Former MC Law dean receives Fifth Circuit professionalism award
Patricia Bennett, dean emerita of the Mississippi Christian University School of Law, received the prestigious 2026 American Inns of Court James E. Coleman Jr. Award for Professionalism in the Fifth Circuit during the Fifth Circuit Judicial Conference May 5-7 in Houston, Texas.
Bennett served as dean of MC Law from 2016 until her retirement in 2022. Judge Carl E. Stewart and American Inns of Court Executive Director LTG Joseph B. Berger III (Ret.) presented the award.
“I am elated that I was selected for this prestigious award,” Bennett said. “It is a highlight of my legal career.”
Current MC Law Dean John Anderson commended Bennett on the honor.
“After more than half a decade of her leadership, Dean Bennett turned the deanship over to me with MC Law in an excellent financial and academic position,” said Anderson, who also serves as the Henry Vaughan Watkins and Selby Watkins McRae Professor of Law and treasurer of the Charles Clark American Inn of Court in Jackson. “Our recent record-setting admissions, bar pass and employment numbers at MC Law are due in large part to programs and practices first adopted and developed under Dean Bennett.”
Bennett began what Anderson called her “legendary” academic career at MC Law in 1989. She served as a tenured professor and director of the school’s Litigation and Dispute Resolution Center until 2016, when she became dean.
Bennett also has extensive judicial experience. The Mississippi Supreme Court appointed her to oversee Hurricane Katrina litigation from 2008 to 2014. She also oversaw appeals of claims related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2011 and 2012.
Earlier, she implemented a drug treatment and rehabilitation pretrial diversion program as a special circuit judge for Hinds County. Bennett served in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps while a captain in the Mississippi Army National Guard Reserve and U.S. Army Reserve from 1984 to 1992.
Among other public service positions, Bennett has served as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, a special assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, and assistant district attorney for the Seventh Circuit Court District.
Bennett served as president of the Mississippi Bar Association from 2018 to 2019 and president of the Fifth Circuit Federal Bar Association from 2006 to 2008. She served as president of the Charles Clark American Inn of Court from 2014 to 2016 and as the chapter’s secretary/treasurer from 2016 to 2022.
Bennett earned her undergraduate degree from Tougaloo College in 1975 and her law degree from MC Law in 1979.
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