah Schwartzman, who was a fellow Rhodes Scholar.

Legal career

While working on her master’s and doctorate, the idea to pursue the law began percolating for Kendrick.

“I never really thought about it as a career for myself until I was in graduate school and thought, ‘That’s something that I could do, and that I might like to do,’” she said.

As an English scholar, Kendrick said, she spent much time on criticism, making arguments and interpreting text — skills she said have applied to the law.

“Eventually, my middle sister and I ended up taking the LSAT together in Washington, D.C., and both of us ended up going to law school, but it was a long journey from watching and learning to thinking this is something I could do, too,” Kendrick said.

Upon returning from Oxford, Schwartzman and Kendrick enrolled at U.Va. Law, beginning her two-decade association with the university.

Kendrick expected to go into government service or back to a firm she had worked at during the summer after her clerkships, but her time clerking for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals helped keep her in the Charlottesville community.

“I got to stay in Charlottesville for my clerkship,” Kendrick said. “I’m so lucky that the judge hired me; it was a great experience.”

While she was clerking for Wilkinson, U.Va. reached out to Kendrick and her husband to offer them faculty positions. Kendrick went on to clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter before joining the U.Va. faculty in 2008.

“We’ve been here ever since,” Kendrick said. “It’s a true home to us, for all the reasons that we came here as students.”

Law school service

After several years as a professor and four years as vice dean to Dean Risa Goluboff, Kendrick was tapped to succeed her.

In a December 2023 release from the law school after the announcement of Kendrick’s elevation, Goluboff called Kendrick “a true partner in every success the law school achieved and every challenge we overcame during her time as vice dean.”

“I cannot imagine a better-prepared, more highly qualified or more exciting successor,” Goluboff said.

In a statement, U.Va. President Jim Ryan highlighted Kendrick’s accomplishments as a law professor.

“She has a tremendous record of teaching and scholarship in torts and the First Amendment, and her university service has been invaluable,” Ryan said.

Kendrick reflected on her first semester as dean of her alma mater.

“It’s been a delight, it truly has,” she said of the experience, one that has left her “nervous and excited at the same time.”

“As with many positions, it’s the things you can’t foresee that you think about with the most kind of uncertain anticipation,” Kendrick said.

Successes she touted include having a greater than 95% “good address rate” for alumni and a high rate of giving compared to other law schools in the country.

“That same positivity that I have felt from alums, I have been lucky enough to feel from every quarter in this first year from our students, faculty, staff and others around the university,” Kendrick said.

Kendrick highlighted the people she gets to meet and interact with as the most rewarding part of her role as dean.

“I’ve done a lot of work on the First Amendment and talking with students about freedom of speech,” Kendrick stated. “And something that I have said over and over again is in an academic setting and legal setting, the goal is to go hard on ideas and go easy on people.”