Jeffrey Usman, Class of 2003, has been appointed to a seat on the Tennessee Court of Appeals for the Middle Division. Usman’s appointment to the bench was announced by Gov. Bill Lee and confirmed by the Tennessee General Assembly.
Usman currently serves on the law faculty at the Belmont University College of Law, where he teaches Constitutional Law, Criminal Constitutional Law, First Amendment Law and State Constitutional Law. His scholarship focuses on constitutional law and access to justice. He has served as a faculty adviser to the Belmont Law Review and the Legal Aid and Criminal Law Societies. He is a four-time recipient of a Best Professor Award bestowed by Belmont Law’s students.
Before joining Belmont’s law faculty, Usman served for five years as the senior law clerk for Judge William C. Koch Jr. ’72 of the Tennessee Supreme Court and as an assistant attorney general in the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office.
Usman received his B.A. with honors from Georgetown University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa, before earning his law degree at Vanderbilt, where he graduated Order of the Coif. He also holds an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. He was a law clerk for Judge W. Harold Albritton of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama and for Judge Mary Beck Briscoe of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit after law school.