Kellie Casey, director of advocacy, University of Georgia School of Law (Courtesy photo)

An Athens law firm has funded a University of Georgia School of Law scholarship in the name of the advocacy professor who a firm partner said was the voice inside his head when he became a trial lawyer.

Epps, Holloway, DeLoach & Hoipkemier has created the Kellie R. Casey Scholarship Fund, the law school announced Monday. The law school advancement office is accepting additional contributions to the fund. Starting this fall, a scholarship will be awarded to a law student with a demonstrated interest or achievement in advocacy.

Kellie Casey joined the law school as director of advocacy in the fall of 2000. She teaches appellate advocacy and serves as director of the law school's moot court and mock trial programs.

Previously, Casey practiced for more than eight years, first with the Atlanta law firm Freeman & Hawkins and then in private practice with Casey & Rowsey in Atlanta. She served two years as director of attorney recruiting for Special Counsel. She earned her law degree from UGA in 1990. She also received her bachelor's degree in criminal justice from UGA.

“I have known Kellie since she was a Georgia law student and an accomplished member of the advocacy program that I led at the time,” UGA President Jere Morehead said in a news release. “Her record then and her record since that time have been nothing short of superb. She spends countless hours coaching her students to be the best they can be in competitions, and she is admired and respected by our graduates for her dedication to their education and training and her personal mentorship.”

Morehead is a UGA law graduate himself. He joined the university faculty in 1986 and for the next nine years had one of the jobs that now belongs to Casey directing the law school's moot court program.

Under Casey's leadership, the law school's advocacy program has won 25 national championships, more than 40 regional titles and 15 state trophies. The victories include: the 2013-14 National Moot Court Competition title; the 2014 and 2019 Hunton Andrews Kurth Moot Court National Championships, an invitation-only “best of the best” tournament; the 2014, 2017 and 2018 South Texas Mock Trial Challenge national titles; and 10 trophies in the annual courtroom showdown with the University of Florida.

UGA law alumni Kevin Epps, Jeffrey DeLoach and Adam Hoipkemier led their firm to fund the scholarship in Casey's honor. They credited her leadership for UGA law graduates being “well-prepared to be formidable advocates for their clients.”

Casey coached DeLoach on the mock trial team when he was in law school there.

“As I spent three days trying my first jury trial, I may have been the only attorney at the table with my client, but I could hear Kellie's guidance in my heart throughout the trial,” DeLoach said. “At the trial's conclusion, I enjoyed a victory with an extremely happy client and have no doubt it was in large part because of the coaching I received from Kellie.”

In honor of the gift, the law school's advocacy program offices will be named the Epps, Holloway, DeLoach & Hoipkemier Student Advocacy Program Suite.