On Sept. 8, Elon Law welcomed preceptors and other attorneys and judges to the school's first monthly reception with the legal community of the 2011-12 academic year. At the reception, the Honorable L. Patrick Auld, federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina delivered remarks and the Student Bar Association presented its first Making a Difference award.
Judge Auld described a period of transition underway in the Middle District and reviewed the Court’s history. He recognized judges who had served the Middle District since it was created in 1927, noting in particular nine judges who served from 1957 to 1994.
“Those judges, some of the outstanding judges that North Carolina has ever produced, including one of my personal heroes Eugene Gordon, they really built the foundation for the modern court that we have today in the Middle District,” Auld said.
He also detailed judges who have served on the court over the past 17 years, and encouraged members of the bar to consider the Court’s current transitional period, a period with fewer judges on the Court, as they weigh how to proceed with various cases that could be brought before the Court.
Judge Auld attended Wake Forest University and Yale Law School. He clerked for Judge Woody Tilley of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, and then for Judge Phyllis Kravitch of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He practiced in Atlanta after his clerkships, and then joined the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Middle District in 1998. He has been Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division in this District since 2004 to 2009.
In his introduction of Judge Auld, Associate Dean for Administration and Associate Professor of Law Alan Woodlief expressed appreciation for Judge Auld’s service as a judge in the final round of the school’s 2010 intramural moot court competition and in the semi-final round of the school’s inaugural Billings, Exum & Frye National Moot Court Competition, held in April of 2011.
The Making a Difference award
Also at the reception, Student Bar Association president Andrea Davis presented the SBA’s first “Making a Difference” award to Gwendolyn Lewis L’13. The award, Davis said, would be presented monthly during the academic year and was created to acknowledge students who exhibit exemplary performance in class, engagement in the Greensboro community, involvement in student organizations, demonstration of superb student leadership, or a substantial contribution to the advancement of the law school.
Davis recognized Lewis’s work with Guardian ad Litem, a program of the N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts that provides legal advocacy services to protect and promote the best interests of juveniles in abuse and neglect court proceedings. Davis also noted that Lewis has served in a variety of student organizations at Elon Law, including secretary and professional development chair for the Black Law Students Organization, chair of the elections committee for the SBA, and former chair of the Diversity Day committee for the 2010-11 academic year.
The reception also included the presentation by faculty of Strongest Comprehensive Performance awards to a student in each of the required classes of the 2010-11 academic year. Click here for a report on those awards.