Monday, October 5, 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET/12:00 PM – 1:00 PM CT/11:00 AM – 12:00 PM MT/10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PT
Opportunities to interstitially teach leadership in the general law curriculum may seem few and far between. When we attempt to identify these opportunities, we often associate them with clinical legal education courses available principally to upper division law students. Yet, as many of us come to realize over time, so much of the leadership we do teach—and can teach—arises out of instructional experiences in every type of law course, at all levels of legal education. Panelists in this program have awakened to the reality that leadership teaching opportunities abound in non-clinical legal education. This program showcases some of their observations, which may be particularly impactful to instructors teaching in law schools that do not have significant curricular components dedicated to law leadership.
Joshua Paul Fershee, Dean, Creighton University School of Law
Joshua Fershée, JD, became the 11th dean of the Creighton University School of Law on July 1, 2019. Fershée previously served as associate dean for faculty research and development, professor of law, and director of LLM programs at West Virginia University College of Law.
Earning a bachelor’s degree in social science from Michigan State University in 1995, Fershée began his career in public relations and media outreach before attending the Tulane University School of Law, graduating magna cum laude in 2003 and serving as editor in chief of the Tulane Law Review. He worked in private practice at the firms of Davis Polk & Wardell in New York and Hogan & Hartson, LLP, in Washington, D.C., before joining the legal academy.
Fershée joined the faculty of the University of North Dakota School of Law in 2007, and later served as associate dean for academic affairs and research. He was awarded the North Dakota Spirit Faculty Achievement Award in 2010 for significant contributions in teaching, research, and service. Fershée began his teaching as a visiting assistant professor at Penn State Law.
While at West Virginia University, Fershée facilitated creation of the law school’s first LL.M. Program in Energy and Sustainable Development and was a co-investigator on a $1.2 million grant to advance science and engineering for localized gas utilization. He also headed the Economic and Community Development Group and was a faculty researcher in the Center for Innovation in Gas Research and Utilization, a multidisciplinary center housed in West Virginia University’s Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources. Fershée was awarded the 2014-15 Outstanding Faculty Award by the West Virginia Law Review at West Virginia University College of Law.
Fershée’s research has appeared in a variety of journals, including the Harvard Journal on Legislation, Harvard Business Law Review Online, William and Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, and the Energy Law Journal, and he recently contributed a book chapter published by Oxford University Press. He is the author of Energy Law, A Context and Practice Casebook (Carolina Academic Press) and co-author of Unincorporated Business Entities (LexisNexis, 5th ed.). Fershée is also an editor of the Business Law Prof Blog.
Benjamin Rigney, Director of the Leadership and Character Law Network, Wake Forest University School of Law
Benjamin Rigney is the Director of the Leadership and Character Law Network. Ben earned his B.A. from Carolina University and an M.A.T.S. from Liberty University. Following seminary, Ben earned a Ph.D from Carolina University in leadership studies with a dissertation focused on the leadership development practices of intercollegiate athletic coaches. Upon the completion of his Ph.D., Ben then earned a J.D. from the University of Richmond School of Law, where he was able to co-create and teach Richmond Law’s first leadership development class for law students. Dr. Rigney is also a licensed attorney and a member of the Virginia State Bar. His primary work with the Program for Leadership and Character is to help law students develop as effective, virtue-driven leaders.
Kenneth Townsend, Executive Director of Leadership and Character in the Professional Schools, University Professor, Teaching Professor in the School of Law, Wake Forest University School of Law
Kenneth Townsend is the Executive Director of Leadership and Character in the Professional Schools, University Professor, and Teaching Professor in the School of Law. A recipient of the Truman Scholarship for Public Service and the Rhodes Scholarship, he earned a B.A. from Millsaps College, an M.Phil. from the University of Oxford, and a J.D. and M.A.R. from Yale University. Prior to joining Wake Forest, he worked at Millsaps College as Special Assistant to the President, Assistant Professor of Political Science, and Founding Executive Director of the Institute for Professional and Civic Engagement and, before Millsaps, as a Fellow in the University of Mississippi’s Barksdale Honors College and Lott Leadership Institute. A licensed attorney and frequent commentator on public affairs, he has taught courses in ethics, political theory, public policy, and constitutional law at Millsaps College, University of Mississippi, and Yale University. He teaches “Professional Responsibility” and “Leadership and Character in the Law” at the Wake Forest School of Law. His recent publications have focused on character-based leadership and the professional identity formation of lawyers.
Joan Heminway, Director, Clayton Center for Entrepreneurial Law and Rick Rose Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Tennessee Winston College of Law
Professor Heminway brought nearly 15 years of corporate practice experience to the University of Tennessee Winston College of Law when she joined the faculty in 2000. She practiced transactional business law (working in the areas of public offerings, private placements, mergers, acquisitions, dispositions, and restructurings) in the Boston office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP from 1985 through 2000. She has served as an expert witness and consultant on business entity and finance and federal and state securities law matters and is a frequent academic and continuing legal education presenter on business law issues. Professor Heminway also has represented pro bono clients on political asylum applications, landlord/tenant appeals, social security/disability cases, and not-for-profit incorporations and related business law issues.
In her research and writing, Professor Heminway focuses most closely on disclosure regulation and policy under federal securities (including insider trading) law and state entity (especially corporate) law. Some of her work explores these topics in the context of sex or gender difference. She is best known for her work involving crowdfunding and, before that, for a series of articles relating to the insider trading and criminal securities fraud actions brought against Martha Stewart in connection with her December 2001 sale of ImClone Systems, Inc. common stock. Other areas of interest manifested in her work include institutional reform at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, teaching business law, and business finance and governance planning and drafting. She has coauthored a series of annotated merger and acquisition agreements and related ancillary documents for Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law. Her work has been published in a wide variety of general and specialty journals. She also has authored numerous academic and trade book chapters and co-authored two business law teaching texts: Business Enterprises: Legal Structures, Governance, and Policy (Carolina Academic Press, 5th ed. 2924) and Martha Stewart’s Legal Troubles (Carolina Academic Press 2006).
Professor Heminway is a member of the American Law Institute, a fellow of the American Bar Association, and the Knoxville Bar Association and a research fellow of the Neel Corporate Governance Center. She also teaches business law in the professional MBA program at the Haslam College of Business and leadership in the Haslam Leadership Scholars undergraduate program.
he currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Knoxville Bar Association and on the executive council of the Tennessee Bar Association’s Business Law Section (of which she was the chair from 2019-20). She was president of the campus faculty senate for the 2010-11 academic year, Mic/Nite coordinator from 2016-19, and co-chair of the Chancellor’s Commission for Women for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 academic years. She served as a member of The University of Tennessee, Knoxville advisory board for a two-year term ending in June 2024.
