Athens, Ga. – Alan Watson, retired Distinguished Research Professor and holder of the Ernest P. Rogers Chair of Law at the University of Georgia, has received an honorary professorship from the University of Edinburgh. A title conferred only on individuals of high academic distinction, the professorship will run for 10 years and will require Watson to give lectures and seminars at the university.
Watson has had a close working relationship with the University of Edinburgh for many years. He held the Chair of Civil Law at the university from 1968 to 1980, and he earned his doctor of laws from the school in 1980. He was named an honorary visiting professor of private law in 1997 and five years later was presented with an honorary doctor of laws. In April, the university announced it would rename its prestigious Legal History Discussion Group to the Alan Watson Seminar.
A world-renowned legal scholar and a master of more than one dozen languages, Watson is regarded as one of the foremost authorities on Roman law, comparative law, legal history, and law and religion. He has lectured at universities in the U.S., France, Germany, Holland, Israel, Italy, Poland, Serbia and South Africa. A prolific writer, Watson has authored more than 150 books and articles. He has earned seven degrees from the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Oxford and has been awarded six honorary degrees from the universities of Belgrade, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Palermo, Pretoria and Stockholm.
UGA School of Law
Consistently regarded as one of the nation’s top public law schools, the UGA School of Law 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 and the Master in the Study of Law-and is home to the renowned Dean Rusk Center for International Law and Policy. Its advocacy program is counted among the nation’s best, winning four national championships in 2013-14 alone. Georgia Law counts six U.S. Supreme Court judicial clerks in the past nine years among its distinguished alumni body of approximately 10,000. For more information, see www.law.uga.edu.