Wilkins to offer legal lectures to first-year students
Federal appellate judge will be on campus three days this week

Chief Judge William W. Wilkins U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Portrait by Janet Fleming Smith

NOV. 8, 2004 -- Federal Appeals Court Chief Judge William W. Wilkins this week will offer three lectures to first-year students at the Charleston School of Law to outline how the judicial system really works, Dean Richard Gershon announced today.

"This is a rare opportunity for first-year students," Gershon said. "Very few law schools in this country are fortunate enough to have a chief judge of a federal court of appeals to come talk to first-year students."

Gershon said the lectures, which will take place at the school on Nov. 11 and Nov. 12, will give students a chance to "hear about the judicial system from an outstanding jurist."

Wilkins, a South Carolina native who has served as chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit since February 2003, was an opening day speaker when the law school opened in August. Also that month, Wilkins announced he would serve as a distinguished visiting professor at the school.

A member of the appellate bench since 1986, Wilkins served as a U.S. District Judge for the District of South Carolina from 1981 to 1986.

In addition to serving on the Fourth Circuit, he served as the first chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission from 1986 to 1994. From 1999 to 2003, he chaired the Committee on Criminal Law of the Judicial Conference of the United States.

In other news at the school:

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