Regent Law News

Regent University School of Law graduate Timothy J. Downing (JD '10) has been sworn in as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma after receiving his commission from the President this past Tuesday. He is now the top U.S. law enforcement official presiding over forty-four of the state's seventy counties. Downing most recently served as counselor to Oklahoma's secretary of state, and was previously a member of Oklahoma's House of Representatives and Assistant Attorney General of Oklahoma. Read more here >>

Regent University School of Law faculty received two of the University's top awards on Thursday. Professor Gloria Whittico, JD received the Chancellor's Award for her work as a Regent Law School faculty member, including with the Academic Success Program and her scholarship in the area of freedom suits. Law Library Director Marie Summerlin Hamm, JD, MLS received the Univeristy's Faculty Award for Excellence in Scholarship. Congratulations to both these outstanding law faculty members! Gloria Whittico bio and publications Marie S. Hamm bio and publications Pictured left to right: Associate Professor Gloria Whittico, Chief Justice Mark Martin (NC, Ret.), Dean of Regent University School of Law, and Professor Marie Summerlin Hamm, Director, Regent University Law Library.

Regent University School of Law Professor Caleb Griffin was recently interviewed by the Institutional Investor regarding recommendations he made in a forthcoming paper for enhancing the role of individual index fund investors in the proxy voting process. "The single largest investor in almost 9 out of 10 publicly-traded companies is one of the [three largest index funds]," Professor Griffin explained. "As it currently stands, individual index fund investors are utterly unable to express their preferences in how voting decisions are made." Read more here: Can the Proxy Voting Process Become More Democratic for Individual Investors? . You can view the original paper, We Three Kings: Disintermediating Voting at the Index Fund Giants (forthcoming Maryland Law Review) and other works by Professor Griffin on his SSRN author page .

Regent University School of Law Professor Bruce N. Cameron has filed an amicus brief in Patterson v. Walgreen Co. in support of the employee. He and alumnus Blaine Hutchinson (JD '18) published an article about the case last year, Thinking Slow About Abercrombie & Fitch: Straightening Out the Judicial Confusion in the Lower Courts (forthcoming Pepperdine Law Review). "In Abercrombie & Fitch, the U.S. Supreme Court fundamentally changed the way that Title VII religious accommodation cases are litigated and evaluated." Their article explains these changes and suggests an altered proof framework for plaintiffs seeking an accommodation. Professor Cameron is the Reed Larson Professor of Labor Law at Regent University School of Law and a staff attorney at the National Right to Work Foundation. Blaine Hutchinson currently works as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Robert Jones of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Nevada. You can read mo...

Regent University School of Law Alumnus Kim Shaftner, MD, JD, was recently elected elected as a Fellow in the American College of Legal Medicine. Dr. Shaftner has had a truly amazing career. He practiced medicine for twenty-four years, including in the Navy and in private practice, before enrolling in the JD program at Regent. He has held the position of Physician Attorney at Knott & Boyle, PLLC in Raleigh-Durham since 2009. Dr. Shaftner also serves as an adjunct professor of law at Regent, where he teaches Health Care Law. You can read more about Dr. Shaftner here: http://www.knottboyle.com/ourfirm/shaftner/. Congratulations, Dr. Shaftner! We continue to be extremely proud of the outstanding achievements of our alumni as they continue to change the world for Christ.

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA (March 1, 2019) ― Hundreds gathered inside Robertson Hall’s Moot Courtroom for the installation service of Regent University’s new dean of the School of Law, the Honorable Mark Martin. Having stepped down as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina a day earlier, Martin brings a wealth of judicial and leadership experience to his new position. Martin served North Carolina for more than 26 years as a judge, including 20-plus years on the state’s Supreme Court. In 1992, at age 29, Martin became the youngest superior court judge in the modern era. Just two years later, at 31 years old, Martin became the youngest judge in the history of the N.C. Court of Appeals. In 1998, as a 35-year-old, Martin was elected as the youngest Justice in the history of the Supreme Court of N.C., becoming Chief Justice on September 1, 2014. Regent’s Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dr. Gerson Moreno-Riaño, served as host for the installation service. He call...

Regent University School of Law continues to forge ahead in its mission to produce practice-ready graduates and superior bar passage rates. Thanks especially to the efforts of Professor Ben Madison, Director of Bar Passage Initiatives and Co-Director of the Center for Ethical Formation & Legal Education Reform, the Law School continues to develop and implement student-centered initiatives to help students optimize their Bar Exam preparation. Recently, Regent University School of Law invited several recent law graduates to address current students on “How to Pass the Bar.” The panelists described their experience preparing for the Bar Exam. A common theme emphasized by the speakers was that bar prep should be treated like a full-time job. They recommended avoiding working at home, instead watching the lectures at school (if offered at Regent by the course provider). They suggested studying at the law library, which has a variety of study areas and reserves certain study rooms fo...