LSU Law will further expand its slate of experiential learning-focused clinics with the creation of the William A. Brookshire Veterans Law Clinic at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center. The new clinic, which will begin operation at the start of the spring semester in January, is being made possible with $600,000 in support from the William A. Brookshire Foundation and through collaboration with the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs.

Funding for the clinic is a portion of the recently announced $7.575 million gift to LSU from the William A. Brookshire Foundation that will also elevate the College of Engineering’s S & B Engineers and Constructors Scholarships and catalyze the new Future Scholars Pipeline Initiative.

“This new investment of funding will expand what has already been a remarkable impact, further elevating the scope and impact of our scholarships and our service to veterans,” said LSU President William F. Tate IV. “We are grateful for the opportunity to partner with the Brookshire family as we strive to achieve the bold aims of our Scholarship First Agenda.”

The William A. Brookshire Veterans Law Clinic will serve active members and veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces, Reserves, and National Guard at no cost, as well as surviving family of deceased veterans. Under the careful guidance of seasoned faculty, LSU Law students in the clinic will gain invaluable experiential learning by assisting clients who are appealing claims before the federal Board of Veterans’ Appeals.

LSU Law Associate Dean for Student and Academic Affairs Andrea Carroll (’00) has been named the 2022 Distinguished Professor by the Louisiana Bar Foundation, and alumnus Leo Hamilton (’77) has been named the 2022 Distinguished Attorney.

“I am so honored to have been named Distinguished Professor by the LBF. It has been my privilege and passion to be able to spend my days with law students thinking, debating, and working collectively to improve the law,” said Carroll. “I’m 20 years in and I look forward to being able to continue this work with the generation to come. Thank you to all my colleagues, and to the LBF for recognizing and supporting my efforts!”

Carroll joined the LSU Law faculty in 2003, was named the Donna W. Lee Professor of Family Law in 2009, and has served as an associate dean since October 2015. Her teaching and writing focus on family law, community property, and property, and she is the author of more than a dozen books and articles in her field.

Hamilton is a partner at Breazeale, Sachse & Wilson in the firm’s Baton Rouge office, and he practices in the areas of labor and employment law, administrative law, constitutional law, and governmental relations.

The LSU Law Tom Fore Phillips National Moot Court Competition team is headed to New York City in late January to compete for the national championship following the team’s impressive performance in the regional competition held at Belmont University College of Law in Nashville on Nov. 12.

The LSU Law team includes 2L Haley Grieshaber, 3L Olivia Maynard, and 3L Scott Wheat Jr. It's coached by Professor John Devlin and Daniel Bosch (’20), who is an Assistant Attorney General at the Louisiana Department of Justice.

“We are excited to make nationals because we have a great team that has taken in so much from our own coaches, as well as from the faculty and practitioners who practiced with us," said Wheat. "This competition puts teams on particularly tight schedules for learning about the body of law in general, as well as the specific arguments we have to make. I think the team this year was exceptional at pulling it all together on a short schedule. We really made great strides individually and as a team, and with the time to prepare for nationals I think we are going to do great.”

LSU Law welcomed Gov. John Bel Edwards back to the Paul M. Hebert Law Center on Thursday, Nov. 3, as the host site of the governor’s latest event to mark the five-year anniversary of a bipartisan criminal justice reform package that has reduced incarceration and saved the state more than $150 million.

Edwards, a 1999 LSU Law graduate, was joined in the roundtable discussion by LSU Law Professor Robert Lancaster, who serves as Assistant Dean of Experiential Education and teaches the Parole and Re-entry Clinic. Third-year LSU Law student Renae Pierre also participated and spoke about her experience in the Parole and Re-entry Clinic, in which she has successfully secured parole for two clients who each spent more than two decades in prison.

Held in the Tucker Room, the discussion also included several people who were formerly incarcerated, elected officials, and representatives from the Parole Project, Huey and Angelina Wilson Foundation, and the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, among others.

LSU Law celebrated one its most beloved traditions—Reunion Weekend and All-Alumni Tailgate—for the first time since 2019 on the weekend of Nov. 4-5.

The highly anticipated return of Reunion Weekend events, which had to be cancelled the past two years due to the pandemic, was capped with a thrilling 32-31 overtime win by the LSU Tigers over Alabama.

The weekend kicked off with two free CLE classes for members of the reunion classes and Dean’s Council on Friday afternoon at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center. Allison Jones ('85) and Matt Jones ('89) taught the session on ethics, "Lessons from Our Father: A Sister and Brother Attorney Discuss the Foundations of their Ethical Sense.” David Abboud Thomas ('93) led the professionalism session, "A Review of the Louisiana Attorney's Oath," which concluded with Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Will Crain (‘86) administering the oath to approximately 50 LSU Law alumni.

The Reunion Reception took place Friday evening at the Capitol Park Museum for 15 alumni classes. The following afternoon, hundreds of alumni passed a good time at the All-Alumni Tailgate and cheered on the LSU Law Class of 2023 at the Hats 'n Canes Toast for 3L and LLM students in the hours leading up to the big game against Alabama. NeunerPate and CSRS sponsored the tailgate.

Each Nov. 11, Americans honor and celebrate the courageous service and sacrifice of all those who have proudly served in our nation’s armed forces. At LSU Law, the Veterans Advocacy Club student organization strives to make every day Veterans Day by advocating and raising funds for military veterans as well as providing resources and support.

“The Veterans Advocacy Club is important because it gives back to people who have given so much to their country,” said VAC President Brock McKiness, a U.S. Army veteran and 2L. “The veterans who defend the laws and freedom of this nation should have a voice in the place where those laws can change.”

The VAC—and McKiness particularly—have played a key role in helping LSU Law bring the new William A. Brookshire Veterans Law Clinic to fruition. When VAC formed a committee in October 2021 to explore the idea of establishing a pro bono legal clinic for veterans at LSU Law, McKiness was appointed as its chairman. Not only does he continue to serve in the role today, but he has also worked on the clinic for more than a year as the committee’s sole member.

An LSU Law ABA Arbitration team placed as a Regional Semifinalist in a competition held at the South Texas College of Law in Houston on Nov. 11-12.

Two LSU Law teams competed at the regional competition. The “Gold” team consisted of Rochelle Bogle, Samantha Jacobsen, Benjamin McArthur, and Lauren Watson, and placed as one of the top four teams. The “Purple” team included Craig Chrisman, Lance Harvey, Damian Olvera, and Eliza White.

Both teams were coached by Professor Jeff Brooks, Advocacy Fellow Charles Watkins, and Board of Advocates member Mitchell Williams.

The LSU Law Library has received two new titles from the U.S. Government Publishing Office (GPO) to add to their Preservation Steward collection.

To help libraries meet the needs of efficient government document stewardship in the digital era, GPO has established Preservation Stewards like the LSU Law Library to support continued public access to historic, print-format U.S. government documents. The LSU Law Library has been a Preservation Steward since 2019.

The additional materials at the LSU Law Library include the historic and present-day collection of “Code of Federal Regulations of the United States of America, Title 3, The President,” and the present-day collection of all other “Code of Federal Regulations of the United States” titles.

Jarrett Ambeau was working at a food show in the late summer of 1999 when another vendor’s offhand comment during an otherwise uneventful day on the job completely changed the course of the 29-year-old’s life and career.

“There was a professional acquaintance of ours there who owned small distribution business, and the guy I was working with said, ‘That guy has more money in his pocket than you or I will ever have,’” Ambeau recalled. “That woke me up—it was like a two-by-four hit me in the face. I didn’t want to be constrained in that way for the rest of my life. I had always wanted to be an attorney. So, I excused myself from work, got in my car, drove straight to LSU, and enrolled as a freshman with the sole intent of finishing my undergraduate degree, going to LSU Law, and becoming an attorney.”

Though the future he envisioned would eventually come to fruition, it took him a little longer than he initially hoped. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 inspired Ambeau to enlist in the U.S. Army, which led to several deployments to Iraq, where he served in the 22nd LSO Trial Defense Service, a criminal defense arm of the JAG Corps.

“I was a paralegal attached to a public defender,” Ambeau said, “and it was through that experience that I really started to learn how to prepare for cases, care for clients, and devote myself to them in a way that has nothing to do with payment, but with being completely devoted to the law, the constitution, and the practice of being a criminal defense attorney.”

In our latest Dean's Council Spotlight, we visit with alumni Eulis and Tammy Simien, who discuss their experiences attending LSU Law during the "high attrition years," their careers, and what it was like to be married at a time when Eulis was an LSU Law faculty member and Tammy was a student at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center.

"We both attended during the time that attrition was higher, so we had the same pressures to deal with in that regard," said Eulis. "However, Tammy had some additional pressures. One of the biggest differences was that I was still single when I attended law school, though Tammy and I married just before my third year. By the time Tammy came to law school, we were married and had two children, with our third being born before her last year. That, of course, particularly during those olden days of the higher attrition rates, resulted in added pressure on her."

Three LSU Law alumni—David Fleshman (’11), Korey Harvey (’09), and Alexandra Layfield (’08)—are included in this year’s class of the Baton Rouge Business Report Forty Under 40, which annually honors the most impactful young leaders in the Capital Region.

Fleshman, 36, is a partner at Brezeale, Sachse & Wilson who currently serves on the board of trustees for The Dunham School and on the board of directors for the LSU National L Club. He also teaches sports law at LSU Law as an adjunct faculty member.

Harvey, 38, serves as vice president and deputy general counsel at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana. He is a member of the Catholic High Men’s Club and serves as counsel to the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana Foundation.

Layfield, 39, is a partner at Jones Walker, where she also serves as Corporate & Securities Team Leader. She has been featured on the “Louisiana Super Lawyers” each year list since 2016 and was named a “Go-To Thought Leader” by National Law Review in 2020.

It wasn’t dreams of Big Law that brought Manning Greene to LSU Law, but dreams of the Big Leagues.

“To be honest, I began law school with no aspirations of becoming a practicing attorney,” he said. “I worked for the LSU Baseball team during my undergraduate years, and I foresaw myself pursuing a career in professional baseball with a dream of becoming general manager of a Major League Baseball team.”

Greene enrolled at LSU Law to retain his job as an analytical manager for LSU Baseball, which required him to remain a student. As he looks forward to graduating next spring, Green said his years at LSU Law have opened his mind to the possibility of practicing law in the future—though he still has his heart set on the Big Leagues.

Learn more about Greene in the full profile and find out how you can support outstanding students like him through LSU Law scholarships »

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