© Bob Krasner
The Confession Named Inaugural Winner of New Legal Literary Award
For his work in The Confession, #1 best-selling author John Grisham is being awarded the 2011 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, a new literary award co-sponsored by The University of Alabama School of Law and the ABA Journal, the flagship magazine of the American Bar Association.
United States Attorney General Eric Holder helped initiate this award at a ceremony last September in Tuscaloosa, marking the 50th anniversary of the publication of To Kill A Mockingbird. Ms. Harper Lee, who attended The University of Alabama School of Law, approved of this award.
The Harper Lee Prize will be given annually to a published work of fiction that best exemplifies the positive role of lawyers in society and their power to effect change.
The Confession was declared the 2011 winner by a distinguished Selection Committee, including David Baldacci, Linda Fairstein, Morris Dees and Robert J. Grey, Jr. In the Committee’s view, The Confession, which explores an attorney’s tireless efforts to save his client from being executed for a crime he did not commit, most-deservedly embodies the spirit of the Harper Lee Prize.
Grisham will be presented with the award during a special ceremony September 22, at 2 p.m., at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Following the award presentation, David Baldacci will lead a discussion of The Confession, in relationship to Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, including guest panelists Morris Dees, Linda Fairstein, Robert Grey, Laura Miller, and Thane Rosenbaum.
Our Reunion Weekend will honor alumni from the Classes of 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991, 2001 and 2006. The Reunion is Friday, October 7. Room blocks are available now at NorthRiver Yacht Club, Country Inn & Suites, Hilton Garden Inn and the Comfort Inn. Hotel space during home game weekends is limited.
This fall, Alabama will take on Vanderbilt, Saturday, October 8, for the Homecoming football game. Before the game, join us for a Tailgate Party at the Camille Wright Cook Plaza of the Law School. All alumni and family members are welcome. The tailgate starts three hours prior to kick-off.
For more information, contact Susan Newman in the Office of Advancement at (205) 348-6775.
The Judge Walter P. Gewin Award was created in 1982 to acknowledge outstanding contributions by lawyers in the development and presentation of CLE programs by CLE Alabama. The award is named for Judge Walter P. Gewin, who as President of the Alabama State Bar, helped to start the CLE department as a cooperative effort between The University of Alabama School of Law and the Alabama State Bar. Judge Gewin felt that education should continue throughout a lawyer’s professional life. The Gewin Award was presented at the Alabama State Bar meeting in July.
This year’s winner, Andrew J. Potts, practices in the areas of estate planning, trust and estate administration, and general business planning at Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC, in Birmingham. He earned his B.A. and M.S. from The University of South Alabama, his J.D. from The University of Alabama School of Law and his LL.M. in Taxation from New York University. He served as law clerk to the Honorable G. B. Kahn, Chief Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of Alabama. He is past chair of the Tax and the Elder Law Sections of the Alabama State Bar and is a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. He is a member of the Board of Advisors to the Alabama Family Trust. He is a frequent lecturer on trust and estate planning issues, and issues affecting the elderly and the disabled.
John Paul Stevens, retired associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, will deliver the Fall 2011 Albritton Lecture at The University of Alabama School of Law on Wednesday, November 16, 2011, at 1:30 p.m. in the McMillan Lecture Hall.
Farrah Law Alumni Society members are invited to enjoy a private reception with Justice Stevens following the lecture.
The Albritton Lecture series was established in 1996 by Judge William Harold Albritton III, a 1960 Alabama Law alumnus and Senior Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
Stevens’s lecture marks the tenth visit by a United States Supreme Court Justice to The University of Alabama School of Law.
This fall, the Law School will welcome an accomplished panel for our tenth installment in the Law, Knowledge & Imagination Symposia, directed by Austin Sarat, Hugo L. Black Visiting Senior Faculty Scholar.
Joining us to discuss the topic of “Matters of Faith: Religious Experience and Legal Response” are:
With many of our graduates actively involved in the government sector, and an increasing number of students expressing interest in a career in public service, the Law School has recently launched new externship programs in Washington, D.C. and Montgomery.
Effective with the spring 2012 semester, the law school will place up to six UA Law students in legal support roles on Capitol Hill.
To accommodate the growing number of our students interested in the policy-making aspect of the law, Alabama will also add to its externships offered in Montgomery starting in summer 2012.
TUSCALOOSA, Alabama – The University of Alabama School of Law’s Animal Rights Law Moot Court Team has won first place in the 1st Annual National Animal Rights Law Moot Court Competition.
Oralists Laura Morgan and Keren McElvy competed against UCLA in the semi-final round and The University of Chicago in the final round. Keren McElvy had the second highest individual score among all the competitors. Lane Bowen was the team manager and research assistant.
The competition, held April 16 – 17th at The University of Chicago School of Law, included 12 teams from the following schools:
The University of Alabama School of Law Clinics, in conjunction with the Alabama State Bar’s Volunteer Lawyers Program and the Tuscaloosa County Bar Association began offering free legal services for those affected by the recent tornado.
The Legal Assistance Project provides free legal services both on-site at local area aid centers and at the law clinic programs office at the University of Alabama School of Law. Law students and attorneys will be available on weekdays at the law school in the mornings from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon and at local response centers from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in the afternoons. The Project will provide these services at Leland Shopping Center in Alberta City, at SOMA Church in Holt and at the Belk Activity Center at Bowers Park.
Legal advice will be provided concerning public benefits and programs, insurance claims and processes, housing rights, and other civil matters related to the storm and the displacement that resulted from it. For more information or to make an appointment at the clinic, please call 348-4960. Walk-ins are welcome at all locations.
The Student Bar Association has set up a “Tornado Relief Fund” to help all those in need. As described by SBA Treasurer Will Booher:
This fund will be used to directly support those in the law school community that were affected by the storm. This includes helping buy groceries, supplies, and replace essential lost property. It will also be used to provide places to stay, transportation, and meet any of their other needs. The money will also be used to support volunteers and toward the law school’s efforts for community outreach providing supplies in the Tuscaloosa/Holt/Alberta City area. The remainder will be donated to the Red Cross’s relief effort in Tuscaloosa.
Donate via paypal or contact SBA Treasurer Will Booher directly.
Podcast downloads are now available for the April 9th symposium, “Dissenting Voices.” The Symposium, hosted by Austin Sarat, the Hugo L. Black Visiting Senior Scholar at The University of Alabama, and the Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst, explores the role of the dissenter in the American story. It focuses on the meaning and value of dissent in our culture and institutions.
Symposium presenters include:
· Susanna Lee, Associate Professor of French, Georgetown University
· Kenneth Mack, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
· Richard Pildes, Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law
· Ravit Reichman, Associate Professor of English, Brown University
· Mark Tushnet, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law, Harvard Law School.
