News

The latest edition of Cumberland's e-Newsletter is available here.

The Career Services Office will host a Judicial Clerkship Forum as the November program in our “Lunch with a Lawyer” series.  U.S. District Court Judge Karon O. Bowdre (’81) and her law clerk, Summer Davis (’09), will speak at the law school on Thursday, November 5 at 12:00 PM in room 120.  If you are interested in learning more about being a judicial clerk – the responsibilities, the general application process, what judges are looking for – then you do not want to miss this program!  Please stop by the Career Services Office to register. 

Cassandra Adams, Director, Cumberland Community Mediation Center and Public Interest Project, serves on the Alabama State Bar Pro Bono Celebration Task Force for the year 2009-2010. The Task Force is charged with planning and implementing Alabama’s activities for the first-ever National Pro Bono Celebration which occurs the week of October 25-31, 2009. Cumberland’s activities for National Pro Bono Week are:

Cumberland’s Advisory Board has graciously invited law students to join them for lunch Friday, October 23 at 11:45 AM in the Great Room to meet and socialize with the members and ask questions. Bring your résumé! What a fantastic opportunity to meet these incredibly generous and smart lawyers (alumni) who provide us so much support!

All law students who are interested in the possibility of doing something in the international arena and those who were abroad last summer are invited to a discussion of Cumberland’s international offerings and opportunities: Thursday, October 22, at noon in Room 123.  Dean Lewis, a representative from Samford Financial Aid, and Professor Michael Floyd will be there to answer your questions and share plans for the coming year. 

Each year, a distinguished Cumberland Alumni is invited to spend two days on campus as The Lawyer In Residence.  Pat F. Dye Jr. ’87 has accepted the honor for 2009 and will share his expertise in sports management with students on October 19 - 20.  He will meet with students in both formal and informal settings, allowing students to augment the traditional curriculum with experiences of a current practitioner.
 

Mr. Barry W. Lynn will be the guest speaker at the Cordell Hull Speakers Forum scheduled Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 7:00 PM in the Moot Courtroom. The topic of his presentation will be, “A Day Without Separation of Church and State.”

The Alabama Supreme Court and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals will hold Oral Arguments at the Wright Center on the campus of Samford University from 9:00 AM to NOON on Thursday, October 8, 2009. The event is co-hosted by Cumberland School of Law and the Birmingham Bar Foundation, the charitable arm of the Birmingham Bar Association.

All Cumberland students are invited and urged to attend. Students are welcome to come and go as needed in order to accommodate class schedules.

ORAL ARGUMENTS ARE FREE OF CHARGE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
 

 Tom Methvin, a Cumberland graduate of the Class of 1988, managing shareholder of the Montgomery law firm of Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C. and the president of the Alabama State Bar for the year of 2009-10, will speak to first year law students at the Called to the Bar program scheduled Wednesday, October 7 at noon in the Moot Court Room. The topic of his presentation will be "Access to Justice."
 

Many students have expressed their interest in convening in small groups with faculty to discuss interesting and thought-provoking topics outside of the classroom.  The Cumberland Book Clubs were launched last year in response to that interest.  This fall, the book clubs will be offered again.  Ten law professors have volunteered to lead the discussions and have selected a book that will form the basis for those discussions. 

The Career Services Office along with Cumberland’s ABA student representatives will host lunch in conjunction with the “Lunch with a Lawyer” series on Thursday, October 1 at noon in the Great Room.  Ms. Alyce Spruell, President – Elect of the Alabama Bar Association, will be the guest speaker.  Ms. Spruell will discuss how to get involved during these difficult economic times while maintaining a small and varied practice. Her practice includes business and commercial law, family law, and probate law.

Cumberland School of Law will host the 2009 Gruber Justice Prize Awards Ceremony Thursday, September 24, 2009 at noon in the Moot Court Room. The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation is an internationally recognized foundation which annually awards five prizes in the fields of Cosmology, Genetics, Neuroscience, Justice and Women’s Rights.

On September 16, 2009 at noon in the Moot Court Room, Doug Jones ‘79 will be the first of the Called to the Bar speakers for the 2009-10 academic year. He is a former United States Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama and is currently with the Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker, LLC firm in Birmingham where he represents individual, institutional and corporate clients in complex civil and criminal litigation.

On August 28, Dean John Carroll, Dean James Lewis, and Professor Michael Floyd presented the American Bankruptcy Institute Medal to Daniel Ferretti ‘09, commemorating his excellence in the study of bankruptcy law.

Dean Lewis, Professor Floyd, Daniel Ferretti, and Dean Carroll

Dean Arthur Weeks passed away on Saturday, August 22, 2009 at the age of 94. Weeks served as Dean of Cumberland School of Law for a total of 16 years.

“Dean Weeks provided strong leadership through some of the most turbulent times in Cumberland’s long history,” said Judge John Carroll, Dean of Cumberland School of Law. “His superhuman efforts to succeed in the face of significant adversity and to keep our law school moving forward laid the foundation for the great law school we are today. All of us who proudly bear the title ‘Cumberland Lawyer’ owe him a huge debt of gratitude.”

Earlier this week, the faculty and staff of Cumberland School of Law welcomed 178 members of the Class of 2012. The new students hail from 17 states and are graduates of 66 universities. States represented in the new class are: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. In addition, the law school welcomed 3 students from England who will be spending a year studying American law at Cumberland.

Cumberland grads and students figured prominently in the Alabama State Bar Meeting which ended on Saturday, July 18. Mark White ’74 finished an outstanding year as bar president. Tom Methvin of the Cumberland Class of 1988 was sworn in as bar president for 2009-2010.

A rising Cumberland second year student, Alyson Hood of Chattanooga, Tennessee received the State Bar Pro Bono Student Award. The award is given annually to the student from a law school in the state of Alabama who has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to providing free legal services to the poor. Hood recruited 30 volunteers to assist lawyers in a clinic providing legal assistance to the homeless and helped coordinate their participation in legal research and other services. She also volunteered 150 hours to the clinic. This is the third year in a row that a Cumberland student has won the Alabama State Bar Pro Bono Law Student Award.

Law schools from the southeast sent teams to Decatur, Georgia, February 28 - March 1, to compete in the American Association for Justice (AAJ) 2009 National Student Trial Advocacy Competition Regional.  Cumberland fielded two teams in the competition.  The team who won the competition was Summer Davis, Tim Douthit, Shannon Elliott, and Jessica Jones.  They will advance to the National Finals April 2 - 5, 2009 in West Palm Beach, Florida.  The team is coached by Mike Rasmussen, ‘75. Tracy Luke accompanied the team and was Cumberland’s on-site representative.

Ashley Reitz, Lisha Li, Jim Roberts, Megan Head and Josh Hornady

You may now use your credit card to make gifts to Cumberland at anytime. Simply use the Online Giving button at the top of this page to get to the secure transaction page for making your gift. Complete the required fields and use your Visa/Mastercard/Discover credit card to make your year-end contribution. You may designate your gift for any purpose, but you will need to carefully describe that purpose in order for us to properly credit your gift.