Posts Tagged ‘Baylor Law’

The Law School’s Public Interest Legal Society will be holding adoption hearings from 1 to 5 p.m. Friday at the law school in conjunction with National Adoption Day, a day set aside to celebrate adoptive families and provide an opportunity for courts to finalize the adoptions of foster care children. “The students and I coordinate everything with McLennan County Office of Child Protective Services,” said Bridget M. Fuselier, associate professor of law and the Public Interest Legal Society faculty sponsor, in a press release. “We secure donations from the community, present gift baskets to the families and have a reception in their honor. This year, we plan to have 19 children who have their adoptions finalized.” This will be the society’s second year to participate in National Adoption Day, and the adoptions hearings will be presided over by 74th District Court Judge Gary Coley Jr. The 74th District Court is a court of general jurisdiction, mainly covering civil cases including all child protective services cases in McLennan County.

“We definitely have higher participation in that this year we are having 19 adoption ceremonies,” said Anjulie Patel, law student and secretary-treasurer of the Public Interest Legal Society. Nationally, more than 25,000 children have had their adoptions finalized on National Adoption Day since it began 10 years ago.

November is National Adoption Awareness Month, with specific emphasis on the adoption of children who are in foster care.

[Law School]

Baylor University Law School will hold its summer commencement ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 1, in Jones Concert Hall at the Glennis McCrary Music Building on the Baylor campus. Law Professor Gerald Powell will serve as keynote speaker. Additionally, Angela Marie Buchanan, the highest ranking student in the graduating class, will deliver student remarks. Baylor Law School Dean Brad Toben also will participate in the program and will award juris doctor degrees to the 31 graduates.

A Baylor law graduate who ranked number 1 in his class, Powell directs Baylor Law’s highly acclaimed Practice Court Program. He serves as The Abner V. McCall Professor of Evidence Law and also holds Baylor’s coveted Master Teacher designation, the highest honor granted to Baylor faculty members.

Earning his bachelor’s degree from Baylor in 1974, Powell received his law degree with honors in 1977. As a law student he was a member of the National Mock Trial and National Moot Court teams and executive editor of the Baylor Law Review. Following graduation, he joined the Dallas law firm of Vial, Hamilton, Koch & Knox, where he had an active trial and appellate practice with the firm and was made a partner in 1982. Four years later, Powell returned to Baylor Law School to teach, and in 1987, he was appointed to the McCall Professorship.

In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Powell is a coach of Baylor’s award-winning mock trial teams. He also writes and speaks extensively on evidence, procedure and trial advocacy topics and has co-authored two books on Texas evidence, A Practical Guide to the Texas Rules of Civil Evidence and Texas Rules of Civil Evidence with Objections.

[Baylor]

* BAYLOR 97.06%
* UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON 89.19%
* TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY 88.57%
* ST. MARY’S 87.50%
* S.M.U. 83.61%
* TEXAS 83.33%
* SOUTH TEXAS 80.67%
* TEXAS WESLEYAN 77.36%
* TEXAS SOUTHERN 40.74%

[Res Ipsa]

Brad Toben, dean of Baylor Law School, was recently named among the 63 newly-elected members of the prestigious American Law Institute.

Founded in 1923 for the purpose of improving American law, the Institute’s membership consists primarily of judges, law professors, law school deans and lawyers, who are selected on the basis of manifest professional standing, high character and ability, and significant contributions to the legal profession. The ALI is the leading independent organization in the U.S. producing scholarly work to clarify, modernize and improve the law. The Institute publishes Restatements of the Law, model statutes and principles of the law that are enormously influential in the U.S. courts and legislatures, as well as internationally.

[Baylor]