Baylor Law School to Hold Commencement Exercises April 28

April 26, 2007

Baylor University Law School will hold its spring commencement ceremony at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 28, in Jones Concert Hall at the Glennis McCrary Music Building on the Baylor campus. Law Professor Gerald Powell will serve as keynote speaker. Baylor President John M. Lilley also will participate in the program and will award juris doctor degrees to the 61 graduates.

A Baylor law graduate and a 20-year member of the law faculty, Powell directs Baylor Law School's highly acclaimed Practice Court Program. He serves as The Abner V. McCall Professor of Evidence Law and also holds Baylor's coveted Master Teacher designation, the highest honor granted to Baylor faculty members. Additionally, Powell recently was given an award of appreciation from the Texas chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) for his work with the Practice Court Program.

Earning his bachelor's degree from Baylor in 1974, Powell received his law degree with honors in 1977. As a law student he was a member of the National Mock Trial Team and executive editor of the Baylor Law Review. Following graduation, he joined the Dallas law firm of Vial, Hamilton, Koch & Knox, where he had an active trial and appellate practice with the firm and was made a partner in 1982. Four years later, Powell returned to Baylor Law School to teach, and in 1987, he was appointed to the McCall Professorship.

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 Jim Wren, assistant professor of law. Bradley Pierce, who will receive his law degree during commencement, will deliver the invocation.

A reception for graduates and their guests will take place immediately after commencement at the Sheila and Walter Umphrey Law Center.