Lonnie T. Brown Jr. ’89 has been named associate dean of academic affairs at the University of Georgia School of Law. Brown replaces another Vanderbilt Law graduate, Paul M. Kurtz ’72 (BA ’68), who is retiring this summer after 22 years as UGA Law’s associate dean and 38 years on its law faculty.
Kurtz is UGA’s J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law and specializes in criminal law and family law. Active in legislative issues throughout his career, he was reporter for the Georgia Supreme Court’s Indigent Defense Reform Commission and served on the state’s 11-member Public Defender Standards Council. He was also instrumental on the Public Interest Loan Repayment Task Force, which created a state fund for this purpose in 2002.
“I am delighted to be succeeded by my friend and colleague Lonnie Brown,” Kurtz said. “He has been a tremendous teacher and scholar and will be a wonderful associate dean. The fact that he and I share the tie to Vanderbilt is simply icing on the cake.”
Brown, who focuses on civil procedure and legal ethics, holds UGA’s A. Gus Cleveland Distinguished Chair of Legal Ethics and Professionalism.
Since joining UGA in 2002, he has received the Ellington Award for Excellence in Teaching and won the Student Bar Association’s Professionalism Award six times. He was also UGA’s inaugural Administrative Fellow in its academic affairs office in 2007-08.
Before joining UGA, Brown was an assistant professor of law at the University of Illinois and a visiting assistant professor at Vanderbilt.
“I am humbled to follow in Paul’s footsteps,” Brown said. “He has been a wonderful colleague and friend. I hope that I can live up to his example and carry on his tremendous legacy.”