HPU’s New Law Students Learn from Retired Texas Chief Justice at Access to Justice Practicum

HIGH POINT, N.C., Jan. 17, 2025 – Nathan Hecht, the longest-serving justice in the history of the Texas Supreme Court, visited High Point University only a few days after retiring from the bench to teach an accelerated course to the inaugural class of HPU’s Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law.

Hecht was first elected to the Texas Supreme Court in 1988 and served as its chief justice for more than a decade before retiring at the end of last year. He shared his extensive legal knowledge and passion for all Americans having equal justice under the law as one of 30 guest lecturers at HPU’s Access to Justice Practicum from Jan. 6-9.

The list of prestigious guest lecturers included North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Tamara Barringer, retired U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Bernice Donald and Jonathan Lippman, the retired chief judge of New York.

“It was invaluable to have Access to Justice leaders like Texas Chief Justice Hecht spend a week with our students,” said Mark Martin, the founding dean of the Kenneth F. Kahn School of Law and a former chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. “We made good on our promise to emphasize practical skills development and remove needless barriers between legal education and the legal profession. We also hope the practicum instilled a greater sensitivity in our students to the formidable challenges people of modest means face in obtaining civil legal services.”

While on campus, Hecht taught HPU’s first-year law students about the importance of access to justice during a four-day seminar. He spoke to them about how not every person can get fair, affordable legal assistance and what they could do to help fix the problem once they graduate from law school and become attorneys.

Hecht then gave the keynote address at a luncheon attended by students and members of the High Point Bar Association inside Congdon Hall on Jan. 8. Afterward, Martin presented the retired chief justice with the school’s inaugural Lawyer in the Arena Award. The award’s name comes from a famous quote from U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt: “It is not the critic who counts,” but the credit instead belongs to the person “who is actually in the arena.”

“Access to justice has been an issue for a long time, but it’s really gotten critical in the last 15-20 years,” Hecht said. “And so here are students who probably don’t know that much about it. A lot of the general public doesn’t know that much about it, and so students are being introduced to it. It’s going to be a real part of their practice and their lives as lawyers, so it’s exciting. It’s exciting to see their excitement.”

Hecht said he has been friends with Martin for a long time, dating back to when they would meet twice a year at the national Conference of Chief Justices. The conference allows the highest judicial officer for all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and three U.S. territories to get together to discuss legal matters and issues facing the courts. Hecht is the longest-serving past president of the Conference of Chief Justices.

Some of the other guest lecturers at the Access to Justice Practicum included:

• Stuart Albright, senior resident superior court judge for Guilford County, North Carolina
• Ashley Campbell, CEO of Legal Aid of North Carolina
• Jimbo Perry, executive director of the Chief Justice’s Commission on Professionalism
• Jennifer Martin, former chief assistant district attorney and HPU professor of law and director of clinical programs
• John Nieman, former chief public defender for Guilford County, North Carolina, and HPU’s community law clinic chair
• Jerry Tillet, North Carolina senior resident superior court judge for Judicial District 1
• Janet Ward Black, principal owner of Ward Black Law in Greensboro, North Carolina