The University of Georgia School of Law has announced the establishment of The Be Kind Fund, in memory of the late Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice P. Harris Hines. The fund’s title is based on a frequent mantra of the late justice – “Be Kind” – and was initiated by the law school’s Board of Visitors – of which the late justice was a member – in consultation with the Hines family and School of Law Dean Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge.
The fund will:
- sponsor a Georgia Jurist-in-Residence, where a Georgia judge or justice will spend a period in residence at the School of Law teaching and interacting with students each year.
- support semester/summer fellowships for students, with preference given to those who will work or serve as judicial clerks at the Supreme Court of Georgia.
- fund scholarship aid for law students.
Hines, who passed away on Nov. 4, 2018, was appointed to the Georgia Supreme Court in 1995 by then-Gov. Zell Miller. He became presiding justice in 2013 and chief justice in 2017, and retired from the state’s highest court in August 2018.
While Hines did not attend the University of Georgia, the justice often joked he was a “Bulldog by proxy.” He regularly attended School of Law events and activities and had served as a member of the law school’s Board of Visitors since 2009.
