Former Students and Colleagues Establish Scholarship Honoring Longtime Professor Tom Eaton

 

Dear alumni, alumnae and friends,

 

It is with tremendous pride that I share that dozens of alumni, alumnae, friends and colleagues have come together to honor Thomas A. “Tom” Eaton, Hosch Professor of Law Emeritus, with a scholarship bearing his name.

 

“I can think of no other professor who had a more profound impact on my enthusiasm for becoming a lawyer,” said alumnus Reggie Smith, who contributed to the scholarship fund with his wife, Leigh McCranie Smith (both are 1987 law school graduates). “He had a passion for teaching first-year law students, and his ability to engage with his students in teaching the analytical skills required to become a lawyer was remarkable. This skill was obviously borne out of a true love for teaching, which is something that can’t be faked. He set the gold standard for teaching while I was at the law school, and I will be forever grateful for having him as a professor.”

 

Another 1987 alumnus, Mike Terry said Prof. Eaton influenced his enthusiasm for and approach to the law from the first week of his first year of law school. He added, “Tom continued to have a positive influence on me and my classmates throughout law school, and he kept up with us and followed our careers. Messages of encouragement or congratulations regularly followed big events or career milestones. And he has always been there when I wanted to discuss complex or challenging legal questions. When the opportunity came to lead the push for the Eaton Scholarship, I took it as an honor. There is no one more deserving of this than Prof. Eaton. He epitomizes the phrase used to describe those who are altruistically devoted to helping others rather than using their talents to advance themselves:  ‘sic vos non vobis.’”  

 

The Thomas A. Eaton Scholarship Fund will benefit law students who have overcome significant adversity and who show great promise of making substantial contributions to the public good and the legal profession. Additionally, preference may be given to those who have lived, worked or studied in the state of Texas, particularly those who have attended the University of Texas, where Prof. Eaton earned his bachelor’s and law degrees.

 

“To have a scholarship named after me is a great honor,” Prof. Eaton said. “For that scholarship to be initiated by my former students is the greatest honor a professor could ever hope for. It is, without question, the capstone of my time at UGA teaching law. I cannot imagine a career that would mean more to me than the one I had. For 40 years I had the privilege of working with bright, motivated, and talented students. I can’t thank you all enough for this honor you have bestowed upon me.”

 

I know you join me in congratulating Prof. Eaton on this tremendous honor and thanking those who made it possible. I also want to share that Prof. Eaton will be presented with the Law School Association’s Distinguished Service Scroll Award – its most prestigious recognition – on April 1. Please be on the lookout for more information regarding this high honor.

 

Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge

Dean & Talmadge Chair of Law

 

 

Prof. Eaton joined the law school faculty in 1979 and taught in the areas of torts, constitutional litigation, health care regulation and workers’ compensation. In 1993, he was named a Hosch Professor and one decade later he became the law school’s only professor to receive a UGA Creative Research Medal (for his systematic and in-depth study of tort litigation with the late Susette Talarico). He is the author of Constitutional Torts, Constitutional Remedies: A Reference Guide to the United States Constitution and Cases and Materials on Workers’ Compensation. He has testified before state and federal legislative committees on a variety of subjects. While on the faculty, he helped establish the school’s mock trial program, the Equal Justice Foundation and what is now the Clarke-Carley Inn of Court. After retiring from the law school in 2015, he served on the law school’s Board of Visitors and was a part-time professor through 2018. 

 

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