Athens, Ga. – Jack L. Rives, executive director and chief operating officer of the American Bar Association, will deliver the keynote address at the University of Georgia School of Law’s Commencement May 17 at 10 a.m. on the North Campus quadrangle in front of the law school. In the event of rain, graduation will be moved to Stegeman Coliseum.
Approximately 235 students will receive the Juris Doctor degree at this year’s ceremony. Additionally, approximately 15 Master of Laws candidates, who have completed one year of graduate legal study, will be recognized.
A 1977 graduate of Georgia Law, Rives oversees a staff of more than 900 and a consolidated budget of over $200 million. He ensures the effective development and direct implementation of the association’s strategic goals and is responsible for the programs and policy activities adopted by the group’s governing and policy-making bodies as well as its membership.
Prior to joining the ABA, Rives served as the Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Air Force. The first military attorney to serve in three-star rank (lieutenant general), he was the legal adviser to the secretary of the Air Force and all officers and agencies of this branch of military service. As the senior U.S. Air Force attorney, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster and the Defense Superior Service Medal.
Rives earned both his bachelor’s and law degrees from UGA.
UGA School of Law
Consistently regarded as one of the nation’s top public law schools, the School of Law at the University of Georgia was established in 1859. With an accomplished faculty, which includes authors of some of the country’s leading legal scholarship, Georgia Law offers three degrees-the Juris Doctor, the Master of Laws in U.S. Law and the Master in the Study of Law-and is home to the renowned Dean Rusk Center for International Law and Policy. The school counts six U.S. Supreme Court judicial clerks in the last nine years among its distinguished alumni body of more than 9,700. For more information, see www.law.uga.edu.
