As a University of Virginia law student in the 1970s, APA General Counsel Nathalie Gilfoyle, JD, worked as a research assistant for professor Richard Bonnie, who now directs UVA's Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy. This early work at the intersection of law and psychology planted the seed of a lifelong career interest for Gilfoyle.
So at her 40th law school reunion in 2014, she established a fund to help current students get similar research experience and learn from top experts in the fields of law and psychology.
The Nathalie Gilfoyle Fund for Law and Psychology has already funded two UVA School of Law students' summer research assistantships. In 2014, Carrington Giammittorio worked with Bonnie to update the book "Criminal Law: Cases and Materials," researching such topics as mental health, competence and criminal responsibility. In 2015, Kathryn Payne worked under Bonnie's direction on a "restatement of the law" on children — a project of the American Legal Institute that aims to inform lawyers and judges about case law that affects children and children's rights.
APA has also benefitted from the arrangement. Both students spent time working with Gilfoyle on the amicus curiae briefs that APA files to help explain relevant psychological research to the courts. APA has filed briefs in cases involving marriage equality, false confessions, eyewitness misidentification, the death penalty and affirmative action, among others.
UVA also plans to use a portion of the fund to support a new course aimed at both law students and graduate students in psychology. Structured as an interdisciplinary faculty and student colloquium, the course will bring students from the two programs together to learn from guest experts about key topics in psychology and the law.
There is a strong interdisciplinary foundation already in place, with several professors sharing appointments and collaborating across the two fields, according to Gilfoyle.
"The most rewarding part of my job as APA general counsel has been translating psychological science to the courts," she says. "My purpose in setting up the fund is to provide resources for injecting that work into the training of both law and psychology students."
— Lea Winerman
