Distinguished Professor Awards Program

Distinguished Professor

2020 Distinguished Professor

Professor Donald W. North

Vice Chancellor Donald W. North, Colonel North, the Johnny Cochran Endowed Law Professor at Southern University Law Center (SULC) received his Associate Degree in Criminal Justice and Bachelors Degree in Political Science from Grambling State University. He received his Juris Doctorate Degree from the Southern University Law Center in 1983.

Vice Chancellor North accepted a commission in the Army ROTC Program where he was first branched as a military police officer before being selected as an officer to join the Judge Advocate Generals Corp. He is currently retired from the United States Army, where he received numerous acknowledgments and awards. He is one of the first African American Louisiana Army Judge Advocate General Reservists to be promoted to the rank of Full Colonel.

After serving active on duty during Desert Storm One, Professor North returned to Louisiana to serve as a prosecutor in the Criminal Division of the Louisiana Department of Justice, handling cases in all 64 Louisiana parishes.

In 1998 he was offered a position as a Clinical Professor at SULC, before becoming Director of Clinical Education. Professor North left the Law Clinic in 2013 to become the Director of the Pro Bono Project. In 2015 he began serving as the Director of Experiential Learning and in 2019 Professor North was promoted to Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs.

Professor North is a member of the American Legion, a three-time member of the Board of Governors, the Law Institute and the Public Defender Board. He serves the Shady Grove First Missionary Baptist Church as Servant Treasurer and Deacon. He works as a volunteer with the Zachary Food Bank; and has served as an Ad Hoc Judge on many occasions in Baton Rouge City Court and operates a client community service program.

He has been married for over thirty-four years to the love of his life, Dr. Jyotibala Joy North, and has two children, Kimberly and Donald.

2019 Distinguished Professor

John M. Church

Professor John M. Church is an associate professor of law at Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center in Baton Rouge. He currently teaches courses in Torts, Products Liability, Antitrust Law, Wine Law, Toxic Torts, and Advanced Healthcare Law. Since 2014, Professor Church has directed LSU Law Center’s Apprenticeship Week, a unique program designed to expose 2L and 3L law students to specialized areas of practice in a concentrated one-week courses. Professor Church also serves as a mentor for the Legal Methods program that is put together in order to help guide some 1L students.

In addition to his teaching at the Law Center, Professor Church travels statewide to teach Continuing Legal Education courses on Torts and Antitrust. He has traveled to Lyon, France on eleven different summers to teach law at the Universite’ Aix-Marseille III, Aix-en Provence, France, and Universite’ Jean Moulin, Lyon, France. He is also co-author of two books “Tort Law: The American and Louisiana Perspectives” and “Louisiana Tort Law.” He is a current member of the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Board of Governors and Strategic Planning Committee.

Professor Church received his J.D. from the University of Colorado and his M.S. in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign and his B.S. in Economics from Central Michigan University. Prior to teaching at Louisiana State University Law Center, Professor Church was an associate at the Denver law firm of Davis, Graham, & Stubbs and also clerked for the Honorable Judge Robert H. McWilliams of the United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit Court.

Professor Church is an active member of Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church. He has been married for seven years to his wife Karen and is the father of four children (Miranda, John Michael, Audrey, and Alex).

2018 Distinguished Professor

Thomas C. Galligan, Jr.

Thomas C. Galligan, Jr., has been dean of the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center since July 1, 2016, and holds the James Huntington and Patricia Kleinpeter Odom Professorship of Law.He also teaches Torts and Admiralty: Maritime Torts.

Prior to his appointment as the dean of the LSU Law Center, he served as the President and Professor of Humanities at Colby-Sawyer College. He was formerly the dean and the Elvin E. Overton Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee College of Law, where he also taught torts and admiralty.

Galligan began his teaching career at the LSU Law Center where he initially taught from 1986-1998, where he was named the Dr. Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law.During his first tenure at LSU the students named him the Outstanding LSU Professor six times. From 1995-1998, he served as the Executive Director of the Louisiana Judicial College.

He holds an A.B. in Political Science from Stanford University, a J.D. from Seattle University School of Law where he graduated summa cum laude and first in his class, and an LL.M. from the Columbia University Law School.

He and his wife Susan have been married for 37 years and are the proud parents of Patrick, Sarah, Aisling, and Jennifer, and the proud parents-in-law of Jeremiah Gould and soon to be parents-in-law of Ethan O’Connell.

2017 Distinguished Professor

Professor Oliver A. Houck

Oliver A. Houck, the David Boies Chair in Public Interest Law at Tulane University, is a graduate of Harvard College (1960) and Georgetown Law Center (1967), with three intervening years of military service.He served as an Assistant US Attorney in Washington, DC and then General Counsel to the National Wildlife Federation, before joining the Tulane faculty in l981 where he has taught and published widely on environmental, criminal, and constitutional law issues.He is the author of two books featuring New Orleans, Down on the Batture, and Downstream Toward Home, and a history of seminal environmental cases around the world, Taking Back Eden, just re-published by the University of Peking Press in Beijing.

Professor Houck co-founded the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic, Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, and Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, and continues to provide pro bono assistance to local citizens. He has received several awards from the Law School and the University, and from others including New Orleans City Business, Gambit Magazine, the Young Leadership Council of New Orleans, the Tulane Black Law Student Association, and the American Bar Association.

Professor Houck and his wife Lisa raised two boys in New Orleans, where she has been an educator, school principal and social worker for special needs children.They came to the city for a one-year visit over 35 years ago, which says something about this place we live.

2016 Distinguished Professor

Howard W. L’Enfant, Jr.

LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center

Howard L’Enfant, the Henry Plauche’ Dart Professor of Law, retired from the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center in 2011 following a 40-year career as one of the school’s most distinguished and respected teachers. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1963, and completed his L.L.B. at LSU in 1966. He was the Editor-in-chief of the Louisiana Law Review and a member of The Order of the Coif and Phi Kappa Phi Honor Fraternity.

Following graduation, L’Enfant entered the private practice of law in New Orleans, but soon found his calling as he experienced teaching for the first time at Loyola University Law School. In 1969, he began what would become a lifetime career in teaching at LSU – a career that would influence four generations of students and future lawyers. During his time at LSU, L’Enfant also served as Acting Associate Dean, Vice Chancellor, and Interim Chancellor for the Law Center. He served on a variety of legal committees, having served as Reporter for the Continuing Revision of the Code of Civil Procedure for the Louisiana Law Institute, among other scholarly pursuits. He taught Evidence, Civil Procedure and Federal Courts throughout his teaching career.

L’Enfant was known for his fairness, warm personality, and love of the law. He made learning the law fun, according to his students.

L’Enfant is a native of New Orleans, and he is married to his wife, Jean Ann. They now reside part time in North Carolina. In 2002, he was ordained as an Episcopalian priest. He served as an Associate Pastor of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge.