KU News Release

Chief U.S. appeals court judge to inaugurate KU law school lecture series

Robert H. Henry

LAWRENCE — The chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit will deliver the University of Kansas School of Law’s inaugural Shook, Hardy & Bacon Center for Excellence in Advocacy Annual Lecture.

Robert H. Henry will talk about “Overcoming Advocacy” at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 29, at the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, 2350 Petefish Drive.

“We were delighted that Judge Henry accepted our invitation to present the inaugural lecture of our newly established Shook, Hardy & Bacon Center for Excellence in Advocacy. Judge Henry’s range of advocacy experience — as a practicing attorney, a law school dean, an elected official and a federal judge — makes him particularly well suited to open this important lecture series,” said Gail Agrawal, dean of the law school. “Part of the mission of the center is to prepare future lawyers for their roles as advocates, whether in the courtroom, the boardroom or the statehouse. As a distinguished lawyer and jurist, Judge Henry knows well the wide range of skills required of the accomplished advocate.”

Henry was appointed to the appeals court in 1994 by President Clinton. He became chief judge on Jan. 1, 2008.

He has a bachelor’s degree and a law degree from the University of Oklahoma and was dean and professor of law at the Oklahoma City University School of Law from 1991 to 1994.

Henry’s career as an advocate began in his senior year of high school, when he advanced to the state debate finals as one of the top 20 teams in the state. In college, Henry became attorney general of the University of Oklahoma Student Association and prosecuted cases in the student courts. Since then, his advocacy has run the gamut from prosecuting cases in municipal traffic court, to practicing law in federal and state courts, to multiple appearances before Congressional committees and administrative agencies, to orating from the back of pickups while running for statewide office. Henry was a representative in the Oklahoma House from 1976 to 1986.

In 1990, while serving as attorney general of Oklahoma, Henry was chair of the National Association of Attorneys General Supreme Court Committee that provided training and moot courts for attorneys general getting ready to appear at the Supreme Court. In his recent book, “Garner on Language and Writing,” advocacy guru Bryan Garner listed Henry as one of nine living judges whose “work may be studied to good effect.”

The Shook, Hardy & Bacon Center for Excellence in Advocacy was founded in June 2008 with generous support from Shook, Hardy & Bacon, an international law firm based in Kansas City, Mo., that counts among its partners and associates many KU law graduates.

The center capitalizes on its namesake’s distinguished history in litigation to cultivate new generations of trial lawyers. Apart from its core mission — to enhance the learning experience of students who aspire to be trial lawyers — the center also creates opportunities for mentorship between experienced litigators and law students, provides a forum for practicing trial lawyers to share information with one another, and creates outlets to educate the public about the role of litigation in a democratic society.

The inaugural lecture is in memory of Larry O’Neal, a KU law alumnus and former Shook, Hardy & Bacon partner who passed away in 2007 after a long battle with cancer.

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