Future Texas Supreme Court Clerks to Graduate from Baylor Law School May 3
Contact: Julie Carlson, Baylor Law School, (254) 710-6681
Two Baylor Law School students who will clerk for the Texas Supreme Court will take part in commencement exercises this Saturday. Josh Fogelman and Jeff Watters, who will begin their clerkships in the fall, are part of a graduating class of 70 students who will receive their juris doctor degrees at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 3, in Jones Concert Hall at the Glennis McCrary Music Building on the Baylor campus.
Fogelman and Watters will join recent Baylor Law graduates Katy Boatman and Ashley Franklin who also will clerk for Texas's highest court. With only 18 clerks hired by the Texas Supreme Court for 2008-2009, Baylor Law has 22 percent of the new clerk hires for the court.
Delivering the keynote address at commencement exercises will be Jeremy Counseller, associate professor of law. Baylor President John M. Lilley also will participate in the program and will award juris doctor degrees to the graduates.
Counseller, who received an Outstanding Professor Award from Baylor University in 2007, joined the faculty of Baylor Law School in 2003. 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. Counseller 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, Texas with Bracewell & Patterson LLP (now Bracewell & Guiliani LLP), where he was an associate in the trial section.
His 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.
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. 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.
Counseller and his wife, Jennifer, who serves as the director of children's programs at Austin Avenue United Methodist Church, have three children: Jack (7), Brett (4) and Kate, who was born in late March.
Assisting Lilley with awarding degrees 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 Gerald Powell, The Abner V. McCall Professor of Evidence and Master Teacher. The invocation will be given by Brian Serr, professor of law.
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.