Common Law Grounds

Club Description

The purpose of Common Law Grounds is to encourage discussion and debate among students and faculty across the ideological spectrum with the goal of identifying and articulating areas of agreement about core values and practices, isolating points of substantive disagreement while also looking for common ground, and fostering a culture of open and civil dialogue about legal and political issues. We pursue these goals not under the naïve impression that compromise on important questions of policy is always possible or even desirable. Rather, we do so out of a conviction that for a constitutional democracy to survive and thrive, citizens—especially lawyer-citizens—must remain as attuned to what they have in common as they are to what divides them. Common Law Grounds hopes to expand beyond the University of Virginia School of Law and reach communities across the country.