ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW WITH: MANAL CHEEMA
CLASS OF 2020 FEBRUARY 7, 2022
PRESENTED BY: UVA LAW SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Addie Patrick: All right, hello everyone. Today is February 7,
2022. My name is Addie Patrick. I'm Zooming in from
Charlottesville [Virginia]. I'm the library coordinator here at
the UVA [University of Virginia] Law Library and we're here doing
an oral history interview for the Virginia Law Women fiftieth
anniversary program. So we're going to go around and introduce
ourselves. Randi, if you'd like to go first.
Randall Flaherty: Hi, I'm Randi Flaherty. I'm head of Special
Collections at the UVA Law Library, and I am Zooming in
from the Law Library in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Sujaya Rajguru: I'm Sujaya Rajguru. And I'm a 3L, and I'm
Zooming in from Charlottesville, Virginia.
Manal Cheema: Hi, my name is Manal Cheema. I am currently
with the U.S. Navy JAG [Judge Advocate General] Corps. I
graduated from UVA in 2020. And I'm Zooming in from Newport,
Rhode Island.
Addie Patrick: Awesome. So I'm going to ask the first question,
starting with Manal. Why did you decide to join Virginia Law
Women?
Manal Cheema: So I decided to join in my 1L year, at least in
an informal capacity, because I was really inspired by the
organization. I saw that it had a lot of promise for women. And
I actually was very impressed by a few of the women on the board,
who I later befriended. So I kind of got roped in that way.
And it wasn't until my 2L that I actually became extremely
involved, serving as the vice president of the organization.
Sujaya Rajguru: Well since you mentioned vice president, why
did you decide to run for the board initially?
Manal Cheema: So my mentor, slash friend, slash,
upperclassman, Kendall Burchard is the one who—she asked me to
get coffee with her. And I was—it was my 1L spring
semester. I was very nervous about law school still at that
point. I wasn't sure about my role, I didn't know—have like a
strong community yet. And Kendall sat me down in Scott
Commons and she said, "Hey, like, I've seen how you've
approached law school. I've seen how your peers speak about you.
And I've seen like the way that you interact, and I feel like
you would be really good for vice president." And I was like,
"Whoa, Kendall, like, where, where is this coming from? I
don't see myself in that way at all." And she's like, "Well, I
wish you would see yourself in the way that I see and your
peers see you, and I think being in a position of leadership
would be able to give you more of that confidence to go forth.
And also to be there for your colleagues and women in the
legal profession.” She had seen how important empowering women
has been for me for like since college—in college and in high
school with the activities that I did. So she encouraged me to
run. And my peer advisor, Dasher Pascoe, who was the president of
VLW [Virginia Law Women] at the time, also jumped on that and
inspired me to run. And then I put my name in the hat. And then
I started hearing about all these other fantastic women who
I look up to in my class running and I was very nervous about it.
And then I also heard some unfortunate comments about how
VLW historically hasn't had women of color in leadership
positions. And one of my classmates, who was a bit more
jaded by the representation of VLW, had mentioned to me that I
shouldn't really expect getting elected. That it was good that I
was running, but to keep my expectations low because it was
a white women's organization. And I would be better suited
to—that's why Women of Color was created, according to my peer.
So I got kind of nervous. And I'm—remember messaging Dasher in
the middle of the night and asking her, "Hey, like, I'm not
so sure I want to run anymore. Can you take my name out of the
hat?" And she said, "Absolutely not. Like I want to know where
this is coming from." So I told her and she's like, "That's not
a good reason. Because that's why so many women don't run for
things because, not because they don't feel like they can do it,
but because they're—they think that other people don't think
that they can." And I saw that she was correct, kept my name in
and I was—probably the best moment of my 1L when I found out
that I was elected, because then it meant that I was joining a
wonderful organization, that I was defying expectations, but
that I was also in a position to make change. And also show
people, or Law School that VLW can—really does represent so
many women here.
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes, I think coming in as a 1L, I could
definitely see that with your leadership in the organization.
Manal Cheema: Thank you. [chuckles]
Sujaya Rajguru: Okay, so you talked about how being a woman
of color played into the race for vice president. How do you
think—like, what was your experience, as a woman of color,
being a leader in the organization, working with your
board and the membership as it became more diverse?
Manal Cheema: I think it was fantastic. Like, I didn't
see—there was no, there was no problems. Like, you know, those
traditional problems. I think a lot of women saw, like, what how
undiverse VLW was. And, like, the people who ran with me made
the organization more diverse. And we also really pushed for
having diversity in our, like—though even diversity in
the next classes too. Like, Kendall was all about it. She
wanted to do diversity workshops, she introduced
diversity, like the clerk—women in clerkships panel. She and I
worked together to reformat our entire election structure for it
to be more amenable to diverse outcomes. The issue in my 1L,
for example, was that the way that we did our 1L elections was
by, in our first general body body meeting, we would have
people raise their hands. And at that minute they were running.
And in that same meeting, it would be a vote by voice on—or
like counting. It was, it was a vote by counting, but it was in
the same room with everyone sitting, immediate decisions. So
like, in those circumstances, it takes a lot of bravery to run.
And unfortunately, I think that situation did lead to undiverse
outcomes. I remember sitting there as a 1L, being like, "Why
isn't a woman of color raising her hand?” Like, not that the
people who didn't get those positions weren't fantastic,
they were fantastic and they were my friends, but there's
different—you know, UVA is full of fantastic people, generally,
so it's it's not bad to want more diverse outcomes, at least
in some respects. So, Kendall and I looked at that. And we
moved our elections online. We added, like a waiting—like, a
period for people to consider votes for a week, we added
statements that were written up rather than a fifteen-second
stump speech. People could submit photographs if they
wanted, be like associated people, like let people campaign
for themselves. And I think as a number—as the board composition
shows today, it's quite diverse. And when I was president, that
was really—oh, when I was president, and when Kendall was
president, we adopted co-sponsorship factors too, and
made sure that the sponsorship team was full of diverse members
from our own executive board. Like I wanted—one of my
co-sponsorship team was someone who was on part of Federal
Society, someone who's part of American Constitution Society,
FLF [Feminist Legal Forum] and Women of Color and that is like
who—that is how we really prioritize diversity in our
thing. And I think it was incremental change. Like,
Dasher, started moving the stick forward. And then Kendall moved
it, and I moved it, then Sujaya moved it. And like, I think it's
been really incredible. Like, I've just been constantly
impressed by how innovative people are. Like, I'm still on
the emails, and it's really nice to see how VLW is constantly
evolving.
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes. Okay, a few things you touched on. First,
just to clarify—so the change in elections. Was that just for the
1L rep positions?
Manal Cheema: I think we did—in my year, well, in Kendall's
year, we changed the way that the exec-board elections worked.
So 1L reps happened in Kendall's year, and exec-board elections.
And then I changed exec-board elections just a bit more to
make it more of like on a PowerPoint slide that had like
longer blurbs available. So we've tweaked around, tweaked it
a couple of times until we finalized a product and I think
they work substantially the same now. I'm not sure? Okay.
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes. I pretty much use the same formats for
everything. Yes. Okay. Awesome. And could you also elaborate on
the co-sponsorship factors?
Manal Cheema: Yes. So this is something that Kendall and I
discussed. And this is the constant battle with VLW, which
is whether or not it is a political organization or takes
stances on political issues. And it's a dance between VLW, Women
of Color and FLF. And about who—not having the same goals as
organizations, but also all of—like, we have a lot of
overlap between members. So like, sometimes we have—there's
a push every year that VLW takes a stance on hot topic issues
like abortion or hot topic issues like the
Israeli-Palestine conflict, things like that. And every year
at the beginning, this is something I instituted in
my—when I was president. I—the board should vote on whether or
not—what its mission statement is at the beginning of the year.
And I'm not sure if it's continued, but it's—my intention
with that was to have the board affirmatively decide if it was
going to be apolitical or not. And my year, the board decided
to remain apolitical. And what that meant was that with these
co—we adopted these co-sponsorship factors, which
are basically a list of questions we go through and try
to figure out like, what is the program trying to do, like is a
program take—is its primary purpose focused on advancing
women in the legal profession? Or is it advancing a political
cause? Are there women on the panel or in the presentation?
Are they involved substantially with this? [chuckles] I think
one of the factors was like, would this unduly, like, agitate
the VLW population? And questions like that, like a
classic, like legal, totality of the circumstances test. And so
whenever we got a co-sponsorship request, or a funding requests
from another organization, or even an advertisement request,
we would send that to the co-sponsorship committee, which
was comprised of me, the vice president, and then the other
members, and we would discuss these, what—the factor analysis,
apply whatever information we got about the event, to the
factor analysis. Sometimes we'd send questions back to the the
group asking us to sponsor their event—be like, "Would you be
amenable working with ACS [American Constitution Society],
like, could you get them to sponsor this? Because then it's
less political—it has less of an appearance, of politicallness to
us." Or if we sponsored this event with FedSoc [Federalist
Society], can we, are we for sure, sponsoring a similar event
with ACS in the future? And once we made a decision on that, we
would jump it back to the main board and let them know what we
decided and have the board vote generally, if they agreed with
us or not, and then move from there.
But it was a it was a way to standardize is a process because
in the—when I was a 1L, VLW was constantly accused of having
political views even though it pretended to be apolitical. So
that's what we were trying to get away from. Now, what is
political and what isn't political is also a question and
a huge debate. And that was something that we definitely got
into. So it was, it was tough, like it's a tough stance to
take. I think it's one of the hardest things to do as a VLW
president is to manage that. And just because that's more of your
responsibility, the appearance of VLW. And I think different
presidencies, like different boards have handled it
differently. And there are consequences for that, like, a
very valid consequence. Like a very valid criticism I got from
my peers was we weren't taking stances on issues that affect
women, because we deemed them political. And my response to
that was like, "Yes, that's right. And like, I wish we
could, but you know, what, I personally am very in favor of X
organization's views, and I will go to that organization, but I
just can only do it in a personal capacity. I'm not going
to do it on behalf of VLW because I want it to have like
very, you know, conservative members feel represened, very
liberal members feel represented in the same organization."
Sujaya Rajguru: Thank you. Yes, I would agree that that's
probably the most difficult thing for a VLW president to
deal with, as you know. [chuckles]
Manal Cheema: We had plenty of calls about that. [laughter]
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes. Okay, so you were talking a bit about
Feminist Legal Form and Women of Color. And I think VLW’s
relationship with those organizations has varied over
the years from my limited understanding. So what was that
working relationship like when you were vice president and
president?
Manal Cheema: I would say it was good. I would say like, again, I
had—I'm personally a member, was a member of Women of Color. And
my vice president Nicole Banton was on the board for Women of
Color. Nikki Wolfrey, one of the members of our board, she was
president of FLF. Like, we had a ton of overlap. So we had a very
good relationship. And I think Nikki and Nicole really
understood like the distinction we were trying to draw. Like we
were trying to silo VLW into this category for events and
overlap. So there was almost a practical and administrative
advantage to that, that we all saw, but I think it was a good
thing because we—like, that, like having those individuals on
the board made our planning a lot more comprehensive, because
we saw, we had a healthy debate. And like we saw what VL—we were
very intentional about our events, because we knew the
alternatives, like we knew what FLF was planning and Women of
Color was planning, and we knew how to maximize our
collaborations with them. So inside baseball, if you will, it
was pretty nice to have them. [chuckles]
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes, we have one member who's also on Women of
Color's board this year. And yes, it definitely streamlines
like collaborations and programming.
Manal Cheema: Yes.
Sujaya Rajguru: Okay, so you also mentioned the diversity in
clerkships panel, which we still do, and it was a very successful
event this year, as you know. Manal is one of our panelists.
[chuckles] So could you talk a little bit more about that
event, and maybe other programming that you used to
help drawn in a more diverse audience for VLW and more
diverse speakers?
Manal Cheema: Yes, so that event, Kendall started that one.
And it was really good. I think we've been pushing—before it
was, like, women in clerkships and then we pushed it more to
diversity, like making sure we had—be women of color on the
panel too. So I think that was really helpful. I think those
panels are really helpful to the extent that panelists are very
candid about the realities of clerking as women, or clerking
as, like, a woman of color. If you have folks who are just
giving the canned speech, then it's more difficult. So like,
securing confidentiality, or letting the panelists know that
this is like, recorded or not recorded or like, "Here are
certain questions that we're going to ask and like, we're not
going to disclose them." Like, I think that's that was really
important for us. Because for better for worse, there are like
still some topics that like, are hard to discuss openly, with
wider audiences. I think COVID has made things a little bit
more difficult, because like, as a panelist, you don't always
know who's in the room, whereas you knew that when you were in
person. Another thing that we tried doing was, like
intersectionality stuff. So we always tried to make sure that
we had intersectional panelists, but we also wanted—we were going
to do a panel on the summer, sorry, in the spring about it.
But unfortunately, with COVID, that kind of got sidetracked.
But I think it was more of like a holistic approach that I was
looking for. Just making sure that we were intentional, just
as we were putting other organizations through the
gauntlet of our co-sponsorship factors of whether or not there
was a woman on the panel, we were investigating our own
panels and making sure that we also had women of color, we had
queer women, women of different backgrounds on our events. Like
holding ourselves accountable to the standards we were imposing
on other student groups.
Sujaya Rajguru: Great. What other—can you talk a little bit
more. Sorry, think there might be an echo. Okay. Could you talk
a little bit more about other programming VLW did during your
presidency more generally, and resources that VLW provided to
members?
Manal Cheema: Well, we changed the email a lot to provide more
resources, like the outline bank and links to helpful sites. So
we've revamped the website to give more resources. Like guides
to outlining and things like that, because we wanted to have
more of an academic focus, so we reorganized our outline bank,
too. I think that's one of the bigger perks—that's a perk that
draws most people to VLW is the outline bank, and then we bring
them to our events. We have a lot of our flagship like, or
cornerstone, events so Women in Public Service, Women in Big
Law. And that was another really interesting to negotiate the
timing of that to make sure each one gives has equal importance.
So the way, just to explain that briefly, Women in Big Law funds
Women in Public Service, and it's a big—it's a huge priority
of us to make sure both are like as big events, because we don't
want to diminish the other and Women in Big Law is easier, it's
much cheaper, it's easier to get people, make it a bigger event
because firms bring all this swag and they bring themselves
and it just, it plans itself. It does not plan itself, it takes a
lot of work. But it's like, it takes—it's easier to make it
seem like a bigger deal than Women in Public Service, which
is completely contingent on the funding of Women in Big Law. So
that was like a big priority for me since I was—I think that was
another reputation VLW had, was an organization that's purely
for women who want to go into private practice, that we added
events like women in mergers and acquisitions, because we're
looking at the places where women are less represented in
private practice. But, I think we pushed more for public
service. And I think that came from me being a president, at
the time, who was guaranteed to go into public service, because
historically most of the board is women who go into private
practice. And you know, that changed because Sujaya also is
going into public service. So, I think VLW has been in this
really cool swing of like, every like, what—we've had like three
women of color presidents in a row since me? Yes, it's pretty
awesome. But it's like, I can't remember all of the events. I
think we did a lot, I think we—yes, I can't remember the
rest of them. It's been a while.
Sujaya Rajguru: Addie, Randi did want to ask about any particular
events that like came up and other interviews?
Randall Flaherty: I was curious about the role of the
constitution in the organization. Can you talk a
little bit about that?
Manal Cheema: Yes. So every year, or, I would say, for us,
it was always like around winter time that we would revise the
constitution and the bylaws. So in my year, we added a couple
positions to the constitution and bylaws—we added. And I think
for us, it's actually really important, like we adhere to it,
and I referenced it a lot when I was going through my events. And
it was the same thing—when I said that we voted on our
mission statement, that was in a direct amendment into our
constitution and bylaws. I think we—the voting structure also, we
changed that. Like any big—how we ran elections, we put that
into the constitution and bylaws. Because for us like that
was like the most clear way of ensuring that perhaps the next
board will follow what we want. So, as a way of, like, control—a
way of making us accountable to our desires, but also hopefully
incentivizing the next board to do that as well. Now, it's not
difficult to change the constitution and bylaws,
considering we did it almost every other semester. But it
was—you had to have most of the board vote on it anyways. So the
way I did it is that I would propose changes, then I would
send it out to the board for comments. And then at our next
exec-board meeting, which would be a month later, we would vote
on it, and have a debate about what it meant for our
organization. I think we added, yes, we added quite a few
positions in my year, just to make things responsive to the
needs that we realized in our fall semester.
Sujaya Rajguru: Was the LL.M. [Master of Laws] representative,
one of the ones you added?
Manal Cheema: Yes, yes, it was, because we wanted more
representation. And I think it was a huge oversight on us not
to have an LL.M. representative for that long.
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes, I think we just had our first one this
year, so.
Manal Cheema: Yay that's awesome. [chuckles]
Sujaya Rajguru: We finally have them. [unclear] Yes, yes. Let's
see. Seeing what else we wanted to cover We talked about—we've
already talked—we've covered a lot of ground so far. Oh, how
involved werere faculty in VLW?
Manal Cheema: Yes. So this was another interesting thing. Like,
so the—how involved the faculty are, are almost completely
dependent, at least in my experience, on the relationship
board members had with the faculty. Julia Mahoney,
Professor Julia Mahoney, is technically the faculty advisor
of VLW. But it wasn't until like I had coffee with her when I
started. That wasn't true for my predecessors, for various
reasons. I think it was just hard scheduling. And it's not—
VLW is a very independent organization. So like, we never
really have to rely too much on faculty, except for the faculty
dinner series, and then a couple other, like the wine and cheese
night. But those were, that's like, we never—we don't have a
close relationship with faculty in terms of like planning the
intricacies of our events. Like more, we were more like, "Here's
our event, faculty can you come?" And that, there are pros
and cons to that. Cons is that it may not be responsive or
reflective of what the faculty wants a relationship to be. And
you know, we may have been making unreasonable demands on
the faculty or expectations. But I went—during my presidency, we
had the wine and cheese night and we did the classic faculty
dinner series, where we would go ask faculty—the board members
would like each of us would asked a couple of faculty
members that we were close with and kind of like, be like, "Hey,
would you like to do this dinner?" And that was good. And
that was probably the extent of our relationship. So it was part
of why I wanted to do the SpeakUp project and interview
faculty members. We were able to get a lot of good data from like
the fifty or so interviews we did, about how faculty viewed
VLW and, you know, the dinner series and women in the Law
School. And I think, you know, from my own personal
conversations with them, I think women do, have been doing
extremely well in the Law School, like they have been
crushing it, scoring top scores, they run most of the
organizations. But something we've also realized a lot is
that women, just like women students and women faculty
members, get so much of the responsibility to lead those
organizations, to plan all those extracurriculars, to carry all
that weight on top of their schoolwork and still be demanded
to be perfect. And I think that's, that's the issue that
we're facing, we face—we're dealing with right now is like
woman are expected to do it all.
And, I think, you know, my male colleagues and the male
professors are like, doing well, but I don't think they go out
and run organizations at the same level that women do. And I
think that, or like, you know, plan, these events or ask—be
asked to do the emotional labor that women do. So, like, I think
we relied a lot on female faculty, but like, our board was
very cognizant of that dilemma. It's like, oh, like we want our
faculty, the women faculty to be more involved in our
organization. But then we're just doing—we're further
perpetuating the problem of making demands on their time
when they have so little free time. So it was more of like,
a—we want them to be involved, but like, we don't want them to
like be overburdened. And that was another difficulty, a
catch-twenty-two, if you will.
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes, definitely. Well, you mentioned the SpeakUp
project. So could you talk a little bit about what that is?
And what motivated you to start it?
Manal Cheema: Yes. So I mean, it's still ongoing, I think
we're still working on the data analysis, it's kind of—it's
like, again, one of those things like you're asking a lot of
dedicated people to take even more time out of their day to
run this qualitative-quantitative
research project. But I viewed it as my project when I was vice
president. So that was the thing that I started. And I worked
with women from the University of Chicago law school who had
done a project at their school, I went through all of their
documents with them and had multiple conversations, to see
how we could implement it at our school. And the purpose of the
project is just—was to assess the environment and
relationships of women at our Law School. They had done a
similar project at Harvard and Yale, and then to U. Chicago, so
we emulated the U. Chicago ones because that was the most
robust, and went through the IRB, Institutional Review Board
process. And it was a, three parts to that. The first part
was faculty interviews, so asking each faculty like a set
of questions and trying to glean how their experiences are like,
as faculty members, and their experiences with students. And
there was two surveys, an academic survey and a social
survey sent out to the student population. And then we also
collected data from publicly available information, like on
awards and things like that. And now we're trying to put all that
data together and try to see what it means. But it was really
cool to kind of get that assessment and like take that
temperature check of how things are and I think going back to my
earlier conversation—comments about how women take on so much
of that burden. I think that was what I saw—nothing's published,
but I think that's what I've seen saw most in my Law School.
It wasn't that women aren't excelling. It's just women are
asked to excel almost unreasonably well.
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes. It's quite a lot of data that you all
collected, it's quite a beast. [laughter] Okay, kind of going
off of that. We talked about your relationship with the
faculty and I know with SpeakUp, you had to talk to the
administration. So I would say, generally, what was VLW's and
your relationship with the administration, including, like,
Dean [Risa] Goluboff, Student Affairs, all of them?
Manal Cheema: Yes, you know, Student Affairs, fantastic. Kate
DuVall was—we didn't work with her too much, but she was
wonderful, always so supportive of student organizations and
VLW. We involved Dean Goluboff and Vice Dean [Leslie] Kendrick
early on in the data collection and early on, in most things VLW
did. And, you know, they took a lot of good interest in it, they
were excited about the project. We worked very closely with
Professor [Molly] Shadle, Professor [Anne] Coughlin and
Professor [J.H.] Verkerke. They were our biggest advocates and,
you know, they helped us—connected us with a
psychology professor, Professor [Sophie] Trawalter. And that was
really good to work with them. Dean Goluboff and Vice Dean
Kendrick have, you know, they have their personal like,
preference, like their, you know, their personal attitudes
about stuff and then adminsitrative attitudes about
that stuff. And I think you can imagine that institutions are
sensitive about surveys and things like that, and so they
were naturally sensitive about some things. And we did our best
to address those without compromising anything of our—any
of our goals in the surveys. I think that showed in the
professor interviews too, like there's you—and it shows with
what I was saying earlier, about the diversity and clerkships
panel. Like when you're commenting on your employment,
you might want to say—you might have other things, other, you
might, there might be other things you want to say that you
may not say or other like things that you might have to say that
you may not necessarily agree with. So I think that's all I
will say on that.
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes, I think that says it all. [chuckles]
Okay going back just briefly to something we discussed earlier,
we talked about adding positions to the board and I asked if you
added the LL.M. rep. position. How else did you change the
composition of the board?
Manal Cheema: Can you—like in terms of adding more people?
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes, like what positions did you—were there any
other positions you added? Or maybe like, role shifting that
you did?
Manal Cheema: Yes, so we added another professional development
chair to the organization. And that was in response to—we were
asking a lot of the—well, so events co-chairs, we changed
that. We were asking a lot of the professional development
chairs, so we added another to plan more like ad hoc events
throughout the year, so that one person would be solely in charge
of Women in Public Service and one person would be solely in
charge of Women in Big Law. I need to pull up this. I want to
pull up the the constitution just give me one second. Let's
see. Okay. Sorry I have like so many files open.
Sujaya Rajguru: I totally get you. That may have been an
overly specific question, I apologize.
Manal Cheema: No, you're good. I mean, we have the community
outreach chair, the scholarship chair, mentorship co-chairs.
We've renamed a couple of the positions to be more responsive.
Yes, then the professional programs chairs. That used to be
the event chairs, but then we renamed those, to have three of
them. Then we also had the—and those were, the professional
development co-chairs are separate from the event
co-chairs. My apologies. And then, the members at-large, I
think we also changed what they did, too, to have them more, to
make it more clear what their responsibility is. So, like,
before the mentors at-large, were expected to have, to plan
substantive events. But then we recognized the need to have
institutional knowledge. So then we had—we changed their
description to be more like, you're 3Ls who merely exist on
the board to like, provide your feedback about like how it was,
how your VLW experiences were, because we understood that a lot
of the 3Ls didn't have the wherewithal and capacity to plan
events. But we wanted them to stay on the board, at least in
an informal capacity, to give that advice, and like pitch in.
And this was especially important for the professional
programs, co-chairs, and the event co-chairs and planning
their events. I think the vice president, that was something
also that we developed more to be like, you will, your job is
to shadow the vice president, but also have like a flagship
event that you work on. And to make sure that you understand
how the organization works for the transition. Another thing we
had that I instituted was, at the end of each semester, we
would have—at the beginning, and end of each semester, we would
have—each of the board members would answer surveys about how I
was doing as president, and how they were doing in their
positions and what they wanted to improve on. So that, and that
was really helpful for me to like, see what they wanted to do
in the beginning of the semester, see what actually
happened, so that in the spring semester, you could change it.
And that's actually how I changed the professional
programs co-chairs around, because one of the surveys
demonstrated to me that there was an imbalance in how much
people were planning or responsible for. So we changed
that around and I was able to move a bunch of responsibilities
around to alleviate the pressure on some of the members of the
board. And it also made me realize like, oh, I was lacking
in some communication stuff. So I was able to change that too.
Yes, professional development surveys. Fun stuff.
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes. A good survey. Okay, let's see. I was
going kind of get to your reflections. Addie and Randi, I
don't know if you wanted to—if you had some more things you
want to talk about on the topics we've discussed so far?
Addie Patrick: I had a question about, just jumping back to
programming really fast. I know we talked a lot about sort of
these lecture type of, and panel type of programs Women in Big
Law, women in clerkships. I'm wondering if you could speak a
little bit more about some of these—the social programming. So
the wine and cheese night and the faculty dinner series. I
know, wine and cheese is sort of, it seems to be like looking
from the outside looking in a staple of, you know, the
Virginia Law Women programming. Can you talk a little bit more
about the importance of that event? And sort of what
conversations are happening during that?
Manal Cheema: Yes, so the wine and cheese night is often like
what the first interaction that the student body has with VLW,
and with the faculty respectively. So it happens very
early on in the semester. And what I mean with faculty like,
is a wider set. But like, I remember when I was a 1L, I was
like one of those first events that I went to where I was like,
oh, like, this is what it feels like to be a lawyer. Like I
personally don't drink, so I was always like, we need to have
non-alcoholic options here. But I was like, walking around with
like, you're nursing your beverage, chatting with
professors after class, and meeting new classmates. And so
it's an introductory event that's really good to like
foster and set the tone off for the year. So it was really
important for us as like a first freshman. And to also introduce
students to faculty members they may not necessarily meet outside
of their 1L classes. And I think the conversations are the
standard, like networking conversations that would happen,
like people would be like, "Oh, Professor." They would kind of
look around the room see who's like, kind of maybe looks like a
professor, maybe sometimes make the mistake of mistaking your
professor for a student. Not that that happens frequently.
But it happens a lot. [laughs] And it was like those
conversations would be like people are—students are like
learning how to talk to professors outside of the
classroom. So that was really important for us. Then the
faculty dinner series are a way to talk to a professor as like
more informally, like more of like a colleague. Some—like a
relationship that they might have, like a mentor-mentee
relationship, that they might have during law school or after
law school. So my first faculty dinner series that I went to was
with Professor Ashley Deeks, and she's been a great mentor to me.
And I'm, it was really cool to sit with her at a restaurant in
downtown Charlottesville, and just like chat and have a great
time, and also meet some of the other women in VLW in that
informal capacity that I wasn't necessarily hanging out with,
but certainly did hang out with afterwards. I think it also
couples in with, like our professional development week,
plans that we did. So we had, like, wellness Wednesdays, that
we had, and we worked with Kate on that. And we had the clothing
swap and headshots. And we had, like, Paletines day, which is
something I started. It was where we would, just it was like
another wine, it was a wine and chocolate night, plus
non-alcoholic beverages, and we would celebrate just hanging out
with our classmates in an informal capacity as part of Feb
Club, perhaps one of the more classier events of Feb Club, but
an event nonetheless. And that was really fun for us too. So I
think we—our programming really oscillates from like, like more
formal mentor-mentee relationships, like social
interactions, to very informal social interactions, just to
give people opportunity—different social
opportunities to interact with people. Like someone might do
very well at the wine and cheese gathering with professors and
not really care for a faculty dinner, just because it's a
longer interaction or whatnot. So we tried to have a, like a
bunch of different social interactions with different
flavors to them to accommodate our population.
Sujaya Rajguru: Palentine's Day is happening this Thursday.
Manal Cheema: Is it? Oh my gosh, that makes me so happy.
Sujaya Rajguru: The wine has been bought, the snacks have
been bought. [chuckles]
Manal Cheema: Yes, yes. That's probably my best contribution to
VLW.
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes. The description for the event, by
the way, is a Leslie Knope quote, which I have—
Manal Cheema: As it should be, yes.
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes, what else would it be? [chuckles]
Manal Cheema: Of course. It's a planned Galentine's Day. But
we—that was another thing that we added like the male allyship
listerv. I don't know if that's still a thing. But like, we
tried to be more intentional and, during my presidency, to
involve men in the organization, as allies to women in the legal
profession. Because we realize that so often, what holds back
with the advancement of women law firms is how their male
counterparts interact. Like if the men—their male counterparts,
refuse to take paternity leave, for example, like, that is one
of those things that can really hurt the progress of women. So
that was something that we started looking—if we were
educating our male peers about these issues, like, sure, they
may not see any issues during Law School, but like their
choices in the field are what creates differences in the
disparities between women. If we started teaching them now, or
like sharing articles or having those discussions with them now,
perhaps we could offset the outcomes we so see often ten,
fifteen years down the road.
Randall Flaherty: I want to jump to—I'm getting some feedback.
You're talking about VLW sort of situating itself within this
environment of other student organizations, and I was
wondering how you would describe VLWs mission? And what is the
need that it was serving in your presidency for women students at
the Law School?
Manal Cheema: Yes, so I would say Virginia Law Women's purpose
is to advance women in the legal profession, professionally,
socially and confidently. I know like the third word doesn't
follow the parallel structure, but, it's basically, it doesn't
pay heed to like, what women necessarily want to do in the
legal profession, if they want to go into public service or
private service, if they want to champion certain causes or not.
It's to bring women together to help them recognize that we all
should support each other support the advancement of women
in the field and recognize that, like, the administrative choices
we make, or like the moves we make for our career advancement,
shouldn't come at the cost of other women. And I think that's
kind of what we were looking for. Like, we wanted to enable
women by like, giving them good headshots, making them dress for
success, making sure they feel confident walking into a
networking setting, that they have the social connections,
they have the academic leg up with the outline bank. I feel
like they are properly and confidently heading into the
legal profession. So the real world is very different than law
school. Some things are sometimes strangely the same,
like the prestige-chasing and everything. But I think the most
important thing for VLW was just to make women feel confident
entering in, because there's so many things once we get out here
that will—that attack your confidence, that like, where
imposter syndrome sneaks in. And I think if VLW challenges women
to like, fight that and feel like no, like, you are worth it.
Like you deserve to be in this legal profession, like there is
a place for you. And here are the resources for that.
Sujaya Rajguru: So as far as inspiring confidence in women. I
know Manal as a mentor has been a really big role in helping me
fight my imposter syndrome. So on that note, I would be
curious. I guess I have some idea knowing you, but, could you
tell us a little bit about the relationships you've built with
other mentors—or other individuals in VLW, friendships,
mentorships, professional, casual?
Manal Cheema: Well, Sujaya is one of my besties. So that's
one. Yes, I've been very close with the women that I've met
through VLW. As I mentioned, Kendall is a constant mentor and
friend and confidant, like I've called her often about
situations I've experienced at work, or, you know, imposter
syndrome, or even just like writing academic articles and
things like that. And the same thing with Sujaya, like, we had
a lot of calls this past year about similar topics and like
other women who I’ve met through VLW, and I think one of the
biggest things I learned from women in VLW, was paying it
forward. And you know, always whatever goodwill was shown to
you, and you should always pay it forward. And I think, so much
goodwill, starting from how I got elected, the confidence that
I needed to get elected to, like, you know, excelling in law
school, or pursuing certain internships, or opportunities
came from other women who would be just like, "You can do it,
no, you got this, we're not going let you give up on
yourself." And I have been in a constant effort to try to pay
that kindness forward to other people and to mentor them and to
just try to be—give them candid advice, but also be there for
them and feel that, tell them that like, you too like, go
forth and do great things. And I know you can do it, because you
just have to make sure you don't give up on yourself. There are a
lot of times where I almost gave up on myself in Law School. I
was like, I just don't know if I'm doing it right. Like, I
don't know if I'm biting off more than I could chew. And
I—every time there was a woman who just sat me down and was
like, "No, you got this. We're going to figure it out." And I
think anything I accomplished in Law School I had to thank for
like the women I met there.
Sujaya Rajguru: Yes, I don't know. That's hard to follow up.
I guess, should we move to just seeing if there's anything else
that we want to cover? Was there any other particular questions,
Randi and Addie? Okay, so I guess Manal, is there any other
topics you wanted to discuss? Or any, anything at all?
Manal Cheema: No, I think I'm good. I wish I was a bit better
prepared, but I think, now I'm just doubting myself again,
there you go, cyclical. You have to fight it every day. [laughs]
But no, I think I'm good.
Sujaya Rajguru: Okay, wonderful. And is there anyone else in
particular you'd recommend we speak to for this project?
Manal Cheema: Kendall, for sure, if she's on the list. And then I
think it would be, yes, just Kendall and Nicole Banton. And
then I don't know if you're speaking on it, Sujaya, but you
should, too. You had a very interesting year.
Sujaya Rajguru: I did have a very interesting year in a lot
of ways. Yes. Yes, I do think I am on the list as well.
Manal Cheema: Good.
Sujaya Rajguru: I'll be switching roles. [laughter]
Manal Cheema: Yes. Awesome, well, thank you so much for
letting me speak on this.
Sujaya Rajguru: Oh, thank you. I mean, this is a—it's, I feel
like I've had a lot of fun, like, full circle moments, like
thinking back to like, what I saw you do and how you helped
me, so this is like, another one of those.
Manal Cheema: Yes, well, you inspire me a lot, Sujaya. Like,
what was that word we use for people where it was like,
they're star people and like—
Sujaya Rajguru: Oh yes. That's very sweet.
Manal Cheema: Yes, you're a star person.
Sujaya Rajguru: Awe. [chuckles]
Manal Cheema: Oh. Okay. Well thank you so much Randi and
Addie. I'm really grateful that y'all are pursuing this.