UGA LAW FACULTY HONORED FOR TEACHING EXCELLENCE

Abstract

Wednesday, May 20, 1998

WRITER: Katharine Patrick, (706) 542-5172

CONTACT: Kathy R. Pharr, (706) 542-5172

UGA LAW FACULTY HONORED FOR TEACHING EXCELLENCE

ATHENS, GA -- Three faculty members at the University of Georgia School of Law were presented with awards for teaching excellence by the members of the Class of 1998 during their May commencement ceremony.

Fuller E. Callaway Professor Ronald L. Carlson, who specializes in evidence, trial practice and criminal procedure, received the Phi Delta Phi John C. O'Byrne Memorial Faculty Award for Significant Contributions Furthering Student-Faculty Relations. J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law and former Dean C. Ronald Ellington, who teaches in the areas of Georgia practice and procedure, civil procedure and complex litigation, received the Student Bar Association Faculty Book Award for Excellence in Teaching. Herman E. Talmadge Professor Walter Ray Phillips, who specializes in bankruptcy, legal profession, corporate reorganization and business problems, received the Student Bar Association and Younger Lawyers Section of the State Bar of Georgia Award for the Teaching of Legal Ethics.

Carlson, who earned a bachelor's degree from Augustana College, a law degree from Northwestern University and a master of laws degree from Georgetown University, has been a member of the UGA School of Law faculty since 1984. He has received the Roscoe Pound Foundation's Richard S. Jacobson Award, honoring a single national law professor for the teaching of trial advocacy, and has been presented with the Federal Bar Association's highest honor, the Earl W. Kintner Award for distinguished service to the legal profession. Carlson has also received the Josiah Meigs Award, the highest award presented for teaching excellence at the University of Georgia. He is the author of several books and has litigated numerous trial and appellate cases.

"The O'Byrne Award is named for a good friend and colleague who set a high standard for faculty-student interaction," said Associate Dean Paul M. Kurtz. "Ron Carlson satisfies that demanding norm. Not only is he a superb teacher, but he also devotes countless hours to the life of the law school in his work in the Mock Trial program, the Lumpkin Inn of Court, student curricular and career counseling and attendance at lectures and receptions. His genuine enjoyment of students is reflected in their reaction to him."

Ellington graduated summa cum laude with Phi Beta Kappa honors from Emory University. He then earned a law degree from the University of Virginia, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif and served on the managing board of the Virginia Law Review. He received his master of laws degree from Harvard, after being awarded a Fellowship in Law and the Humanities for graduate studies at that institution. Ellington joined the UGA law faculty in 1969 and served as its dean from 1987 to 1993. He currently serves as a member of The American Law Institute and the Chief Justice's Commission on Professionalism. He chairs the State Bar of Georgia Judicial Procedure and Administration Committee and is the reporter for the State Bar of Georgia Committee on Standards of the Profession.

"I am delighted that Ron Ellington's superior work in the classroom has been recognized in this way by our students," said Kurtz. "He is an experienced and gifted practitioner of the art of teaching. He shares with his students an infectious curiosity about what the law is and what it might become. Virtually all of our students eventually come into contact with him and are the better for it."

Phillips earned a bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina and a law degree and master of laws degree from Emory University. He has been a member of the UGA law faculty since 1973 and served as acting dean in 1976. Phillips served as bankruptcy judge for the Northern District of Georgia and was deputy director of the Commission on Bankruptcy Laws of the United States. He formerly served as chair of the ABA Consumer Bankruptcy Committee.

"Ray Phillips not only teaches professional responsibility, but he models it for his students," said Kurtz. "In his lengthy service on this faculty, he has been an outstanding citizen of the campus and participant in the work of his profession. He brings to the classroom a real-world perspective which makes them better prepared to meet the challenges of the practice of law."

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