Regent Law News

Regent University School of Law (LAW) alumnus Judge Ronald Salmons ’06 always knew he wanted to be a lawyer. What he didn’t know was when he went back to school as a 40-year-old law student, he’d be simultaneously raising his fifth-grade daughter to share the same passion. But as R. Salmons was taking the bench as Judge of the Family Court of West Virginia, 10th Circuit in Lincoln County and Boone County, West Virginia in early 2017, his daughter, Karrah Salmons ’19 (LAW), began pursuing her own legal career as a Master’s in Law student at Regent. Photo courtesy of Judge Ronald Salmons. “I told my dad back [when he was a law student] that I never wanted to be an attorney, I thought they were really stuck up,” she said. Salmons vaguely recalls her family’s move from West Virginia to Virginia Beach all those years ago. And when she returned to Regent to pursue her own degree, she recalled some of the friendly faces of her professors from when she’d visit classes with her fat...

On Thursday, February 16, Regent Law students were honored at the bi-annual ceremony, which recognizes the students who receive top marks in their courses each semester. For the Fall Semester 2016 Book Award recipients, success isn’t derived from a stereotypical urge to be the best of the best. It comes from a place of humility, prayer and a “we’re all in this together” mentality. They do this while maintaining their academic excellence, learning from world-class professors and setting themselves up for their future careers. Here’s what they had to say: Noah DiPasquale, 3L – Business Structures and Agency Book Award Recipient “You hear stories about how competitive it is as different law schools, that was one of the things that originally drew me to Regent was seeing the atmosphere here,” said DiPasquale. “I noted the way that the students interact with each other was distinctly different than I would’ve expected.” His impression has held true through all thr...

Elbert Lin, solicitor general for the Office of the West Virginia Attorney General, grew up as a “stereo-typically good math student” and hated to read. As a first-generation American within a family who immigrated to the United States from Taiwan, he claims that his sole reference point to what a lawyer did came from the 1992 classic, My Cousin Vinny. “Not typical of a law student,” said Lin. He shared the “hows” and “whys” of taking his current position as solicitor general with members of Regent University School of Law’s Federalist Society for their spring introduction meeting on Monday, January 23. As a graduate of Yale Law School, Lin’s career has taken on several iterations throughout the years – including work as a United States Supreme Court clerk and a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. But throughout the turns of his career, he said his work as solicitor general is by far his favorite. Much of his role entails overseeing the Office of...

On Saturday, January 21, the Virginia Bar Association (VBA) inaugurated its statewide representatives for their 2017 term. Dean Michael Hernandez Regent University School of Law (LAW) Dean Michael Hernandez was among those new leaders as he accepted his appointment as a representative by the Board of Governors of the VBA. Hernandez will represent law schools on the VBA board for a minimum of a one-year term. He is the first Regent LAW faculty member to be appointed to this distinction. “It is an honor to serve as the sole law school representative on the Board of Governors and a privilege to be a part of this accomplished group of prominent attorneys.  I am excited to work with the other Board members to build on and continue the standard of excellence that the VBA has upheld since it was founded in 1888,” said Hernandez. “The other members of the Board of Governors are the most accomplished lawyers in Virginia, and the Board is collegial and committed to the h...

Regent University's School of Law Faculty members willingly share their knowledge and expertise beyond the classroom to spark scholarly debate and advance the practice of law. Their latest endeavors include the following. Law Library Assistant Director Marie Summerlin Hamm’s Book Review " Stop Telling and Start Showing: Show, Don't Tell: Legal Writing for the Real World by Adam Lamparello & Megan E. Boyd ," was recently listed on SSRN's Top Ten download list for: LSN: Book Reviews (Sub-Topic) LSN: Practice of Law Librarianship (Topic) RCRN: Writing Across the Curriculum (Topic) Rhetoric Educator: Communication, Composition, Rhetoric, & Writing eJournal.  She also did a review of The Complete Legal Writer (Carolina Academic Press), published in 108 Law Lib. J. 660 (Fall 2016).  The book, written by a couple of legal writing professors at UNC, explains their unique “genre discovery” approach to teaching legal writing.  The authors were so pleas...

Congratulations to the Regent Law Class of 2016 for outstanding bar passage rates ! The fol lowing results are from the J uly 2016 Bar Exam. Regent Law graduates earned a 100% bar pass age rate in Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky , Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New York, Texas, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming . Additionally, they earned a 90% bar passage rate in the Uni form Bar Exa m, which has been adopted in 26 states . This allows the graduates to potentially be licensed to practice law in all 26 states , which include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut , District of Columbia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts , Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Ham pshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New Yor k, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming. For all U.S. bar exams across the country, Regent Law Class of 2016 earned an 8 2.3% bar passage rate, out performing the 2 01...

Regent University's School of Law Faculty members willingly share their knowledge and expertise beyond the classroom to spark scholarly debate and advance the practice of law. Their latest endeavors include the following. The addition of Distinguished Professor Harry Hutchison to our ranks, as well as our continuous work marketing our scholarship, our ranking in SSRN has moved up to 127 from 130, surpassing Richmond, even with our very small faculty.  Download some of Professor Hutchison’s publications . Also download his most recent publication from the Harvard J. L. & Pol’y Hobby Lobby, Corporate Law, and Unsustainable Liberalism: A Reply to Judge Strine . Professor James Duane’s piece The Right to Remain Silent: A New Answer to an Old Question has been downloaded a landmark 1,149 times, and he will be presenting at our Regent Law Faculty Colloquium Series brought to you by the Regent University Law Library, on January 24, 2016. Professor Lou Hensler will be presenti...