Law School Alumni Dinner

June 2, 2015

UT Tyler Office of Marketing and Communications

UT Tyler Hosts the 3rd Annual UT Austin School of Law Alumni Dinner: The Honorable David J. Beck and Dean Ward Farnsworth to Speak

Follow @UTTyler

Tweet

June 2, 2015

Media Contact:  Hannah Buchanan
Editor/Writer–Strategic Communications & Media Relations
Marketing and Communications
The University of Texas at Tyler
903.539.7196 (cell)

June 2, 2015

Media Contact: Beverley Golden
Executive Director
Marketing and Communications
The University of Texas at Tyler
903.566.7303 or 903.330.0495 (cell)

The University of Texas at Austin School of Law will hold its 3rd Annual East Texas Alumni Dinner at The University of Texas at Tyler, UT Tyler President Rodney H. Mabry announced.

Special guests for the evening will be the Honorable David J. Beck, UT System Regent and distinguished trial lawyer, and Ward Farnsworth, dean of the UT School of Law.

"We are honored to be co-hosting Regent Beck, Dean Farnsworth and such a distinguished group of East Texas attorneys, judges and legal scholars at UT Tyler," said Mabry. "Attorneys who are also UT Austin School of Law alumni are some of the best in the world, and we are proud to have many working here in East Texas. This event brings together some of the state's greatest talents in the field of law and jurisprudence."

The event will begin with a reception at 6 p.m. followed by dinner at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, June 9 in the UT Tyler R. Don Cowan Fine and Performing Arts Center. The dinner is sponsored by UT Tyler and James I. Perkins, chairman and president of Citizens 1st Bank of Tyler and 1963 graduate of UT Austin School of Law.

"East Texas is proud of The University of Texas School of Law and fortunate to have outstanding state leaders as our friends, Regent David Beck and Dean Ward Farnsworth," Perkins said.
Beck was appointed to a six-year term on the UT System Board of Regents by Governor Greg Abbott in January 2015, and was confirmed by the Texas Senate on March 11, 2015.

A founding partner of Beck Redden LLP, he received his law degree from the UT Austin Law School in 1965. The UT Law School has named The David J. Beck Center for Legal Research, Writing and Appellate Advocacy, after him. He has been named an Outstanding Alumnus of the Law School and a Distinguished Alumnus of UT Austin.

Beck is consistently recognized as one of the country's preeminent trial lawyers. He was listed in Best Lawyers in America from 1985-2015 and was one of the few listed in eight different practice areas. He was named a 2013 Lawyer of the Year in Texas for Antitrust Law by Texas' Best Lawyers, and was also recognized for bet-the-company litigation, commercial litigation and several other practice areas. He is a prolific writer and has won awards for his legal writing.

He was appointed to the prestigious Judicial Conference Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure by United States Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 2004, and reappointed to a 3-year-term by Chief Justice John Roberts in 2007. The committee's members include some of the leading judges, academicians and practitioners in the United States. He was named by Texas Lawyer Magazine in 2010 as one of the 25 greatest lawyers in the past quarter century.

Before his appointment as dean of the UT School of Law in 2012, Farnsworth taught for 15 years at the Boston University law school, where he also served as associate dean for academic affairs.

Dean Farnsworth is reporter for the American Law Institute's Restatement (Third) Torts: Liability for Economic Harm. He is author of Restitution: Civil Liability for Unjust Enrichment, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2014; The Legal Analyst, published by the University of Chicago Press in 2007; and Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric, published by David R. Godine in 2010.

He has published scholarly articles on a range of topics in the Columbia Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the Michigan Law Review and various other journals. He teaches courses on torts, contracts, civil procedure, admiralty and rhetoric. Dean Farnsworth graduated with high honors from the University of Chicago Law School in 1994, and afterwards served as a law clerk to Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and to Richard A. Posner, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He has also served as Legal Adviser to the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in the Hague.

One of the 15 campuses of the UT System, UT Tyler features excellence in teaching, research, artistic performance and community service. More than 80 undergraduate and graduate degrees are available at UT Tyler, which has an enrollment of more than 8,000 high-ability students. UT Tyler offers courses at its campuses in Tyler, Longview and Palestine as well as a location in Houston.