Baylor Law School to Graduate 20 Feb. 7

Baylor University Law Professor Jeremy Counseller will deliver the keynote address at Baylor Law School's commencement exercises at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, at Waco Hall. Additionally, Gouping Da, 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 20 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 Garland with awarding degrees will be Dr. Elizabeth Davis, interim provost and professor of accounting, Dean Brad Toben, The M.C. and Mattie Caston Professor of Law, and Bridget Fuselier, assistant professor of law.

Hooding the graduates will be Larry Bates, professor of law, and Gerald Powell, the Abner V. McCall Professor of Evidence and Master Teacher. The invocation will be given by Chad Franklin Newman, 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.