“Hello, Rick. It’s good to see you again.” Before I turned to see who spoke those words, I knew. That resonant, clear, deep voice could only belong to one man. As I set eyes on him coming across the ballroom, he continued: “And let me say that I really enjoy your email Musings and newsletter articles. They let me know how I’m aging!”
Parham Williams was the Dean of the Ole Miss Law School while I was there back in the mid-70s. He was also my professor of Criminal Procedure during my final semester, the fall of 1977. As we stood there, clasping hands and catching up, his lovely wife, Polly, walked up. I told her how, on that December night before my Crim Pro exam when it was below freezing in Oxford, the apartment next door to ours in the married student housing complex caught fire. The two students had left earlier that evening for Christmas with the burner on under hamburger patties in a skillet. Ruthie and I became aware first from the sound of dishes falling as the upper cabinet caught fire, and then from the smoke seeping under the door. She grabbed her purse, the wedding album and Dandy, our little Maltese dog. I grabbed my jacket, wallet and Crim Pro book and notes. We headed out the door, to huddle for two hours in the frigid parking lot while the Oxford Fire Department broke through the windows and went about extinguishing the blaze. I smiled at Polly and winked as I said, “But, best I recall, I still got a decent grade from the Dean.” He laughed. The gentleman-professor who later left the University of Mississippi to become dean at Cumberland Law School in Birmingham, Chapman University Law School in southern California, and Lincoln Memorial University’s John J. Duncan School of Law in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The occasion for this reunion was the 2015 Annual Law Scholarship Reception at the University of Mississippi. For the last three years I have taught Elder Law at Ole Miss and have observed the work that a number of students perform to serve seniors through the various legal clinics there. Hoping to honor those efforts and encourage others to go into the study of elder law, I established the Richard A. Courtney Elder Law Scholarship that provides a monetary award each year to an exemplary student. This year’s recipient is Lacey N. Sipsey, a second-year student from Bay St. Louis. She received this award for her efforts in providing legal services and education to the elderly in North Mississippi. She hopes to continue her work with that community in the future.
While studying for that Criminal Procedure exam – or even after graduating from law school with a huge sigh of relief – I would never have thought that one day I would be on the “giving end” of such exams. But here I am. Don’t know why, but sometimes it’s like they say: “What goes around comes around.” I just hope that at some occasion in the future, I will be able to walk up to a former student who is a successful lawyer seeking to give back and say, “Hello, Lacey. It’s good to see you again.”
If you have a concern about your legal rights, remedies, and obligations contact the experienced lawyers of the Law Office of Courtney Elder Law.