Debbie Bell
The new namesake of our Senate
Professor Deborah Hodges Bell received her J.D. from the University of Mississippi in 1979. She served as Editor-in-Chief of the Mississippi Law Journal. Bell clerked for Judge Elbert P. Tuttle of the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and was a staff attorney for the Atlanta Legal Aid Society.
Bell served as Interim Dean for a two-year period, from July 2015 to July 2017. A member of the law faculty since 1981, Bell has taught Commercial Law, Property, Family Law, Housing Law, Lawyering Skills and Poverty Law. She is the founder of the law school’s Civil Legal Clinic and was its Director until 2009. She is currently developing a new law school program, the UM Pro Bono Initiative.
In May 2013, Bell was appointed to serve as the law school’s first Associate Dean for Clinical Programs. She leads the law school’s expanded clinical program, which includes ten clinic practice areas.
Bell’s primary area of expertise is family law. Her treatise, “Bell on Mississippi Family Law” is widely used by chancellors and family law practitioners. Bell served as attorney for the Governor’s Housing Task Force in 1988-89 and was involved in drafting legislation that created the Mississippi Home Corporation and the Mississippi Landlord-Tenant Act of 1991. She has served on the Access to Justice Commission Pro Se Committee, the Mississippi Gender Fairness Task Force, and the Supreme Court Domestic Violence Task Force.
Bell was the 2009 recipient of the Mississippi Bar Susie Blue Buchanan Award, the 2007 recipient of the Mississippi Center for Justice Champion of Justice Award, the 2005 recipient of the University of Mississippi Law Faculty Public Service Award, the 2006 recipient of the Mississippi Bar Outstanding Woman Lawyer of the Year Award, and the 2005 recipient of the Mississippi Bar President’s Award for her work on the Hurricane Katrina Manual.
bell@olemiss.edu
Mary Ann Connell
Mary Ann Connell practices law with Mayo Mallette, PLLC. She served as university attorney for the University of Mississippi from 1982 to 2003 and as school board attorney for the Oxford School District from 2003 13. Connell teaches courses in higher education law, school law, legal research and writing, business law, and employment law. She is a frequent presenter at national, regional, and state conferences on subjects involving higher education and school law. She is a past president of the National Association of College and University Attorneys, past president of the Mississippi Council of School Board Attorneys, and a fellow of the Mississippi Bar Foundation. She received the Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of College and University Attorneys; the Distinguished Service Award from the Lafayette County Bar Association; the Thomas S. Biggs, Jr. Award for leadership, integrity, and service in the legal profession and the higher education community from Stetson University Law School; the NAACP Freedom Award for lifelong service in the area of education and civil rights; the Mississippi Women Lawyers Association Outstanding Woman Lawyer in Mississippi Award; the University of Mississippi Chancellor s Award for outstanding contributions toward increasing diversity; and the Mortar Board National College Senior Honor Society Award for outstanding teacher of the year.
mconnell@olemiss.edu
Michael Hoffheimer
Professor of Law and Jamie L. Whitten Chair of Law and Government
Education:
Ph.D., University of Chicago
M.A., University of Chicago
J.D., University of Michigan
B.A., The Johns Hopkins University
A member of The University of Mississippi School of Law faculty since 1987, Professor Hoffheimer practiced law for three years in Cincinnati, Ohio as an associate with the law firm of Frost and Jacobs (now Frost Brown Todd) where he was also appointed trial attorney by federal and state courts for indigent defendants in criminal cases.
Prof. Hoffheimer teaches Civil Procedure, Criminal Law, Conflict of Laws, Remedies and Legal History.
Prof. Hoffheimer has published more than 75 articles, chapters and reviews on legal, philosophical, and historical topics, and his scholarship has been cited by state and federal courts. His books are Conflict of Laws: Examples and Explanations (Aspen 2010),Eduard Gans and the Hegelian Philosophy of Law (Kluwer 1995), and Justice Holmes and the Natural Law (Garland 1992). He compiled Lexis’s Directory of Law Reviews (available online) and is the author of Fiddling for Viola (2000).
Matthew Hall
Associate Professor of Law and Jesse D. Puckett, Jr., Lecturer
Matthew R. Hall teaches 1L Property in the Fall and a 1L elective in Legislation in the Spring. In January, you will find him teaching a section of the 1L Contract Negotiation and Drafting course in the Skill Session. For upper-level students, he teaches Immigration Law in the Fall, Criminal Procedure II: Adjudication in the Spring, and Federal Trial Practice in the May Intersession. Over the years, Professor Hall has also taught Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Immigration Law, National Security Law, and a seminar on Future Law. He is also the faculty advisor to the Moot Court Board.
Professor Hall recently finished up several years as Senior Associate Dean and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Over the past several years, he has also worked extensively with undergraduates, teaching Intelligence Communications for the University’s Intelligence and Security Studies program and Introduction to Law for students at the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College.
Professor Hall’s scholarly interests focus on the intersection of immigration law, criminal law and procedure, and national security law. Currently, he is working on an article on the opposite of civil disobedience – hyper obedience and individualized criminal law.
Before joining the faculty in 2001, Professor Hall worked as an attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served in the Civil Division’s Office of Immigration Litigation and specialized in national security and counter-terrorism matters. Professor Hall obtained his position at Justice through the Attorney General’s Honors Program. While with the Justice Department, Professor Hall worked on certiorari oppositions before the U.S. Supreme Court; he handled appeals in nine of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, and he litigated cases in a dozen different U.S. District Courts.
Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Professor Hall held two clerkships with federal judges. First, he served as a judicial clerk for Judge Terence T. Evans, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He then clerked for Judge John G. Heyburn II, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky.
Professor Hall received his J.D., summa cum laude, from the University of Kentucky College of Law, where he graduated Order of the Coif. In law school, he earned a spot on the Moot Court Board and he was Editor-in-Chief of the Kentucky Law Journal. Hall received his B.A., cum laude, from Harvard University, where he studied Government.
