Taylor Porter Featured in LSU Law Dean Council’s Spotlight

January 29, 2020

Click here to read the Dean's Council Membership Report

Taylor Porter is featured in the January 2020 LSU Law Center's publication of the "Dean's Council Membership Report." Taylor Porter has the largest number of LSU Law Dean's Council members than any other firm with 23 attorney members. 

Taylor Porter has many close connections to LSU Law that date back decades. Approximately 75 percent of its attorneys are LSU Law graduates, several of whom are adjunct faculty members who also regularly volunteer to lend their expertise during Apprenticeship Week, the Trial Advocacy Program, moot court competitions and other events at the Law Center. The firm annually funds a scholarship named in memory of its late partners Benjamin B. Taylor Sr. and Charles V. Porter, and each year its summer law clerk program provides many LSU Law students with hands-on experience and professional mentoring at the firm.

One reason for the firm’s high rate of Dean’s Council participation is that it incentivizes attorneys to join by providing a three-to-one financial match for membership. The idea for the match came from former Taylor Porter Managing Partner Shelby McKenzie, a 1964 LSU Law graduate who retired about five years ago. He brought the idea to his fellow partners at the firm shortly after the Dean’s Council was established in 1999. The Dean’s Council is the leadership giving level of the Annual Fund. Gifts help underwrite the more than $5 million in tuition waivers we award each year to bring the best and brightest to LSU Law.

The article is featured below.


DEAN'S COUNCIL SPOTLIGHT
Taylor Porter

Baton Rouge-based law firm Taylor Porter has many close connections to LSU Law that date back decades. Approximately 75% of its attorneys are LSU Law graduates, several of whom are adjunct faculty members who also regularly volunteer to lend their expertise during Apprenticeship Week, the Trial Advocacy Program, moot court competitions and other events at the Law Center.

The firm annually funds a scholarship named in memory of its late partners Benjamin B. Taylor Sr. and Charles V. Porter, and each year its summer law clerk program provides many LSU Law students with hands-on experience and professional mentoring at the firm.

And among all the law firms that are represented on the LSU Law Dean’s Council, Taylor Porter has the largest number of members from any single firm — currently 23.

One reason for the firm’s high rate of Dean’s Council participation is that it incentivizes attorneys to join by providing a three-to-one financial match for membership. The idea for the match came from former Taylor Porter Managing Partner Shelby McKenzie, a 1964 LSU Law graduate who retired about five years ago. He brought the idea to his fellow partners at the firm shortly after the Dean’s Council was established in 1999.

“My heart has always been with the LSU Law school, which I’ve always felt provided me with a great education that was extremely important to the success of my career,” says McKenzie, who graduated first in his class, has served as an adjunct faculty member and was a Distinguished Alumni of the Year honoree in 2005. “So I’ve always felt deep in my heart that I should give them all the support I can, and when I brought the idea for the Dean’s Council match, the other partners were all for it because they also had relationships with LSU that went way, way back.”

Dean’s Council membership continued to grow during the nine years that Harry J. “Skip” Philips served as managing partner of Taylor Porter. Philips, a 1983 LSU Law graduate and Order of the Coif member, has been a very active adjunct faculty member for the past 30 years. He currently teaches one course each semester, he annually leads classes during Apprenticeship Week and the Trial Advocacy Program, and each fall he teaches a CLE course during Reunion Weekend.

“The majority of our attorneys are graduates and they’re inclined to support LSU Law—though we also have some who aren’t even alums who are Dean’s Council members—but I think the match is what really makes this work,” says Philips. “If we could get some of the other major firms to do the same thing or something similar, we could really increase membership.”

When Bob Barton became managing partner about a year ago, he says there was never a question that the match program would continue.

“Everyone here, even those like me who didn’t go to LSU Law, recognizes the value of our relationship with the law school and our participation in the Dean’s Council,” says Barton, who earned his undergraduate degree at LSU and is an adjunct faculty member at the law school. “LSU Law is critical to our success. We always do on-campus recruiting at the law school, and a lot of our summer associates and new attorneys come from LSU Law—and we’ve always been very happy with the quality of lawyers that we’ve hired.”

Taylor Porter lawyers who are members of the Dean’s Council include: Bob Barton, Anne Jordan Crochet (’83), Vicki M. Crochet (’80), Nancy C. Dougherty (’79), Brett Furr (’86), Michael Grace (’18), Eugene R. Groves (’70), Ann M. Halphen (’86), C. Michael Hart (’84), Rebecca Hinton (’06), Amy Collier Lambert (’96), Lloyd J. Lunceford (’83) Justin T. Mannino (’13), John F. McDermott (’78), W. Shelby McKenzie (’64), T. Coulter McMahen (’17), Barrye Miyagi (’92), J. Michael Parker (’78) William H. Patrick IV (’19), Harry J. “Skip” Philips Jr. (’83), David Shelby (’93), Michael S. Walsh (’83) and Robin P. Toups (’06).

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