Samford University Cumberland School of Law, in partnership with the Alabama chapter of the American College of Trial Lawyers, will host its premiere advocacy-based Continuing Legal Education (CLE) conference, the Jere F. White Jr. Trial Advocacy Institute, Nov. 8, 2024, in Birmingham, Alabama.

Greg Sankey, commissioner of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), will serve as the keynote speaker.

Sankey became the eighth commissioner of the SEC in 2015. He first joined the league’s staff in 2002 after serving as commissioner of the Southland Conference, a position to which he was appointed at the age of 31. He joined the Southland Conference in 1992 after serving as director of Compliance and Academic Services at Northwestern State University where he coached the golf teams for two years. Before his tenure at Northwestern State, he was the director of Intramural Sports at Utica College in upstate New York. A native of Auburn, New York, Sankey earned his master’s from Syracuse University and his undergraduate degree from the State University of New York College at Cortland. 

The CLE event is named for Cumberland School of Law alumnus Jere F. White Jr. Proceeds from the event benefit the law school’s Jere F. White Jr. Fellows Program, which he and his wife established before he passed away in 2011. The conference  will also feature fellows of the American College of Trial Lawyers.

The event is approved for six hours of CLE credit, including one ethics hour, in Alabama, and is pending approval in Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Registration will be available on Sept. 3 at samford.edu/go/advocacy-institute.

For more information, contact Cumberland School of Law’s Continuing Legal Education department at 205-726-2391 or lawcle@samford.edu.