Baylor Law School to Graduate 12 Nov. 7

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Baylor University Law Professor Jeremy Counseller will deliver the keynote address at Baylor Law School's commencement exercises at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, at Miller Chapel. Additionally, Philip Haines, the highest ranking student in the commencement class, will deliver remarks. Baylor Interim President David Garland also will participate in the program and will award juris doctor degrees to 12 graduates.

Joining the Baylor Law School faculty in 2003, Counseller received an Outstanding Professor Award from Baylor University in 2007. He graduated from Baylor Law School with honors and was a member of the Baylor Law Review, the Order of the Barristers and the interscholastic moot court and mock trial teams. He also earned an M.B.A. from the Baylor University Hankamer School of Business and a B.A. summa cum laude from Stephen F. Austin State University.

After receiving his J.D., Counseller served as a law clerk to the Honorable Reynaldo G. Garza of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He then entered private practice in Houston with Bracewell & Patterson, LLP (now Bracewell & Guiliani, LLP) where he was an associate in the trial section.

Counseller's litigation experience includes the representation of both plaintiffs and defendants in personal injury and commercial cases, but his practice focused on the defense of professional negligence actions. His trial experience includes obtaining one of the first defense verdicts in Texas in an equitable subrogation action brought by an insurance company against a law firm. Counseller continues to represent clients and consult in matters involving commercial disputes and product defects. Additionally, he served in the first half of the year as an assistant district attorney for the McLennan County D.A.'s office while on a six-month leave of absence from Baylor Law School.

He has authored numerous articles and essays and presented papers on various evidentiary and procedural issues. Counseller is the co-author and editor of the practical treatise Handbook of Texas Evidence (Civil Practice). In 2006, the president of the State Bar of Texas appointed him to serve on the Administration of the Rules of Evidence Committee, and he is the Contributing Evidence Editor of the State Bar of Texas's General Practice Digest.

Counseller teaches numerous courses, including Civil Procedure, Trial Advocacy and Conflict of Laws, and works with Baylor Law's renowned Practice Court program. He is also a coach of the Law School's interscholastic moot court and mock trial teams. In 2005, he was the coach of Baylor Law School's ATLA National Championship mock trial team.

He is married to Jennifer Paige, who serves as the director of children's programs at Austin Avenue United Methodist Church, where he serves as chair of the church council. Counseller has three children, Jack (8), Brett (5) and Kate (18 months).

Assisting Garland with awarding degrees will be Dean Brad Toben, the M.C. and Mattie Caston Professor of Law, and Leah W. Jackson, associate dean and professor of law.
Hooding the graduates will be David M. Guinn, who serves as the Lyndon L. Olson and William A. Olson Professor of Local Government and Constitutional Law and Master Teacher, and James Wren, assistant professor of law. The invocation will be given by Allen Everett Gray III, one of the members of the commencement class.

After the ceremony, a reception for the graduates and their guests will be hosted by the Baylor Law Alumni Association at the Sheila and Walter Umphrey Law Center.

Contact: Julie Carlson, Baylor Law School, (254) 710-6681