Photo: Charles O'Kelley, Martin E. Kilpatrick Professor of Corporate and Finance Law. Photo by Peter Frey.

By Kathy R. Pharr

The law students who registered for Chuck O'Kelley's first UGA classes last fall noticed an unusual pre-class assignment from their professor: provide a copy of your résumé in advance. O'Kelley doesn't waste any time in getting to know his students.

"I give the students on the first day of class my résumé," says O'Kelley. "I want them to know who I am, where I've been and where I'm going, why I like to teach, and what I hope to do for them. But I also want to see who they are."

O'Kelley joined the law school faculty in the fall as the first Martin E. Kilpatrick Professor of Corporate and Finance Law. Although he's lived outside the South for 20 years, his students soon learned that he has strong ties to Georgia, and to Athens in particular.

O'Kelley was reared throughout Georgia, the oldest child of a county agent for UGA's cooperative extension service. (His father, who retired in 1975 after 29 years of service, now runs O.K. Christmas Tree Farm off Morton Road in Athens.) He left the state to obtain his undergraduate and legal education, then returned to practice law with two large Atlanta firms in the 1970s. In 1978, he pursued his dream of teaching, beginning his career at Tulane and ending up at Oregon, where he stayed 15 years and was a chaired professor and interim dean.

O'Kelley loved the Northwest and had no intention of leaving--until he realized he was still a Southerner at heart.

"So much of who I am and what I enjoy is linked to Georgia," he says. "I missed small things like the smell of springtime and the joy of SEC football on a perfect fall afternoon. I missed being really warm in the summer. But most of all, I missed being involved with the Georgia legal community, and I missed participating in the building of the New South."

O'Kelley liked what he heard about Georgia's progress and was particularly impressed by the impact of the HOPE scholarship program. So when he learned of the law school's national search for a senior professor to fill the Kilpat-rick Chair, his interest was piqued.

Reviewing the résumés the students provided him on the first day of class and teaching them for a few weeks has reinforced that impression. "Our student body is one of the best in the country," says O'Kelley, who serves on the law school admissions committee. "These students are very accomplished. They are all individuals who have made a difference in the past and are likely to make a difference in the future."

O'Kelley hopes to expand the opportunities for these exceptional students by creating cooperative programs with the business community, much as he did at Oregon. There, he was known for establishing the Law and Entrepreneurship Center, a multi-faceted interdisciplinary program designed to demonstrate the value lawyers create for their clients and society.

Although there are no concrete plans for a similar program at UGA, O'Kelley does sees parallels.

"We already have a J.D.-M.B.A. program, and I think we can draw on the relationship to create other opportunities," he says. "The fundamental thing, the most important thing for me to do, is to extend my experiences in creating the Law and Entrepreneurship Center at Oregon and to figure out a way to create similar opportunities here if there is an interest and a need."

O'Kelley spent the fall doing research and "getting his feet on the ground." That grounding included several meetings with Atlanta corporate leaders about useful programs and services. He hopes to have some initial programs in place by next fall, when he will add a course on partnerships and Delaware corporate law to his UGA teaching repertoire.

"I enjoy making things happen, creating opportunities for institutions I'm connected with, and I saw an opportunity here with the Kilpatrick chair to perhaps come back to Georgia and assist the law school in becoming what it wants to be and can become," he says.