Page 23 - NC Triangle Vol 7 No 2

Campbell Law and Nottingham Law Schools Collaborate on LLM
BY BOB FRIEDMAN
Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Bradley B. Letts recently completed an article called, “ e Cherokee Tribal Court: Its Ori- gins and its Place in the American Ju- dicial System.” It was a dissertation at the core of an LLM he earned through a collaboration between Campbell University’s Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law and Nottingham Law School in the United Kingdom.
e LLM in legal practice gives Campbell Law students as well as judges and potentially attorneys a chance to focus heavily on one legal issue. Eighteen law students and eight judges have started the program in its rst year and the rst four – three stu- dents and one judge – are set to grad- uate with their LLMs on May 10. Not- tingham Law Dean Janine Gri ths- Baker will hood the LLM graduates at the ceremony at the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts, ac- cording to Campbell Law Dean J. Rich Leonard. “ e rst results have been spectacular,” said Leonard. “All of our students have earned high marks and praise from the Nottingham faculty.”
“ ey’ve all written on pressing is- sues related to the North Carolina judiciary on subjects such as the ap- pointment of judges versus the elec- tion of judges, how we deal with spe- cial needs like drug rehabilitation, special needs courts, mental health courts and de ning how the term ‘parent’ under the new federal same- sex laws applies in North Carolina,” said Professor Elizabeth Berenguer, director of Campbell Law’s Upper Level Legal Writing Program.
“ ey get to de ne the scope of their specialty, so they are not getting a generalized LLM in say, tax law, but they are focusing on something that is relevant to them personally as a judge
and the judiciary as a whole.”
THINK ABOUT LEGAL ISSUES
Nottingham
Law o ers en-
rolled students
the ability to uti-
lize Nottingham’s
robust online re-
sources and travel
abroad to meet BURCH,JUDGEANDREWHEATH
JUDGE WILLIAM MACCAMERON, JUDGE APRIL WOOD, DEAN RICH LEONARD, DEAN JANINE GRIFFITHS-BAKER, JUDGE SUSAN
face-to-face with faculty and fel- low students.
Students make a two-day trip to Nottingham Law School to meet with their mentors and present their dis- sertation topics. ey then work re- motely with their mentors during the two years it takes to complete the dis- sertation and earn their LLM degree.
“ is program gives them the in- centive to really carve out some time to think about legal issues and then write an article that will hopefully guide the courts and the legislature and other entities in how to most ef- fectively resolve current problems,” said Berenguer.
“ e bene t to our judges is that the LLM can be tailored to a topic of their choice and interest, an op- tion notreadily available in other U.S. LL.M programs. ey work individu- ally on their dissertations under the guidance of a mentor, so they each move at their own pace.”
THE MENTOR OF NOTTINGHAM
“For somebody who has never writ- ten a work like this, simply not know- ing how even to begin the process, the program was very bene cial for me,” said Judge Letts. “My mentor at Nottingham was extremely helpful and important as my editor; having a person to review what I did critically, ask questions, help organize, cut areas
AttorneyAtLawMagazine.com
that needed to be cut and esh out areas that needed to be eshed out.”
“ ere had been
a law review ar-
ticle done about
the Cherokee legal
history in the early
1980’s, and I had
always wanted to
update that. When
the LLM opportunity
came along I immediately knew what my topic was going to be,” said the judge.
Letts serves in the 30B Judicial Dis- trict of the Eighth Division of the Su- perior Court, serving Haywood and Jackson counties in North Carolina.
“We spent the past 25 years in- volved in working with legal issues that involved the tribes, jurisdictional issues, etc. so I had a lot of informa- tion and was able to jump right in.”
Judge Letts, who is retiring from the bench, would like to use his LLM dissertation on Cherokee tribal law as the springboard for a book. “I hope it will be a source for folks to use in the future but also identify some issues that have not been discussed in a lot of detail in the past,” said Judge Letts.
For more information, visit www.law.camp- bell.edu/apply/international-opportuni- ties/.
JUDGE BRADLEY LETTS
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