Since 1984, a randomly selected panel of three established judges from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has presided over oral arguments in the University of Mississippi Law School courtroom every three years. Judges Rhesa Barksdale, Stephen Higginson and Stuart Duncan have heard 11 cases this week and will hear two more at 9 a.m on Thursday. 

“The legal academy has been criticized for being too disconnected from the profession,” Higginson said. “Hopefully, little efforts like this allow that interaction, so the students get to really see how cases and issues play out.” 

Barksdale, who has been on the court for nearly 30 years, said the idea behind the three-year rotation is that every student who graduates from the law school will get to hear from the court at least once. 

 “We think it’s important for the students to see the appellate courts,” Barksdale said. “Our court system sits in a few law schools from time to time throughout our circuit in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. I think it’s good for them, and I think it’s good for our court.”

While Ole Miss is not the only university campus where the Fifth Circuit hears cases, Barksdale, Higginson and Duncan agreed that it is the school where they feel the most welcome. 

“The people who come to hear our arguments in New Orleans are engaged, but the students here have a different level of engagement with the arguments,” Duncan, who was on faculty at the university before his judgeship, said. “We feel that much more valued in terms of what we’re doing up here.”

Intellectual property, admiralty, tax and federal criminal cases are some of the case classifications that the judges have heard on campus. 

“We have such diverse cases. I doubt any circuit has more diversity in its cases than we do,” Barksdale said. “The Ninth Circuit, perhaps, but I doubt it.”