Professor W. McKinley Smiley Jr. Lighthouse Award

The Professor W. McKinley Smiley, Jr. Lighthouse Award is presented annually to an outstanding lawyer in the field of academics, legal scholarship and advocacy teaching and training. This award recognizes lifelong devotion to the noble profession of trial law. Honorees stand out as mentors to young lawyers and professional peers, thus the award’s name “Lighthouse Award” referring to the light that shines from the lighthouse providing guidance and direction to those weathering the storm. W. McKinley Smiley, Jr., for whom the award is named, embodied all that the award seeks to uphold.
 

Lighthouse Award Past Honorees

Professor W. McKinley Smiley, Jr. (1997)
Thomas F. Lambert (1998)
Professor Jerr J. Phillips (1999)
Tommy Malone (2001)
Gary Gober (2002)
Stanley E. Preiser (2004)
Frank Branson (2005)
J.D. Lee (2006)
John Morgan (2007)
W. Coleman Allen, Jr. (2008)
Mike Papantonio (2009)
Mary Beth Ramey & Richard Hailey (2010)
Kathleen Smiley (2011)
Lisa Blue (2012)
Charles J. Zauzig,III (2013)
Howard Nations (2014)
Peter Perlman (2015)
Adam Malone (2016)
Mary Lynn Tate (2017)
Charles G. Monnett, III (2018)
R. Lee Livingston (2019)
Joseph A. Fried (2020)
Pamela R. Mullis (2022)
Michael Haggard (2023)
Rebecca McRae Langston (2024)