Robert Poggenklass
Class of 2010
Hometown: Guttenberg, IA
Employer: ACLU of Virginia
About Robert
Rob graduated magna cum laude from Cornell College in Iowa with a major in philosophy and a minor in music. As an undergraduate Rob was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, was the business manager of The Cornellian, appropriations chair of the student senate, and sang with the chamber singers and concert choir. Before attending William & Mary, he worked as the news editor for the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Sun and as editor of the West Branch Times, both in Iowa. At William & Mary, Rob earned honors in Legal Skills I and was awarded a graduate research fellowship with the Institute of Bill of Rights Law. He wrote for the law school newspaper and was an active member of the Student Hurricane Network and the Virginia ACLU. He was the 2010 recipient of the Virginia State Bar's Oliver White Hill Law Student Pro Bono Award, honoring one third-year law student for extraordinary pro bono work. Rob spent summer 2008 interning with the Northern Virginia Capital Defender’s Office, spent summer 2009 with the California Appellate Project in San Francisco, and was awarded a post-graduate fellowship to work in the Public Defender's Office in Alexandria, Virginia in 2010. After 3 1/2 years of working as an Assistant Public Defender in Newport News, Virginia, Rob is now the Tony Dunn Legal Fellow at the ACLU of Virginia in Richmond, where he'll spend two years working to reform Virginia's criminal justice system.
His Own Words
“The Institute of Bill of Rights Law sponsors some outstanding legal symposia throughout the year. Every law student should attend the Supreme Court Preview in the fall. William & Mary is the only law school in the country that does anything like it. I'm proud to have been associated with the IBRL.
“I chose William & Mary because it felt right. The admissions staff did a terrific job of making me feel like I'd be at home at Marshall-Wythe and once I visited; my choice became a lot easier. The law school here is a real community, and that's not something I found at other law schools I visited. The prospect of winters in Virginia, as opposed to Iowa, didn't hurt, either.”