JANS – Jackson attorney Patricia W. Bennett received the prestigious 2026 American Inns of Court James E. Coleman Jr. Award for Professionalism in the Fifth Circuit. Bennett served as dean of the Mississippi College School of Law from 2016 until her retirement in 2022. She received the award from Judge Carl E. Stewart and American Inns of Court Executive Director LTG Joseph B. Berger III (Ret.) at the Fifth Circuit Judicial Conference held May 5-7, 2026, in Houston, TX.
“After more than half a decade of her leadership, Dean Bennett turned the deanship over to me with MC Law in an excellent financial and academic position,” writes John P. Anderson, who also serves as the Henry Vaughan Watkins and Selby Watkins McRae Professor of Law and treasurer of the Charles Clark American Inn of Court in Jackson, Mississippi. “Our recent record-setting admissions, bar pass, and employment numbers at MC Law are due in large part to programs and practices first adopted and developed under Dean Bennett.”
Bennett began what Anderson called her “legendary” academic career at Mississippi College School of Law in 1989. She served as a tenured professor and director of the school’s Litigation and Dispute Resolution Center until 2016, when she became dean…