School of Law professor Randy Beck has been appointed the first holder of the Justice Thomas O. Marshall Chair of Constitutional Law. This chair was established by Angie Fitts Marshall in honor of her late husband, Thomas O. Marshall Jr., and is designed to strengthen the programs of the law school by supporting the work of a full professor of outstanding national reputation.
A dedicated teacher as well as scholar, Beck joined the Georgia Law faculty in 1997. He teaches property, trusts and estates, Christian perspectives on legal thought and constitutional law. His scholarship includes articles in journals, such as the American Journal of Legal History, the Northwestern University Law Review and the UC Davis Law Review.
Beck has been honored on numerous occasions with the law school’s John C. O’Byrne Memorial Award for Furthering Faculty-Student Relations as well as with its C. Ronald Ellington Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Beck served as a judicial clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. He also worked more than five years as a general litigation associate with the firm Perkins Coie in Seattle and was an attorney-adviser in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. He graduated first in his class from Southern Methodist University School of Law and earned his undergraduate degree from Baker University.
A 1948 Georgia Law graduate, Marshall had a long and distinguished legal career that included service as a judge for the Superior Courts of Georgia Southwestern Circuit, the Court of Appeals of Georgia and the Supreme Court of Georgia, where he was chief justice from 1986 to 1989. Prior to entering law school, Marshall served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, where he earned the Bronze Star and Navy Unit Commendation.
