UM Law School Participates In Bicentennial Event

The University of Mississippi School of Law is participating in the bicentennial of Mississippi’s judiciary and legal profession Wednesday (Sept. 27) in Jackson.
Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. will be on hand for the celebration, and a full day of events, including a moot court competition between law students from Ole Miss and Mississippi College, is planned.
“We are so excited to have the chance to take a selection of our students to Jackson for this once-in-a-lifetime event,” said Susan Duncan, UM law dean. “Not all law students are able to interact with a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity for our students to meet with some of the top legal minds in our state and country, and in turn, we are eager to show off the caliber of students we have at our law school.”
Students from the UM School of Law and Mississippi College School of Law will have a chance to meet Roberts on Wednesday morning at the Mississippi Supreme Court. The Ole Miss law school also is hosting a networking reception at the Supreme Court building for Jackson-area attorneys and law students from 1:45 to 2:45 p.m., before the moot court competition.
Third-year students James Blake Kelly, of Brandon, and Meredith Pohl, of Houston, Texas, will represent UM in the competition, with professor Chris Green serving as their coach.
The competition will be judged by a panel including Roberts, Chief Justice William Waller of the Mississippi Supreme Court, Chief Judge Carl Stewart of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Chief Judge L. Joseph Lee of the Mississippi Court of Appeals, Chief Judge Sharion Aycock of the Northern District of Mississippi and Chief Judge Louis Guirola Jr. of the Southern District of Mississippi.
“It has been enormously rewarding and a great honor to work with students as talented, poised and hard-working as Meredith and James and dig with them into issues of criminal negligence in the Clean Water Act and corruption in the federal witness-tampering statute,” Green said.
“They will be sure to have the experience of a lifetime arguing in front of one of the most experienced and prestigious panel of judges – surely the largest collection of chief justices and chief judges – assembled in our state’s 200 years.”
Following the competition is a reception and banquet hosted by the Mississippi Bar Association at the Hilton Jackson.

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By Jordan Thomas