Cleveland County Bar Association honored for its Law Day activities

BY JANE GLENN CANNON Comments 0
Published: November 4, 2009

NORMAN — Cleveland County Bar Association will be honored at the state bar association’s annual meeting today through Friday at the Sheraton hotel in Oklahoma City.

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Law student places in contest

Michael L. Brooks, a third-year University of Oklahoma law student from Oklahoma City, is one of three winners of the 2009 Brown Award for Excellence in Legal Writing.

For 16 years, the Judge John R. Brown Scholarship Foundation has sponsored the national legal writing competition in honor of its namesake who served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit from 1955 until his death in 1993 and is remembered for his civil rights decisions during the 1960s and 1970s.

Brooks’ paper, "Uncharted Waters: The Supreme Court Plots the Course to a Constitutional Bright-Line Restriction on Punitive Awards in Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker,” discusses a recent Supreme Court decision regarding punitive damages.

Brooks will receive $3,000 as the second-place winner.

Students from Harvard Law School and Yale University Law School placed first and third, respectively.

Brooks will graduate in May 2010 and work as a law clerk for Judge David M. Ebel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The county association will receive the Hicks Epton Law Day Award, given annually to individuals or organizations for noteworthy Law Day activities.

University of Oklahoma law student Amanda Clark also will be recognized at the meeting as OU’s Outstanding Senior Law School Student.

The Cleveland County Bar Association is being recognized for Law Day activities that included a public forum April 29 on equality, civil rights and the right to vote. OU professor Rick Tepker, a noted Abraham Lincoln scholar, provided background on Lincoln’s contributions to those areas, followed by a panel discussion featuring Cleveland County district judges and lawyers.

Cleveland County attorneys also went to six schools to speak about Law Day and the court system. Eleven bar association attorneys participated in an "Ask A Lawyer” free legal advice program.

Law Day is celebrated annually May 1.