Prof. Jeremy Counseller to Speak at Baylor Law Graduation Feb. 3

February 1, 2007

Baylor University Law Professor Jeremy Counseller will deliver the keynote address at Baylor Law School's commencement exercises at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 3, at Waco Hall. Baylor President John M. Lilley also will participate in the program and will award juris doctor degrees to 27 graduates.

Joining the faculty of Baylor Law School in 2003, Counseller graduated from Baylor Law School with honors and also received his master's of business administration degree from the university. While at law school, he was a member of the Baylor Law Review, the Order of the Barristers and the interscholastic moot court and mock trial teams. He was a summa cum laude graduate from Stephen F. Austin State University.

Following his graduation from law school, 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 & Giuliani LLP) where he served in the trial section.

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.

Counseller has authored articles and presented papers on various evidentiary and procedural issues. He is the co-author and editor of the Handbook of Texas Evidence (Civil Practice), which was published in 2005 and supplemented earlier this year. In 2006, the president of the State Bar of Texas appointed him to serve on the administration of the rules of evidence committee. He is also the contributing evidence editor of the State Bar of Texas's General Practice Digest.

In addition to his teaching duties in the law school's litigation curriculum, Counseller also is 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.

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 Jim Wren, assistant professor of law. The invocation will be given by Mark Osler, 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.