RALEIGH — Campbell Law Dean Emerita Melissa Essary has been appointed as a member of the Emerging Markets and Innovation Committee of the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), a new committee at LSAC. Essary previously served four years on the LSAC’s Finance and Legal Affairs Committee. The LSAC is a non-profit organization committed to promoting quality, access, and equity in law and education worldwide.
This past spring, Essary co-coached Campbell’s award-winning client counseling team of Tatiana DeBerry and Katie Webb. The duo won the National ABA Client Counseling Championship on March 23, 2019, beating out 108 teams from 69 law schools to take the title at the competition. The team then went on to win the world championship in Dublin, Ireland, at the Brown Mosten International Client Consultation Competition in May.
Essary joined Campbell Law School as its first female dean in July 2006 following a 16-year career as a professor at Baylor University School of Law. Essary, who was the law school’s fourth dean, led Campbell Law for six years before moving into a full-time faculty position in July 2012. During her tenure as dean, she was instrumental in making the law school’s trailblazing move from Buies Creek to downtown Raleigh, North Carolina’s state capital. At the time, North Carolina was the only large state without a law school located in its capital city.
Under Essary’s leadership, the law school realized unprecedented demand from highly credentialed prospective students, raised the profile and scholarship of law faculty, and developed new business and community partnerships throughout Raleigh and across the state.
The North Carolina Chief Justice recently appointed Essary to a three-year term on North Carolina’s Actual Innocence Commission, a unique commission among the 50 states that handles inmates’ claims of actual innocence. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Justice Center, a non-profit organization that is the state’s leading research and advocacy organization dedicated to transforming North Carolina’s prosperity into opportunity for all.
Since joining Campbell Law, Essary has been honored as a Woman of Justice by N.C. Lawyers Weekly. Other North Carolina media have honored her for her work and leadership in the Raleigh region, including recognition as a Triangle Area Woman Extraordinaire, Business Impact Leader and Education Impact Leader. She also received the Women of Achievement Award from the General Federation of Women’s Clubs of North Carolina in recognition of her professional and community work and serving as a role model for future generations.
Essary is a 1982 summa cum laude graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and a 1985 magna cum laude graduate of the Baylor University School of Law. While studying at Baylor Law, she served as Executive Editor of the Baylor Law Review. Following graduation, she served as a trial lawyer for two Texas firms, most notably the Vinson and Elkins firm of Dallas, where she litigated complex commercial cases. Essary joined the faculty at Baylor Law in 1990 where she taught courses primarily in Employment Discrimination Law and Torts Law. At Baylor, she won awards for both teaching and scholarship.
ABOUT CAMPBELL LAW
Since its founding in 1976, Campbell Law has developed lawyers who possess moral conviction, social compassion, and professional competence, and who view the law as a calling to serve others. Among its accolades, the school has been recognized by the American Bar Association (ABA) as having the nation’s top Professionalism Program and by the American Academy of Trial Lawyers for having the nation’s best Trial Advocacy Program. Campbell Law boasts more than 4,200 alumni, who make their home in nearly all 50 states and beyond. In 2019, Campbell Law is celebrating 40 years of graduating legal leaders and 10 years of being located in a state-of-the-art facility in the heart of North Carolina’s Capital City.