Law Hall of Fame Honors Five Alumni

OXFORD, Miss. – Five distinguished University of Mississippi law alumni have been selected for the inaugural class of UM Law Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame was created in 2008 to recognize outstanding alumni of the law school who have brought honor to their alma mater. The first set of inductees will be recognized during the annual Law Alumni Weekend held on campus each spring.

Honorees include Charles Clark (LLB 1948), William F. Goodman Jr. (LLB 1951) and William F. Winter (LLB 1949), all of Jackson; James McClure Jr. (LLB 1953) of Sardis; and the late Robert J. Farley (LLB 1924).

Clark attended Millsaps College and then transferred to Tulane University, where he received his bachelor’s degree.

In 1945, Clark was commissioned as an ensign in the U.S. Naval Reserve and served aboard a destroyer in the Pacific during World War II. After the war, Clark returned to Mississippi and attended the UM School of Law. He began practicing law soon after graduation at the firm of Wells, Wells, Newman & Thomas in Jackson. In 1951, he re-enlisted with the Naval Reserve as a lieutenant.

In 1961, Clark helped form the law firm of Cox, Dunn & Clark in Jackson. In 1969, President Richard M. Nixon appointed Clark to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He held this post until 1992. He served as chief judge of the Fifth Circuit from 1981 to 1992. In 1992, Clark joined his former law partners Dunn and Cox at the Watkins & Eager law firm in Jackson as an appellate advocate and mediator.

Farley, who was first employed by the School of Law in 1926 as an assistant professor, served as law dean from 1946 to 1963. He also served as president of the Mississippi Bar in 1954-55.

The former law school building was named Farley Hall in honor of his service and the service of his father Leonard J. Farley, UM law dean from 1913 to 1921.

In a history of the UM School of Law, former UM law dean Parham Williams said, “With the advent of World War II, most of the faculty and students entered military service. When Bob Farley was appointed dean in February 1946, he faced many of the problems which confronted (L.Q.C.) Lamar in 1866; the academic program had been disrupted, the faculty was scattered and there were few students.”

“Upon his retirement in 1963, Farley could reflect with justifiable satisfaction upon the growth and progress of the School of Law under his leadership,” Williams wrote. “In statistical terms, the enrollment had quintupled, the faculty had grown two-fold, the library holdings had doubled and the building had been substantially enlarged. More important, the reputation of the school as an institution of academic strength and integrity had been firmly established.”

Goodman received his undergraduate degree, with honors, from Millsaps College. After graduation from law school, Goodman served in the U.S. Army, reaching the rank of first lieutenant.

Goodman joined the law firm of Watkins & Eager in 1953, where he continues to practice. Goodman has been honored with invitation-only memberships in the Mississippi Bar Foundation, the American Bar Foundation, the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers and the American College of Trial Lawyers. For 25 consecutive years, he has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America. He has served as president of the Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association and of the Hinds County Bar Association.

The School of Law named Goodman its Alumnus of the Year in 2008. In 2001, he received the Professionalism Award presented by the Hinds County Bar and in 2004 was honored with the Professionalism Award of the Mississippi Bar Foundation.

McClure serves as a senior partner of McClure & Shuler law firm in Sardis. He attended UM as a freshman and went on to graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1946.

McClure served three years in Germany as a U.S. combat engineer, then returned home in 1950 and entered the UM School of Law. He served in the state Legislature as senator from 1952 to 1956.

Throughout the years, McClure has provided service to the university by serving as chair of the Lamar Order and as a member of the Intercollegiate Athletics Committee, the chancellor search committee and the UM Foundation board. In 1980, McClure was honored as the school’s Law Alumnus of the Year, and he was inducted into the UM Hall of Fame in 2007.

Winter was born in Grenada and served as Mississippi’s 58th governor. In 1943, Winter received his undergraduate degree from Ole Miss and then served as an infantry officer in the Philippines during World War II.

Winter returned to Oxford to attend law school. While he was still a student in law school, he was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1947 and re-elected in 1951 and 1955. In 1950-51, he served as the legislative assistant to U.S. Sen. John Stennis. He was recalled to active military duty to serve in the infantry during the Korean War.

In 1956, Winter conducted his first statewide campaign and was elected state tax collector. He was then elected Mississippi state treasurer in 1964 and then lieutenant governor in 1972.

In 1989, he held the Jamie L. Whitten Chair of Law and Government in the UM law school. Winter was also instrumental in the conception and creation of the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, which was established at UM in 1999. Most recently, he received the 2008 Profile in Courage Award from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.