Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring recently appointed Roscoe C. Roberts as legal counsel to the University.
Announced Friday, Roberts will succeed Paul Forch, who served as general counsel from 1996 until his retirement in August. Roberts has worked as the legal counsel for Virginia State University since 2003, and will officially join the University community in October.
University spokesperson McGregor McCance said in an email the University is pleased with Herring’s decision and confident Roberts will do well in his new position.
“Mr. Roberts’ experience has been universally praised and cited during his appointment process,” McCance said. “Attorney General Mark Herring, Rector George Keith Martin and [University] President [Teresa] Sullivan all made specific mention of Mr. Roberts’ significant experience as an attorney and as a general counsel serving public universities across Virginia.”
Herring expressed similar optimism, saying Roscoe’s background has prepared him for success in this post.
“The University of Virginia requires a broad and complicated set of legal services to fulfill its mission, and I am confident that Roscoe is the right person to take on this role,” Herring said. “His many years of work and leadership on higher education and health care issues in the Office of Attorney General make him uniquely qualified to meet the needs of a world-class university operating an expansive medical center.”
As legal counsel, Roberts will act as the University’s head lawyer, as well as oversee and identify legal issues in all University departments.
“Serving as legal counsel for an operation as large as the University of Virginia — with a leading academic division, Tier 1 research interests and a comprehensive medical center — is quite demanding,” McCance said.
McCance said Roberts’ duties will “include serving as the University’s point person on contract negotiations, policy review, litigation, building and overseeing an effective general counsel’s office team, and more.”
University Rector George Martin said he felt Roberts was a good fit for the post and was excited for the work the two would do together.
“I am confident that we will rely on Roscoe,” Martin said. “I’m looking forward to working with him; he’s a good man.”
Roberts has a diversity of legal experience in both the public and private domain. He has served with the Virginia Attorney General’s Office since 1981, beginning as an assistant attorney general for the Commonwealth, then working from 2003 onward as senior assistant attorney general.
Roberts’ position as assistant attorney general saw him serving as general counsel in a number of institutions of higher learning, including James Madison University, Christopher Newport University, Virginia State University and George Mason University.
He is also Chairman of the Virginia Credit Union.
Though excited about the work Roberts will do, Sullivan said the University community is sad to see Forch depart.
“As General Counsel for the past 18 years, Paul has been an essential and trusted advisor to many of us in the room today, advising us on the risks and benefits of countless decisions we make daily on behalf of U.Va.,” Sullivan said at a retirement function. “He could always be relied upon to state his views straightforwardly, even when those views were not what his audience wanted to hear. He has always been thoughtful, thorough, and direct in his analysis and recommendations.”
Herring said Roberts will benefit highly from the foundation Forch laid.
“[Roberts] is inheriting a great team and a great legacy from Paul Forch, whose four decades of service to the Office of Attorney General, including nearly 20 years as counsel at the University of Virginia, have been exemplary,” Herring said.
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