The Libel Show at UVA Law Class of '67 (9/20/2026)

I am just remembering an event from my third year of law school (UVA class of ’67). This was the Libel Show, an annual tradition where the third year law students sort of mocked the law professors (all in good fun). I had a bit part, playing a giant in administrative law, Carl McFarland. (In my legal writing over the past few years, Carl McFarland has loomed large because he played the principal role in the  enactment of the Administrative Procedure Act in 1946. (Just a tacky aside, the Supreme Court over the past few years have grossly misapplied the APA in ways that McFarland would not recognize; UVA has McFarland's Papers, including APA papers online here.) At any rate, back to the Libel Show.

The title of the 1967 Libel Show was: "Mountain Man Meets the 'Hardy' Boys" (The reference to Hardy Dillard, dean of the law school (a giant in the law). The following is a short blurb from the promo materials to whip up enthusiasm and attendance for the show:

The Libel Show this year is one big huge, rollicking "New Tort." The faculty is insulted, defamed, slandered, libeled in song and story.

Come see these invasions of privacy:

Bald Tommy Bergin and Micky Dickie Speidel's debating the admission of a bastard to U.Va., and

Charlie Gregory's sponsoring the admission of this bastard to U.Va.

Additional Attractions

___ Schotland squeaking
___ Many Munford girls molested
___ First year law girls molesting
___ Hardy Dillard leering
___ Em. Spies with new multiple choice questions.
___ Other jaws clamping shut on the 'gator'
___ Repeating Little Caesar McCoid repeating
___ Nancy Buc as 'Georgy Girl' *
___ Mary Voce as 'Baby Doll' *
___Tom Doud as Mason Willrich
___ And many other first year students.

My recollection is that Ms. Buc and Ms. Voce were 1st year law students, probably graduating in 1969. I'm not sure about Tom Doud. I am not sure why they were mentioned in the promo materials. Perhaps to get a draw from 1st year students who might otherwise have skipped the 3rd year foolishness in the Libel Show. In my class of '67, we had 5 women who started with us (about 250 total), and as I recall three graduated with us. (Aside, those women were very smart and accomplished.)

The pretense of the 1967 Libel show was a country bumpkin named Homer from Louisiana stumbling his way through a UVA bachelor’s degree and then law degree. (I stumbled my way through UVA law after stumbling through USC (the real one in Columbia, SC)). The Libel Show had lots of “in jokes” that only people affiliated with the law school would recognize. Since I was there at the time, I appreciated the jokes.

I remember well one song that was memorable because of the play on the song from Gilbert & Sulllivan’s Iolanthe: "When Britain Really Ruled the Waves" (Song No. 16 in Act II). Here's a link to the BBC Proms 2000 version presentation of the song from Iolanthe (G&S lyrics are here). The librettists for the Libel Show bastardized the song to get laughs from UVA Law students and professors. I say bastardized but we did not stray from the spirit of the song as G&S so marvelously presented it; they were spoofing Britain's aristocracy; we were spoofing the UVA Law powers that be from the Dean on down. The reference to Colgate Darden, Wikipedia here, is to a previous UVA President who gets a bit of bum rap (but keep in mind that this is satire):

I

Professor Nash

When U-V-A was U-V-A
In Colgate Darden's time,
Virginia made no pretence
To intellectual eminence
Or scholarship sublime.
And yet we shone in many ways
In Colgate Darden's glorious days.

All three

And yet we shone in many ways
In Colgate Darden's glorious days.

II

Professor Davison

While Ivy students ground away

At Princeton and Cornell,
Virginians, at Kessler's bar
Did nothing in particular
And did it very well.
And yet we set the world ablaze
In Colgate Darden's glorious days

All three

And yet we set the world ablaze
In Golgate Darden's glorious days.

Professor Boyd

And while officious whelps withhold
Their intermeddling hand,
And young professors do not itch
To interfere with matters which
They do not understand,
As bright will shine Virginia's rays
As in great Darden's glorious days.

All three

As bright will shine Virginia's rays
As in great Darden's glorious days.