State Supreme Court Justices to Lead Judges Day Program at University of Arkansas

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Two Arkansas Supreme Court justices will join fellow judges, attorneys, professors and journalists at the University of Arkansas for Judges Day, a seminar to focus on the inherent conflicts between the media and the judiciary.

Arkansas Supreme Court Justices Annabelle Clinton Imber and Robert L. “Bob” Brown will lead presenters for the all-day seminar Monday, April 20, at the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Enterprise Development.

Registration opens at 8 a.m. and is open all day for Continuing Legal Education participants. The presentations begin at 8:45 a.m. will end at 5:15 p.m., with a 90-minute break for lunch at noon. Participants are encouraged to park in the Harmon Avenue Parking Facility across the street from the Reynolds Center.

The program is free and open to the public, but attorneys seeking six hours of CLE credit will pay a $20 fee. The six hours include one hour of ethics.

Judges Day is sponsored by the Washington County Bar Association, the Walter J. Lemke department of journalism, the School of Law, and the university and northwest Arkansas chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists, in association with the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Courts and Media, as a part of its nationwide Judges in Journalism Schools Project.

Topics to be covered include an overview of the American judicial system; the first and sixth amendments; the role of the courts in defining press rights; reporters’ confidential sources from the court’s perspective; cameras in the courtroom; and ethical considerations for attorneys and journalists.

A Web site at www.uark.edu/~kshurlds/JudgesDay.html  is available for directions on parking, maps to the campus and other information.(The home page for the Judges Day event, at www.uark.edu/~kshurlds/JudgesDay.html, contained some out-of-date information about where the event will be held. The event will be at the Reynolds Center, as the the press release correctly stated. The Web page has been corrected.)