Current Students

Rick Ramsay, Arkansas Bar Association President

Dean, Bar President Welcome New Students

Dean Cynthia Nance and the UA School of Law faculty welcomed 149 new students to the law school family Tuesday morning. The students will participate in orientation sessions through Friday before starting classes Aug. 20.

“We are thrilled to welcome a new class of future legal professionals to the University of Arkansas,” Nance said. “This is a school rich in tradition, and we look forward to sharing our professional and academic heritage with these students.”

Rick Ramsay, Arkansas Bar Association President and a 1977 graduate of the UA School of Law, addressed the class of 2010 and encouraged the students to "do the little things" to make their time in law school productive and rewarding. He offered advice about treating law school as a full-time job and taking advantage of networking opportunities.

Orientation is a chance for new students to get acquainted with each other and with the law school atmosphere.
Throughout the week, the first-year students will experience a sample class and discussion, learn about student organizations, meet law school faculty and administration and tour the newly renovated Leflar Law Center.

Other activities include a Student Bar Association cookout, dinner with UA School of Law alumni and a student organization activities fair.

2007-08 Catalog of Studies

The 2007-08 School of Law Catalog of Studies is here. Look inside for the latest course descriptions, list of tuition and fees, faculty biographies, new information on the School of Law Legal Clinic and much more.

We're excited to begin the 2007-08 school year at the University of Arkansas School of Law, and we're glad you're here. Orientation for first-year students begins Aug. 14. Fall classes begin Aug. 20.

2007 Graduation

The class of 2007 of the University of Arkansas School of Law graduated Saturday, May 19, 2007. The School of Law's commencement exercises were at the Fayetteville Town Center on the square.

Final class ranks will be available after July 1, 2007. Graduates may e-mail Rhonda Adams to obtain their ranks.

Congratulations to 2007 School of Law graduates who received awards and honors.

The University of Arkansas also honors graduates by engraving their names on the Senior Walk. The 2007 walk will include all graduates from the summer and fall semesters of 2006 and the spring semester of 2007 who complete their degree work by the last day of spring semester -- May 11, 2007.

Photos from the School of Law graduation may be viewed and ordered at http://www.printroom.com/pro/gophoto.

American Bar Association National Appellate Advocacy Competition

Nathan Smith (far left) and Ashley Hudson (far right), 3Ls, won the regional American Bar Association National Appellate Advocacy Competition. (Pictured with faculty mentor Kim Coats.)

Ashley Welch Hudson and Nathan Smith, 3Ls, were national finalists in the ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition held the first weekend of April in Chicago.

Hudson and Smith were named National Finalists out of 178 teams from 102 schools in the competition. They qualified to compete in the national competition after winning all five of their oral arguments at the regional championship in New York in February.

At the regional American Bar Association National Appellate Advocacy Competition in Brooklyn, N.Y., Hudson and Smith beat teams from Chapman University, Santa Clara University, Brooklyn Law School, University of South Carolina and SUNY-Buffalo Law School. In each round, Hudson and Smith had the highest brief and oral advocacy scores. In the final round, they won by more than 90 points. Smith also won an oral advocacy award, placing sixth out of 68 advocates in the competition.

The NAAC is one of the preeminent moot court competitions in the country and is the only appellate advocacy competition sponsored by the ABA. The ABA coordinators schedule judges for the rounds who either have practice experience in the subject matter or are actual sitting judges. In the semi-final round, all five judges were current members of the bench. The Chief Judge in that round was Seventh Circuit Judge Richard D. Cudahy, and the other panelists were judges from either the Illinois Court of Appeals or the Illinois Circuit Court. In the final round, the chief judge was Abner Mikva, former Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit and former White House counsel. The other panelists in that round included a member of the ABA Board of Governors, who was the immediate past president of the Illinois State Bar Association; a federal district judge for the Northern District of Illinois; a judge for the Illinois Court of Appeals; and last year's law clerk for Supreme Court Chief Justices Rehnquist and Roberts. The Chief Justice's clerk wrote the problem based on her analysis of current issues that she felt might reach the Supreme Court at some point.

Both Hudson and Smith did a wonderful job representing the law school. Judge Cudahy complemented them both on their poise and the clarity of their arguments. Judge Mikva complemented Smith on his style of delivery and on his knowledge of 4th Amendment law and complemented Hudson on her poise in responding to questions.

Thanks again to Professors Bailey, Mullane, Judges, Dodson, Snow, Sampson, Tarvin and Adelman and to Judge Rick Taylor and Chris Mitchell, who worked with the team as they prepared for the regional competition. Professors Judges and Mullane worked with the team more than once as they prepared for nationals. The faculty assistance was invaluable to their success in the competition.

To see the official ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition results, click here.

From left are: Phillip Stone; Ryan Ray; Judge Nancy Rahmeyer, '87, Missouri Court of Appeals; Judge Josephine Linker Hart, '71, Arkansas Court of Appeals; Judge Marion Humphrey, '80, Sixth Judicial Circuit, Arkansas; Matt Panach; and Tim Evans.

Evans & Panach Win 2007 Ben J. Altheimer Moot Court Competition

Tim Evans and Matt Panach, second-year law students, won the Ben J. Altheimer Moot Court Competition March 30. The team competed against Phillip Stone and Ryan Ray, second-year law students.

Three alumni judged the competition: Judge Nancy Rahmeyer, '87, of the Missouri Court of Appeals; Judge Marion Humphrey, '80, of the Sixth Judicial Circuit in Arkansas; and Judge Josephine Linker Hart, '71, of the Arkansas Court of Appeals.

The semi-finalists in this year's competition were the teams of Kim Dixon and Sarah Cox and Ryan Scott and Will Crow. Quarter-finalists included John Torres, Ben Oxford, Kaycee Wolf, Ashley Henry, Asia Diggs, Saundra Thompson, Alex Merrit and Tom Watson.

Congratulations to Evans and Panach and all the competitors in the 2007 Ben J. Altheimer Moot Court Competition.

Unser Wins Runner-Up for Best Oralist

Third-year School of Law student Kyle Unser of Little Rock won runner-up for best oralist at Mason University School of Law's 17th Annual National First Amendment Moot Court Competition.

The competition took place Feb. 23 at Vanderbilt University and was focused on a hypothetical case involving commercial speech. Students from 35 law schools competed in the moot court competition.

Unser is a 1999 graduate of the Catholic High School for Boys in Little Rock. He earned his Bachelor of Science in accounting and finance at the University of Arkansas. He will earn his Juris Doctorate in May from the University of Arkansas School of Law. Unser has served as a law clerk for this year at the Fayetteville law firm of Jones, Jones & Doss, P.L.C.

King Wins National Essay Contest

Andrew King, a third-year University of Arkansas School of Law student, won the national 2007 Levit Essay Contest. He will be presented with a prize at the Spring National Legal Malpractice Conference in Washington, D.C. this month.

The contest is organized by the Standing Committee on Lawyers' Professional Liability of the American Bar Association, and the essay contest dealt with lawyer liability issues. King will receive a $5,000 prize and a trip to the conference.

King was also named a finalist in a legal research and writing contest sponsored by the National Center for Nonsmokers' Rights. King will attend the Fourth World Conference on Nonsmokers' Rights in Washington, D.C., April 6 to 8. A winner will be named at the conference, with a first-place prize of $5,000 and cash prizes for second and third places.

Pictured are Sikal Trieu, Lydia Trieu, the Wal-Mart Legal Diversity Scholarship recipient, Alex Vasquez, associate general counsel of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., and Sonya Dodson, '03, counsel in the Wal-Mart Legal Department.

1L Lydia Trieu Earns Wal-Mart Diversity Scholarship

Lydia Trieu, of Benton, Ark., was awarded the Wal-Mart Legal Diversity Scholarship for 2007 by the University of Arkansas School of Law and the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. legal department.

Trieu, who is a 2002 graduate of Benton High School, will earn a total of $12,000 over three years at the School of Law. As part of the celebration, close to 200 people gathered at the School of Law to celebrate the event with speakers Dean Cyndi Nance and Wal-Mart representatives Alex Vasquez, associate general counsel, Sonya Dodson, counsel of Wal-Mart Legal Department, and Angela Washington, vice president and division general counsel of the Wal-Mart Legal Department Administration.

As a first-year law student, she is a member of the Women Law Student Association, the Asian Pacific American Law Student Association, the Christian Legal Society and acts as the Pre-Law liaison chair for Phi Alpha Delta legal fraternity.

She graduated magna cum laude in 2006 with a bachelor's in political science from the University of Arkansas, where she was on the Dean's list for six semesters and was president of Pi Sigma Alpha Political Science Honor Society. She will graduate from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 2009.

Students Win Regional Trial Competition

3L Winston Collier and 2L Eugene Krupitsky became undefeated champions Feb. 17 in St. Louis, winning the Regional Qualifying Tournament for the National Trial Competition. They beat trial teams from the University of Iowa, the University of Missouri at Columbia and Drake University, and they finished the competition with a first-place win against students from Washington University in St. Louis.

Their teammates, Andrea Medlock and Colin Johnson, beat a team from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law and almost advanced to the semi-finals after a tiebreaker against St. Louis University students. Jason Boyeskie and David Hardaway, second-year School of Law students on the alternate team, joined the UA competing teams and were an invaluable part of the UA teams' success as they helped the competitors practice.

Collier and Krupitsky will compete March 29 to 31 at the National Trial Competition in Houston, Texas. This will be the second year in a row the School of Law has sent a team to the National Competition.

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