InBrief eNewsletter | Vanderbilt University Law School

2L Holt wins Jackson Prize; 1Ls Cecot & Lim win Martin Prize

Ryan Thomas Holt, Class of 2010, is the winner of Vanderbilt Law School’s 2008-09 Robert F. Jackson Memorial Prize, awarded annually to the member of the second-year law class who maintains the highest scholastic average over two years.

The law school’s 2008-09 Archie B. Martin Memorial Prize for Scholarship, awarded annually to the first-year student who earns the highest general average in the first year of law school, is shared by two students, Caroline Cecot and Jinghui Lim. Both are enrolled in Vanderbilt Law School’s Ph.D. in Law & Economics program.

Holt, a Nashville native who is serving as a summer associate with Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago and with Sherrard and Roe in Nashville, earned his undergraduate degree at Vanderbilt in 2005 and then spent a year teaching sixth grade in Harlem with the Teach For America program. He earned his M.A. in economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln before entering Vanderbilt Law School in 2007. He currently serves on the Moot Court Board and will serve as Editor-in-Chief of the Vanderbilt Law Review for the 2009-10 term. He has been a Pearl Cohn High School site coordinator through the Street Law Program, a student-run program through which law students teach legal basics to high school seniors. Holt’s prize recognizes his outstanding academic performance from 2007-09.

Caroline Cecot entered Vanderbilt’s Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics after graduating from Harvard University with a degree in economics and spending two years working as a public policy researcher in Washington, D.C. “After graduation, I was torn as to whether I wanted to earn a J.D. or a Ph.D.,” Cecot says. “Vanderbilt’s Law and Economics program was the perfect solution.” Cecot’s husband, Piotr Pilarski, just completed his second year at Vanderbilt Medical School.

Jinghui Lim, who is from Singapore, earned her undergraduate degree at Duke University in economics and computer science, and then served as a research assistant at Duke’s Center for Health Policy before coming to Vanderbilt for the Ph.D. Program in Law and Economics.

Cecot and Lim have worked as research assistants in the Law and Economics department during summer 2009.

“It is my pleasure to congratulate these students for their impressive academic achievement,” Dean Chris Guthrie said.