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Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law's Twelfth Annual Wm. Matthew Byrne, Jr. Judicial Clerkship Institute March 15 - 16, 2012


Judicial Faculty

The Honorable Carol Bagley Amon
Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York

Carol Bagley Amon

Since April 5, 2011, Judge Amon has served as Chief Judge of the Eastern District and serves on the Judicial Conference of the United States. Judge Amon was a member of the Judicial Committee on Codes of Conduct from 1993 to 2001 and chair from 1998 to 2001. She also served as an advisor to the American Bar Association Joint Commission to Evaluate the Model Code of Judicial Conduct. She is a graduate of William and Mary and the University of Virginia School of Law. Prior to her appointment to the district court in 1990, Judge Amon served as a U.S. magistrate, and assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Honorable Bobby R. Baldock
United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit

Bobby Baldock

President Ronald Reagan appointed Judge Baldock to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in 1985. Previously, Judge Baldock served on the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico. During his judicial tenure, Judge Baldock has served the federal courts in numerous administrative capacities. Most recently, he concluded a three year term as Chair of the Committee on Financial Disclosure of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Judge Baldock graduated from the New Mexico Military Institute in 1956 and from the University of Arizona College of Law in 1960. Prior to his appointment to the Federal Bench, Judge Baldock practiced law for over two decades with Sanders, Bruin, & Baldock in Roswell, New Mexico. Judge Baldock is married and has two grown sons.

The Honorable Duane Benton
United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit

Honorable Duane Benton

Duane Benton became a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on July 8, 2004. Judge Benton served on the Missouri Supreme Court from 1991 until 2004, serving as chief justice from 1997 to 1999. He is a 1972 graduate of Northwestern University and a 1975 graduate of Yale Law School, where he was managing editor of the Yale Law Journal. From 1975 to 1979 Judge Benton served with the U.S. Navy as a judge advocate. While in the Navy, he earned a master’s in business administration and accountancy from Memphis State University, becoming a CPA in Missouri in 1983. After private practice from 1983 to 1988, Benton served as Missouri’s Director of Revenue from 1989 to 1991. A Vietnam veteran, he retired from the U.S. Naval Reserve at the rank of Captain, after 30 years of active and reserve service. Judge Benton is also an adjunct professor at Westminster College and the University of Missouri– Columbia School of Law.

The Honorable Karon Owen Bowdre
United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama

Karon Owen Bowdre

Judge Bowdre received her bachelor’s degree, cum laude, from Samford University and her law degree, cum laude, from Cumberland School of Law. She taught at Cumberland School of Law from 1990 until she took office in November 2001. Judge Bowdre was director of the legal research and writing program at the school and taught courses in insurance law, torts, professional responsibility, and appellate advocacy. Prior to joining the law faculty, Judge Bowdre practiced law with the Birmingham law firm of Rives & Peterson, handling numerous trial and appellate matters in state and federal court.

The Honorable Charles R. Breyer
United States District Court for the Northern District of California

Charles R. Breyer

Judge Breyer received his AB in 1963 from Harvard College and his JD in 1966 from Boalt Hall School of Law. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Breyer clerked for Oliver J. Carter, chief judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He then served as an assistant district attorney in San Francisco until 1973, when he was appointed assistant special prosecutor, Watergate Special Prosecution force. He entered private practice in 1974, specializing in the defense of white collar criminal cases. Judge Breyer is also an adjunct professor at Hastings College of the Law. He was appointed to the U.S. District Court, Northern district of California in 1997 by President Clinton.

The Honorable Jacqueline Scott Corley
United States District Court for the Northern District of California

Jacqueline Scott Corley

Jacqueline Scott Corley has served as a Magistrate Judge in the Northern District of California, San Francisco division, since May 2011. Just prior to her appointment, she was a partner at Kerr & Wagstaffe, LLP in San Francisco, a 12-lawyer litigation firm where she practiced civil litigation in the trial and appellate courts with an emphasis on federal practice. From 1998 through 2009 Judge Corley served as career law clerk to the Honorable Charles R. Breyer in the Northern District of California. Judge Corley received her undergraduate degree from U.C. Berkeley, and her JD from Harvard Law School magna cum laude, where she was selected as an editor and Articles Chair of the Harvard Law Review. Upon graduation from law school, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Robert Keeton of the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. She subsequently practiced complex commercial litigation and white collar criminal defense at Goodwin, Procter LLP in Boston, and then moved to San Francisco and worked as a litigation associate.

The Honorable Jeremy D. Fogel
United States District Court for the Northern District of California

Jeremy D. Fogel

Judge Fogel received his BA from Stanford University and his JD, cum laude, from Harvard University. Judge Fogel was in private practice in San Jose, 1974-1978, and was founder and directing attorney, Mental Health Advocacy Project, Santa Clara County Bar Association Law Foundation, 1978-1981. In 1981 he was appointed to Santa Clara County Municipal Court and appointed to Santa Clara Superior Court in 1986. He is a frequent lecturer on ethics, discipline, and professional conduct for both bench and bar and a lecturer at Stanford University Law School. He was appointed to the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, in 1998. Since October of 2011 he has been selected to serve as Director of the Federal Judicial Center in Washington, DC .

The Honorable Kent A. Jordan
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

Kent A. Jordan

Kent A. Jordan was appointed in 2006 to serve as a United States Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit. Prior to that appointment, Judge Jordan was a United States District Judge for the District of Delaware from 2002 to 2006. He received a BA in Economics in 1981 from Brigham Young University and a JD in 1984 from Georgetown University, where he was Articles Editor for the Georgetown Law Journal. From 1984 to 1985, he was a law clerk for The Honorable James L. Latchum, a judge on the district court where Judge Jordan later served. He is a former Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Delaware and, from 1991 to 1992, was Chief of the Civil Division in that office. Prior to taking the bench, Judge Jordan served as an officer and as a member of the boards of directors of privately held businesses and was a partner in a Wilmington, Delaware law firm, with a practice focused on intellectual property, corporate, and commercial litigation. He is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University, and is a member of the American Law Institute.

The Honorable Royce C. Lamberth
Chief Judge, United States District Court for the District of Columbia

Honorable Royce C. Lamberth

Judge Lamberth graduated from the University of Texas with a BA degree in 1966 and from the University of Texas School of Law in 1967. He served as a captain in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps of the U.S. Army from 1968 to 1974. After service at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and in Vietnam, he served in the Litigation Division of the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Army at the Pentagon from 1971 to 1974. He served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia from 1974 to 1987. He was chief of the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, 1978 to 1987. He was appointed U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia in 1987 and assumed his current position as chief judge in 2008.

The Honorable Mary M. Schroeder
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Mary M. Schroeder

Judge Schroeder has served on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals since 1979 and was Chief Judge from December 2000 through November 2007. She previously served on the Arizona Court of Appeals and practiced law in Phoenix. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the University of Chicago Law School. After graduation she was a trial lawyer in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Judge Schroeder has also taught at Arizona State University Law School and been an adjunct lecturer at Duke University Law School. She has published articles and lectures in various law reviews and is a member of the Council of the American Law Institute. She is a recipient of the Arizona State Bar Association’s James A. Walsh Outstanding Jurist Award, the American Bar Association’s Margaret Brent Award, and the Joan Dempsey Klein NA WJ Honoree of the Year Award. In 2006 Swarthmore College awarded her an Honorary Doctor of Law degree. She has her chambers in Phoenix, Arizona. She and her husband, Professor Milton Schroeder, have two daughters and two grandchildren.

The Honorable Kim W. Wardlaw
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Honorable Kim Wardlaw

Judge Wardlaw graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA in 1976, and from UCLA Law School in 1979, where she served as an Articles Editor of the UCLA Law Review, externed for the late Honorable Joseph T. Sneed, III of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, was awarded Order of the Coif and named the Outstanding Graduate of her class. She clerked for District Court Judge William P. Gray, and joined the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers, where she practiced complex civil litigation for sixteen years. Confirmed as a District Court Judge for the Central District of California in 1976, Judge Wardlaw joined the Ninth Circuit in 1998. She currently serves on the Court’s Executive Committee, the Circuit’s Federal Public Defender’s Committee and the ABA Commission on Hispanic Rights and Responsibilities.

Bankruptcy Faculty


The Honorable Margaret Mahoney
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of Alabama

Margaret Mahoney

Judge Mahoney was appointed U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District of Alabama in 1993. She served as chief judge from 1996 to 2003. Before serving in the state of Alabama, she was a bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of Texas and also in the District of Minnesota. Prior to taking the bench, Judge Mahoney was a partner with Weil, Gotshal & Manges. She is a Fellow in the American College of Bankruptcy, a former editor-in-chief of the American Bankruptcy Law Journal and a member of the board of governors of the National Conference of Bankruptcy Judges. Judge Mahoney received her BA from the College of St. Catherine, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and her JD with honors from the University of Minnesota Law School.

The Honorable Steven Rhodes
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan

Steven Rhodes

Judge Rhodes recently completed a term as chief judge. From 1997 to 2004 he also served on the Bankruptcy Appellate Panel of the Sixth Circuit, the last three years as chief judge. Judge Rhodes was appointed to a new four-year term on the BAP beginning January 1, 2008. He has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan Law School teaching bankruptcy law, and is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy. A past member of the American Bankruptcy Institute Board of Directors, he also served as ABI’s vice president-research grants. Judge Rhodes received his undergraduate degree from Purdue University and his law degree from the University of Michigan Law School.


Academic Exchange


Erwin Chemerinsky
Dean and Distinguished Professor, University of California, Irvine, School of Law

Erwin Chemerinsky

Dean Chemerinsky is the founding dean of the School of Law, University of California, Irvine. From 2004 to 2008 he was the Alston and Bird Professor of Law, Duke University School of Law. He was on the USC faculty for over twenty years. Dean Chemerinsky regularly lectures to judges in programs for the Federal Judicial Center, the National Judicial College, and the American Bar Association. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and Harvard Law School. He is the author of six books and over 100 law review articles. He regularly argues appellate cases, including in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Donald E. Childress III
Associate Professor of Law, Pepperdine University, School of Law

Donald Childress

Professor Childress received his BA from the University of Virginia, MA from Oxford Brookes University, and a JD/LLM (in international and comparative law) from the Duke University School of Law. After law school, Professor Childress clerked for the Hon. Paul V. Niemeyer on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Prior to joining the Pepperdine Caruso Law faculty, Professor Childress was associated with the international law firm, Jones Day, in Washington, D.C., as a member of their Issues and Appeals practice, where he focused on Supreme Court litigation, general appellate litigation, and significant motions practice in trial litigation. While in private practice, his appellate representations included preparation of writs of certiorari, merits briefs, and amicus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Childress has briefed and argued appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and has briefed matters in numerous other trial and appellate courts in the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and D.C. Circuits, as well as in various state courts. He teaches and researches in the areas of civil procedure, international litigation, comparative law, and ethics.

Robert F. Cochran, Jr.
Founder and Director, The Herbert and Elinor Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics, and Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law, Pepperdine University, School of Law

Robert Cochran

Robert F. Cochran, Jr. is the Louis D. Brandeis Professor of Law at Pepperdine University. He founded the Judicial Clerkship Institute and directed it from 2000-03. Professor Cochran’s books include: Louis D. Brandeis’s MIT Lectures on Law (Carolina Academic Press, forthcoming); Lawyers, Clients, and Moral Responsibility (West, 2nd ed. 2009; 1st ed. 1994) (with Thomas L. Shaffer); and Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought (Yale University Press, 2001) (with Michael McConnell and Angela Carmella). Professor Cochran is the editor of the SSRN Law and Religion eJournal and the moderator of the LawReligionEthics.net blog. He founded and currently directs Pepperdine's Herbert and Elinor Nootbaar Institute on Law, Religion, and Ethics. Recent trips have taken him to Rwanda, Uganda, and Sudan, lecturing on justice, religion, and law.

Christopher R. Drahozal
John M. Rounds Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development, University of Kansas, School of Law

Christopher R. Drahozal

Christopher R. Drahozal is the Rounds Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development at the University of Kansas School of Law. He is an Associate Reporter for the Restatement (Third) of the U.S. Law on International Commercial Arbitration and served as Chair of the Arbitration Task Force of the Searle Civil Justice Institute. He has authored a casebook on commercial arbitration (in its second edition), and has published articles on the law and economics of arbitration in the Journal of Legal Studies, Law and Contemporary Problems, the Vanderbilt Law Review, and the Illinois Law Review, among others.

Nancy J. King
Lee S. and Charles A. Speir Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University Law School

Nancy J. King

Nancy J. King is the Speir Professor of Law at Vanderbilt. She has authored or coauthored dozens of articles and books addressing the post-investigative features of the criminal process, including the new book Habeas for the Twenty-First Century – Uses, Abuses, and the Future of the Great Writ, based in part on a study of habeas litigation funded by the National Institute of Justice (see www.habeasbook.com), and two comprehensive treatises – Federal Practice and Procedure, Criminal (Westlaw database FPP), and Criminal Procedure (Westlaw database CRIMPR OC). She serves as Assistant Reporter for Criminal Rules Committee for the U.S. Courts, and is a member of the ABA Criminal Justice Standards Committee and the ALI. At Vanderbilt, Professor King has been Associate Dean at the Law School, and has received multiple University awards for her research on bargaining, juries, sentencing, appeals, and post-conviction review.

Colleen E. Medill
Warren R. Wise Professor of Law, University of Nebraska College of Law

Colleen Medill

Colleen E. Medill teaches and writes primarily on the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. She is the sole author of the law school textbook, Introduction to Employee Benefits Law: Policy and Practice (West 2004, 2007, 2010). Her scholarship has addressed such topics as ERISA fiduciary liability, judicial claims and remedies available to private litigants under ERISA, stock market volatility and 401(k) plans, and federal laws governing group health care plans. Professor Medill has received awards for her legal scholarship in the field of ERISA and as an outstanding teacher from both the University of Nebraska College of Law (2004-present) and The University of Tennessee College of Law (1997-2004). After receiving her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Kansas (BA 1985, JD 1989), she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Deanell Reece Tacha of the United States Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Prior to entering academia, she practiced law for seven years in Kansas City, Missouri, specializing in tax, corporate, and litigation matters related to employee benefit plans.

Judith Resnik
Arthur Liman Professor of Law, Yale Law School

Judith Resnik

Professor Resnik is the Arthur Liman Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where she teaches about federalism, courts, procedure, equality, and citizenship. Her essay, Fairness in Numbers, 125 Harvard L. Rev, 78 (2011), comments on the recent Supreme Court cases on class actions, arbitration, and right to counsel. Her recent books include Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms (with Dennis Curtis, Yale Press, 2011); Federal Courts Stories (with Vicki C. Jackson) (2010); and Migrations and Mobilities: Citizenship, Borders, and Gender (coedited with Seyla Benhabib) (2009). She has chaired the sections on Procedure, on Federal Courts, and on Women in Legal Education of the American Association of Law Schools. In 2001, she was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 2002, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and in 2008, she was given the Outstanding Scholar of the Year award by the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. She is also an occasional litigator, including arguing in the U.S. Supreme Court, most recently in a case addressing the appealability of discovery orders requiring disclosure of materials argued to have been protected by the attorney-client privilege.

Kenneth W. Starr
President, Baylor University

Kenneth W. Starr

Kenneth W. Starr is the 14th President of Baylor University. Prior to his election, he served as the Duane and Kelly Roberts Dean and Professor of Law at Pepperdine University from 2004-2010. He was Of Counsel and a Partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP from 1993-2010, specializing in appellate work, antitrust, federal courts, and constitutional law. He practiced law with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP from 1974-1981. Elected to the firm’s partnership in 1980, he resigned in 1981 to become Counselor and Chief of Staff to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith. Judge Starr served as United States Circuit Judge for the D.C. Circuit from 1983-1989 and as Solicitor General of the United States from 1989-1993. He was a law clerk to both Chief Justice Warren F. Burger from 1975-1977 and to Fifth Circuit Judge David W. Dyer from 1973-1974. He has argued 36 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Thomas J. Stipanowich
Academic Director, Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution
William H. Webster Chair in Dispute Resolution and Professor of Law, Pepperdine University, School of Law

Thomas J. Stipanowich

Thomas Stipanowich is the William H. Webster Chair in Dispute Resolution and Professor of Law at Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law, Academic Director of the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution (ranked first by U.S. News the last seven years). He was CEO of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR) (2001-06); co-authored the five-volume Federal Arbitration Law (Best New Legal Book), Commercial Arbitration at Its Best (2001); Resolving Disputes: Theory, Practice, and Law (2005). In 2008 he received the D'Alemberte-Raven Award (2008), ABA Dispute Resolution Section's highest honor, for contributions to the field. He received the CPR Best Professional Article award (2010) for "Arbitration, The 'New Litigation'" and “Arbitration and Choice”; and edited the College of Commercial Arbitrators Protocols to Reduce Cost and Delay in Commercial Arbitration (CPR Practical Achievement Award 2010, ABA Lawyer as Problem Solver Award, 2011). He is currently an Advisor for the ALI's Restatement of American Law of International Arbitration.


Keynote Speaker

Kannon Shanmugam
Partner, Williams & Connolly LLP

Kannon Shanmugam

Kannon Shanmugam is a partner at Williams & Connolly focusing on Supreme Court and appellate litigation. He has been described as a “wunderkind” (Am Law Litigation Daily) and “rising star” (Legal Times) of the Supreme Court bar. He has argued ten cases before the Supreme Court, more than any other lawyer in the firm’s history except Edward Bennett Williams, and argued two cases before the Court in 2009. Kannon joined Williams & Connolly in 2008 after serving as an Assistant to the Solicitor General in the Department of Justice; he was the first lawyer to join the firm directly as a partner for twenty-two years. Kannon went to Harvard at age sixteen, where he majored in classics and graduated summa cum laude. After being selected as a Marshall Scholar, he obtained a master’s degree in classics from the University of Oxford. He then returned to Harvard Law School and graduated magna cum laude; there, he served as executive editor of the Harvard Law Review and argued the case for the winning side in the moot court competition. After law school, he served as a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court and then-Judge J. Michael Luttig on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.