Greatness Ahead

December 17, 2019 0 comments

Regent Law Hosts the First-Ever Legal Learning Festival & Alumni Weekend

Regent University School of Law welcomed hundreds of graduates and guests to campus for the first-ever Legal Learning Festival & Alumni Weekend, October 3-6. In addition to a full itinerary of social events, attendees also participated in Continuing Legal Education (CLE) events. Topics included writing excellence, ethics, election law, human trafficking, religious liberty, and family law. One of the best-attended CLE sessions was Saturday’s “A View from the Bench,” featuring a panel of judges sharing their thoughts on professionalism and excellence in lawyering.

“The Alumni Weekend & the Legal Learning Festival were both terrific successes,” said Mark Martin, Regent Law dean and former chief justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina. “Having more than 200 alumni and guests in attendance was exciting and, in fact, so necessary for our continued advancement and growth as a law school.”

Martin added that the first-ever Legal Learning Festival at the university provided high-quality educational programming and “is expected for destination-of-choice law schools like Regent.” Also, the dean insisted that those sessions, led by judges and other legal professionals, were some of the best he has attended during his career.

The 19th Annual Leroy R. Hassell Sr. National Constitutional Law Moot Court Competition took place Friday and Saturday. The event featured 26 teams from 18 law schools, including William & Mary, Baylor, Georgetown, and others. Stetson University took home first place for the second year in a row. The panel of distinguished judges and justices for this year’s competition included Senior Judge N. Randy Smith (9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals), Judge Jeffrey Sutton (6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals), Judge Bernice Donald (6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals), Judge Kyle Duncan (5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals), Chief Judge Mark Davis (U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia), Chief Justice Jeffrey Bivins (Tennessee Supreme Court), Judge Robert Humphreys (Virginia Court of Appeals), former Justice Robert Hunter (North Carolina Supreme Court), and former Justice Elizabeth Lang Miers (Court of Appeals for the 5th District of Texas).

At Saturday night’s alumni banquet, the Honorable Robert F. McDonnell, Virginia’s 71st governor and a member of the first-ever graduating class of Regent Law (’89), delivered the keynote address. McDonnell praised former Chief Justice Martin and Judge Warren as “incredible people of principle” and added that he sees “greatness ahead” for Regent Law.

McDonnell closed his comments by inviting fellow members of the Class 1989 to join him at the podium. Together, the Regent Law alumni presented Chief Justice Martin with a check for $36,575 to establish the Logsdon-Mobley Endowed Law Scholarship. Judge Barry Logsdon and Judge Earle Mobley were classmates who died just a few months apart in late 2017/early 2018.

“We were encouraged by the outpouring of support by our alumni, including the establishment of the Logsdon-Mobley Endowed Law Scholarship,” Martin shared. “The weekend was a spectacular blessing.”