Baylor Law School to Hold Summer Commencement Exercises July 28

by Julie Carlson, director of communications, Baylor Law School, (254) 710-6681

Baylor Law School will hold its summer commencement exercises at 10 a.m. Saturday, July 28, in Jones Concert Hall at the Glennis McCrary Music Building on the Baylor University campus. William R. Trail, The Darrell L. Keith Professor of Law and Medicine Emeritus, will deliver the keynote address. Additionally, James Will Eidson, the highest ranking student in the graduating class, will deliver student remarks. Baylor President John M. Lilley also will participate in the program and will award juris doctor degrees to the 40 graduates.

Trail earned a J.D. from the University of Virginia in 1972 after receiving a bachelor's degree in 1969 from Michigan State University and graduating as a member of Phi Beta Kappa. After graduation, he served in the U.S. Navy as a member of the Judge Advocate General Corps in Washington, D.C. In 1975, Trail joined the Civil Division of the Department of Justice. In 1977, he moved to Texas and entered private practice concentrating on complex litigation. He later extended his practice experience to include mediation and arbitration.

In 1982, Trail joined the faculty at Baylor Law School. He is the author of casebooks on the subjects of Federal Courts, Health Care Litigation and Health Law. He also serves as a frequent lecturer in bar review and law school preparation courses. He has been honored as being among the "best law professors from Texas and across the United States" based on his expertise and teaching ability.

He and his wife, Mary Kay, have been married 38 years. Since his retirement in 2006, the couple has made their home in Port Aransas, Texas.

Assisting Lilley in awarding degrees during the commencement program will be Dean Brad Toben, The M.C. and Mattie Caston Professor of Law, and Leah W. Jackson, professor of law and associate dean.

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 Matthew C. Cordon, Associate Director of the Sheridan and John Eddie Williams Legal Research and Technology Center and professor of law. Jeremy Counseller, associate professor of law, will deliver the invocation.

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.