In a special program to benefit the future UNT College of Law, the UNT System and Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP will present an evening with best-selling author Scott Turow on Nov. 29. The event begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Belo Mansion, 2101 Ross Avenue in downtown Dallas. The entertainment highlight of the evening will come when Turow, who is also an attorney, reads from his new novel, Limitations. Copies of the book - set for release Nov. 14 - will be available at the event.

UNT Chancellor Lee F. Jackson will give attendees an update on the UNT System's plans to bring a public law school to downtown Dallas.

The Dallas-Fort Worth region is the largest metropolitan area in the nation without a public law school and the UNT System and the City of Dallas are working together to change that. The city has offered to donate the historic Municipal Courts Building to house the new law school and it has offered to share the renovation costs that the UNT System will be asking lawmakers to fund in the 2007 legislative session.

Among the points Jackson will make in addressing the need for a new law school is that the North Texas economy generates about 1,700 new legal jobs each year but only trains 325 law graduates annually.

Funds raised at the event will support the planning and founding endowment of the new law school.

"When the UNT College of Law begins its operation, it is very important to quickly move beyond basic levels of state-funded teaching and service and to reach the highest expectations of our community. To realize our goals, we'll need private support and a good financial base to supplement state funding," Jackson says.

Texas Tech opened the last state-supported law school in Texas in 1967.

In recent years, Turow's books include seven best-selling novels - Presumed Innocent (1987), The Burden of Proof (1990), Pleading Guilty (1993), The Laws of Our Fathers (1996), Personal Injuries (1999), Reversible Errors (2002) and Ordinary Heroes (2005).

He has been a partner in the Chicago office of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal since 1986. In his legal activities, Turow concentrates on white collar criminal defense and devotes a substantial part of his time to pro bono projects.

UNT News Service Phone Number: (940) 565-2108
Contact: Roddy Wolper (940) 565-2943
Email: rwolper@unt.edu