Stephen M. Sheppard
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William H. Enfield Professor of Law

B.A., J.D., Cert. Int'l L., LL.M., M.Litt., J.S.D.

Email: sheppard@uark.edu
Phone: (479) 575-7127 
 

Steve Sheppard began his teaching career at the University of Arkansas School of Law as a legal writing instructor in 1992. He taught then at the Cooley Law School in Michigan and worked as a graduate fellow at Columbia University before returning permanently to Fayetteville in 2001. He now teaches international and environmental law, constitutional law, legal history, and jurisprudence, property and remedies and other common law courses. He is also a member of the graduate faculty in Political Science, the core faculty in Public Policy, and the core faculty of the King Fahd Center for Middle Eastern Studies. In 2005, he taught in New York University's Global Law School Program in New York. He has lectured or presented scholarly papers in Australia, China, England, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden.

He is a faculty adviser to the International Law Society, the Journal of Islamic Law and Culture, the Environmental Law Society, and the H.L.A. Hart Society. His service includes enlistment and commission in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve and membership in the Iraq Advisory Group of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, in 2005.

He practiced law with Phelps Dunbar in its Louisiana, Mississippi, and London offices, and served as a law clerk to Judge William Barbour Jr. (the United States District Court, S.D. Miss.) and to Judge E. Grady Jolly Jr. (United States Court Appeals 5th Circuit). He is a member of the bar in Mississippi.

His first degree is in political science from the University of Southern Mississippi. He holds a law degree and the master of laws from Columbia University, as well as a post-J.D. certificate in international law from the Parker School for International and Comparative Law at Columbia. He was made Master of Letters by Oxford University and, in 2006 Professor Sheppard was made Doctor of the Science of Law in Columbia University, submitting his dissertation on "The Moral Obligations of Legal Officials."

Publications

American Law in a Global Context: The Basics with George P. Fletcher (Oxford University Press, 2005). An introduction to the law and law practice of the United States, written with comparisons to related concepts in other national legal systems. This book has been adopted as the primary course book for the Master of Laws course at Columbia, Indiana, Miami, New York University, UCLA, and other schools. Reviewed by Janet E. Stearns in 54 American Journal of Comparative Law 489 (2006); Kirk Randazo, 15 Law and Politics Book Review 617 (2005), at http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/lpbr/subpages/reviews/fletcher-sheppard705.htm; Amy Atchison & Catherine F. Halvorsen, Keeping up with New Legal Titles, 98 Law Library Journal 531 (2006).
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George P. Fletcher & Steve Sheppard, A Guide for Teachers: American Law in a Global Context: The Basics (Oxford University Press, 2005). A 250-page supplement serves also as the platform for web-based teaching support for the book.
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The Selected Writings of Sir Edward Coke (Three Volumes) (Liberty Fund, 2003) (revised edition, 2005). This anthology celebrates the 400th anniversary of the first publication of Coke's Reports and represents twelve years of research by the editor. It is the first collection ever made from the writings and speeches by Sir Edward Coke, the architect of the modern common law and the English idea of the rule of law. Drawn from Coke's Reports, judicial opinions, Institutes, minor treatises, and speeches in Commons, it includes extensive introductory, chronological, and scholarly matter by the editor. Reviewed in Charles M. Gray, Two Contributions to Coke Studies, 72 University of Chicago Law Review 1127 (2005), and in Achsah Guibbory, Recent Studies in the English Renaissance, 45 Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 (2005).
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The History of U.S Legal Education: Contemporary Essays and Primary Materials (Two Volumes) (Salem Press, 1998) (Lawbook Exchange, 2006). This reference work collects five original essays on the history of legal education with a collection of rare primary materials, as illuminated by other contemporary essays in a topical arrangement. Reviewed in 39 REFERENCE & USER SERVICES QUARTERLY 92 (1999).
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