Meet the Deans

Dean of the College of Law

Lonnie T. Brown, Jr. is the Dean and Elvin E. Overton Distinguished Professor of Law. He joined the College of Law in 2022, after spending 20 years at the University of Georgia School of Law where he was the A. Gus Cleveland Distinguished Chair of Legal Ethics and Professionalism and Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor, the university’s highest honor for teaching excellence. From 2013 to 2015, he served as Georgia Law’s associate dean for academic affairs.

Dean Brown’s research concentrates primarily on legal ethics in the adversary system, and he speaks and writes frequently in this area. He also has written a biography of former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark titled Defending the Public’s Enemy: The Life and Legacy of Ramsey Clark (Stanford University Press, 2019) and is a co-author of Professional Responsibility: A Contemporary Approach (West Academic, 2020).

Earlier in his career, Dean Brown was an assistant professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and served as a visiting assistant professor at Vanderbilt University. In addition, he taught at Emory University as an adjunct professor. He also served as a judicial clerk for Judge William C. O’Kelley of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. From 1991 to 1999, he practiced law as an associate and a partner at Alston & Bird LLP in Atlanta, Georgia.

Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Michael J. Higdon became an associate dean in the College of Law in August 2019. He teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law; legal process; sexuality, gender and the law; and family law.

He served for five years as a faculty member at the Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas before joining the faculty in Knoxville.

He received his J.D. in 2001 from the University of Nevada, graduating first in his class and receiving the James E. Rogers Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement.  

Interim Associate Dean for Faculty Development

Teri Dobbins Baxter practiced in the litigation and appellate sections inthe Houston office of Locke Liddell & Sapp LLP (now Locke Lord LLP) for five years before joining the faculty at Saint Louis University School of Law in 2002. While there, Professor Baxter taught Contracts, Commercial Law, and Secured Transactions as well as seminars focused on the Fourth Amendment, Privacy, and Family Law issues.

In 2013 Professor Baxter joined the University of Tennessee College of Law, where she continues to teach Secured Transactions and a Family and Privacy seminar, but has added Constitutional Law, and Torts. These new courses provide a great fit with her scholarly focus on family, privacy, and related constitutional issues.

In her free time, Professor Baxter loves reading, traveling, and generally hanging out with her husband and two children.

Interim Associate Dean for Diversity, Inclusion and Community Engagement

Associate Dean and Professor Michelle Kwon joined the UT faculty in 2011 after three years at Texas Tech University School of Law. Before entering academia, she was an associate, and eventually a partner, in the Dallas, Texas office of Thompson & Knight LLP, where she concentrated her practice in corporate tax planning.

She was also a senior attorney in the IRS’s Office of Chief Counsel for two years where she represented the IRS in U.S. Tax Court with specific emphasis on cases involving foreign currency option tax shelters and cases of individuals and small businesses. Professor Kwon is admitted to practice in Texas and before the U.S. Tax Court.

Associate Dean for Library and Technology Services

Scott Childs joined the UT College of Law in 2011 from the University of North Carolina
School of Law where he was the deputy director at the Katherine R. Everett Law Library and a Clinical Professor of Law since 2007. At UNC Law, he served as assistant director for public services since 2001, managing law library public services and coordinating the advanced legal research courses.

Prior to joining the staff at UNC Law, Childs served as head of reference at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and was both a reference librarian and headed the collection development at  Cornell Law School.

Professor Childs began his legal career with the Legal Services Corporation of Alabama, serving as a Staff Attorney and then as a Senior Staff Attorney until 1995.

Assistant Dean for Student Affairs

Having personally experienced the incalculable consequences of identifying a driving purpose in his life, Assistant Interim Dean Brad Morgan cherishes the opportunities in both his professional and personal life to assist others in identifying their values and goals, recognizing their strengths, and moving forward with intentionality.

Assistant Dean Morgan is a UT Law alumnus. He has extensive an legal background with strong ties to the legal community, and he is an expert in leadership and pro bono initiatives. He joined the College of Law in 2010 as the mentoring and Access to Justice coordinator and later served as the director of the Bettye B. Lewis Career Center.

A frequent speaker and occasional author, he looks for moments of shared dialogue and learning, believing that every interaction affords the occasion to walk away a better person than before. Having grown up in New Mexico, he believes that the correct answer to the question “red or green chile?” is almost always green.

Assistant Dean for Finance, Administration and Operations

David Price joined the College of Law in July 2022 and oversees the College of Law business office.