August 2015 | University of Alabama School of Law

News

Law School Welcomes Class of 2018

Dean Mark E. Brandon welcomed an impressive Class of 2018 during First-Year Orientation. The Class of 2018 has 154 students and was drawn from a pool of nearly 1,600 applicants. Eighty-four percent of those applicants came from outside the state of Alabama. Members of the Class of 2018 come from 25 states and two countries, and have studied at 74 colleges and universities. Forty-five percent of the class members are women, and 26 percent identify as members of a racial or ethnic minority, the highest percentage in the history of the Law School.

Stephen Rushin Join Faculty

Professor Stephen Rushin, assistant professor of law, will teach Select Problems in Criminal Law: Policing in the fall. His research focuses on issues in criminal law, criminal procedure, information privacy law and policing. Professor Rushin completed his Ph.D. at Berkeley in Jurisprudence and Social Policy. He received a J.D. from Berkeley and holds a B.A. from the University of Texas.

Debora Johnson Wins 2015 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction

For her work in The Secret of Magic, Deborah Johnson will receive the 2015 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction. The prize, authorized by Ms. Lee and co-sponsored by The University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal, is given annually to a book-length work of fiction that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change.

Events

Play Ball! | Montgomery Buscuits VS. Jackson Generals

Dean Mark Brandon invites you to join him for an eaving of family-oriented fun with University of Alabama School of Law Alumni Montgomery Biscuits and Jackson Generals Tuesday, August 25 at 6:30 p.m at Riverwalk Stadium | Locomotive Loft. Pre-registration is required. Tickets are $15 per person and include food, beverages and stadium entry. Game will begin at 7:05 p.m.

2015 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction

The Law School invites D.C.-area Alumni to celebrate Deborah Johnson’s The Secret of Magic, the winner of the 2015 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, at 5 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3 at the Library of Congress. The prize, authorized by Ms. Lee, is given annually to a book-length work of fiction that best illuminates the role of lawyers in society. Registration is required. For more information, call (205) 348-5752.

Hiring?

On Campus Interviews

Registration is now open for Fall 2015 On-Campus Interviews. The Career Services Office helps employers find 2Ls for summer positions and 3Ls and alumni for post-graduation employment. Please contact the Assistant Dean for Career Services, Lezlie A. Griffin (lgriffin@law.ua.edu), for more information on recruitment opportunities. The CSO arranges on-campus and video-conference interviews, collects resumes and posts positions on its electronic job board. All CSO services are free of charge.

The Best Thing For Your Resume Since Spellcheck:

LL.M. Concentrations in Taxation and Business Transactions Offered Online

The Law School offers two exceptional LL.M. programs through live, interactive Internet technologies. Students receive skills-based instruction, taught by respected professors and practitioners throughout the country, without having to leave their offices. The tax program permits students to focus on courses in estate planning or business tax. The course of study for the business program is interdisciplinary in fields of law and business – including tax, finance, intellectual property, entrepreneurship and traditional corporate classes. For more information, or to apply to either concentration, visit www.alabamallm.com or contact Associate Dean for Online Graduate Programs and Director of CLE Daniel Powell.

CLE Alabama

Alumni are invited to participate in training opportunities throughout the state.

August 14

The Business of Being a Lawyer Tuscaloosa

Class Notes

Joseph Boohaker, ’79, has been elected as presiding circuit judge for Jefferson County.
Gray M. Borden, ’05, has been selected as United States Magistrate Judge for the Middle District of Alabama.
Jonathan Cross, ’93, has been appointed chief deputy district attorney in Tuscaloosa County, 6^th Judicial Circuit of Alabama.
Carla Cole Gilmore, ’95, has joined Capell & Howard as a shareholder.
Ben Graves, ’05, is running for Lauderdale County Circuit Judge Place 1.
Zachary L. Guyse, ’14, has joined Wolfe, Jones, Wolfe, Hancock, Daniel & South LLC as an associate.
William Harris, ’14, has joined the bankruptcy practice group of Shapiro & Ingle.
Lyn Head, ’90, has been appointed district attorney in Tuscaloosa County, 6^th Judicial Circuit of Alabama.
David Hudson, ’09, has opened ?? Flavor Shack, a restaurant in Waco, Texas.
Charles W. Prueter, ’12, has joined Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, LLP as an associate in Birmingham.
Brannan W. Reaves, ’10, has joined Webster, Henry, Lyons, Bradwell, Cohan & Black as of counsel.

Robert M. Ronnlund, ’08, is a member of Scott, Sullivan, Streetman & Fox PC.
Kimberly Kelley Rucker, ’08, was appointed by Gov. Robert Bentley to the Alabama State University’s Board of Trustees.
Richard A. Silfen, ’87, has rejoined Duane Morris LLP as partner in its Corporate Practice Group.
C. Ryan Sprinkle, ’14, has been named a member of the Young Professionals Council for the American Health Lawyers Association.
Jackie H. Trimm, ’99, has joined Burr & Forman LLP as a member of the Tort Trial and Insurance practice group.
M. Jansen Voss, ’06, is a member of Scott, Sullivan, Streetman & Fox PC.
Calvin Whaley, ’14, has joined Parkman White, LLP in Birmingham.
Liz Whipple, ’07, has been named Interim Director of the Domestic Violence Law Clinic and will teach at the University of Alabama School of Law.
T. Wade Wilson, ’99, has joined Gilmore, Poole, & Rowley Law Group LLC.
Alex Wyatt, ’99, was appointed to the Homewood City Council and represents Ward 4.

Send Class Notes to Alumni News

Gifts

The Law School received a distribution of $100,000 from the estate of Richard S. Bullock, Jr. for the Donald Richard Bounds, Jr. Memorial Scholarship. Judy Whalen Evans, ’75, contributed $5,000 to the Farrah Law Alumni Society. Scholarship Foundation, Inc., facilitated by H. Thomas Heflin, Jr., ’79, contributed $5,000 to the Howell T. Heflin Fund. The fund is used to support the Howell T. Heflin Symposia and the Howell T. Heflin Visiting Lecturer or Scholar. Sen. Heflin received his J.D. from The University of Alabama School of Law in 1948. Porterfield, Harper, Mills & Motlow, PA contributed $5,000 to the Porterfield, Harper & Mills Annual Scholarship. A distribution of $7,850 from the Albert G. and Hester Rives Trust was made to the Albert G. and Hester Rives Fund. This trust is named in honor of Albert G. Rives, a 1924 graduate of the Law School.

Faculty Notes

PROFESSOR BILL ANDREEN participated in the Annual Meeting of the Center for Progressive Reform in Washington in May. He also peer reviewed the next volume of the Land Use & Environment Law Review; revised his chapter on Alabama Water Law (and the Water Wars) for Volume 4 of Waters and Water Rights (LexisNexis); and conducted a grant review for the National Science Foundation.

PROFESSOR GAINES BRAKE published “Supported Decision-Making in the Elder Law Practice: Promoting the Aging Client’s Right to Legal Capacity” in the May issue of Elder Law Advisory by Thomson Reuters.

JUDGE JOSEPH COLQUITT was inducted as a Pillar of the Tuscaloosa Bar at its Law Day Luncheon.

PROFESSOR SHAHAR DILLBARY served as a keynote speaker at the Second International Law and Economics Conference (ILEC) in Turkey. Last year the U.S. Keynote speakers were Professors Robert Cooter (Berkeley) and William Kovacic (George Washington University and former FTC Chairman). Professor Dillbary is scheduled to present his scholarship on causation at the University of Chicago School of Law Legal Scholarship Workshop and the Southern Economic Association.

PROFESSOR MIRIT EYAL-COHEN participated in a workshop in May at the George Mason Law school Law and economics Center on Empirical Methods for Law Professors.

PROFESSOR JULIE A. HILL presented her paper When Bank Examiners Get It Wrong: Financial Institution Appeals of Material Supervisory Determinations at the Bank Holding Company Association’s Spring Seminar in Bloomington, Minnesota.

PROFESSOR PAUL HORWITZ participated in a symposium at Columbia Law School celebrating the career and work of Kent Greenawalt, a faculty member at Columbia for 50 years and a leading scholar in First Amendment law. Professor Horwitz, a former student of Greenawalt’s, spoke on a panel discussing Greenawalt’s scholarship on law and religion.

PROFESSOR RONALD KROTOSZYNSKI, JR. has published “Partisan Balance Requirements in the Age of New Formalism,” 90 Notre Dame Law Review 941 (2015) (with Johnjerica Hodge and Wes Wintermyer). He also has published “Reconciling Privacy and Speech in the Era of Big Data: A Comparative Legal Analysis,” 56 William and Mary Law Review 1279 (2015). Krotoszynski also attended and participated as a voting member at the American Law Institute’s annual meeting in Washington, DC, from May 18-20, 2015.

PROFESSOR PAMELA PIERSON spoke on “EQ for Lawyers,” at the Alabama State Bar Leadership Forum, in Montgomery; on “The Economics of the Legal Marketplace” to the Birmingham Bar, Business Section, and on “The ABC’s of EQ for Lawyers” at the Alabama State Bar Young Lawyers Section Meeting.