KU Law News
June 13, 2008
New law school center to promote excellence in legal advocacy
Shook, Hardy & Bacon hosted an opening reception on June 10 for the Shook, Hardy & Bacon Center for Excellence in Advocacy. Among those in attendance were, from left, John Murphy, the firm's managing partner, Dennis Prater, KU Law professor and co-director of the center, Dean Gail Agrawal, and Bill Sampson, L'71 and a partner at the firm.Browse a gallery of reception photos.
The University of Kansas School of Law and the law firm of Shook, Hardy & Bacon have announced a partnership aimed at connecting experienced trial lawyers with the students who will follow in their footsteps.
The Shook, Hardy & Bacon Center for Excellence in Advocacy will capitalize on its namesake’s distinguished history in litigation to cultivate a new generation of trial lawyers. The firm hosted a private reception on June 10 to launch the center.
“Much ink has been spilled about the divide between the practicing bar and the legal academy,” said Gail Agrawal, dean of the law school. “While I don’t join the chorus of those who lament the relationship between the educational and the practicing arms of our profession, I do agree that our shared profession is stronger when we create opportunities to work together on the preparation of the next generation of lawyers, law professors and judges. It is an important task — perhaps one of the most crucial ones we undertake — that none of us can do alone.
“That is how I view this new center. The center will create not a physical, but an intellectual space for an ongoing dialogue and shared teaching mission between the KU law school and practicing lawyers.”
Apart from its core mission — to enhance the learning experience of students who aspire to be trial lawyers — the center will also create opportunities for mentorship between experienced litigators and law students, provide a forum for practicing trial lawyers to share information with one another and create outlets to educate the public about the role of litigation in a democratic society.
In that spirit, the center will invite distinguished trial lawyers to campus to give public lectures and serve as practitioners-in-residence, create environments in which law school faculty and legal practitioners can provide trial skills training to students and host a Judges’ Forum that draws sitting members of the judiciary to campus.
The center will be led by co-directors Dennis Prater, the Connell Teaching Professor of Law at KU, and Stan Davis, a partner at the firm’s Kansas City, Mo., office and a former KU Law professor.
The law school and the firm are planning an inaugural lecture named for Larry O’Neal, a KU law alumnus and former Shook, Hardy & Bacon partner who passed away in 2007 after a long battle with cancer.
Shook, Hardy & Bacon routinely hires KU graduates and counts among its partners and associates 80 attorneys who are alumni of the law school. The firm and individual lawyers have made five-year pledges to endow the center, which will be housed at the school.
Shook, Hardy & Bacon is internationally recognized for successfully resolving litigation matters for public and private companies of all sizes. In January, the firm was named the American Lawyer’s Product Liability Litigation Department of the Year. Shook, Hardy & Bacon has built substantial practices in areas including products liability, intellectual property, environmental and toxic tort litigation, employment litigation, commercial litigation, corporate compliance and public policy. The firm’s attorneys serve clients from nine offices worldwide.
