The conference is the brainchild of Charles R.T. O'Kelley, who joined the law school in 1997 as the first Martin E. Kilpatrick Professor of Corporate and Securities Law. Before joining the UGA faculty, he concurrently served as dean of the University of Oregon Law School and as founding director of its Law and Entrepreneurship Center. O'Kelley took a break from conference planning to discuss the event with Columns. First, this conference focuses on teaching instead of other applications of legal research.
All good teachers know that theoretical scholarship is essential to successful teaching.
The insights a professor gains from her own research are essential to being an effective teacher. Likewise, all good teachers seek to embrace the lessons that can be learned from the seminal discoveries of other legal scholars. Nonetheless, this is the first significant conference that directly focuses on the application of theoretical insights to teaching. To my delight almost everyone has a burning passion or two, and these passions are amazingly diverse. The response has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic.