Nancy Bellhouse May, A.B., J.D., Editor
J. Thomas Sullivan, B.A., J.D., LL.M., Founder and Senior Editor
Coleen M. Barger, B.A., J.D., Developments Editor
Melissa M. Serfass, B.A., J.D., M.A.L.S., Research Editor
Lindsey P. Gustafson, B.A., J.D., Technical Editor
Jessie Wallace Burchfield, B.A., J.D., M.L.S., Articles Editor
Brent E. Newton, B.A., J.D., Contributing Editor
Nancy Bellhouse May, the editor of The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, is a research professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. Before joining the Law School, she was a partner at Little Rock's Wright, Lindsey & Jennings LLP, where she chaired the Intellectual Property section and was a founding member of the Appellate Practice section. During her sixteen years in private practice, she spoke frequently at continuing legal education programs about intellectual property and legal writing, and wrote the section in Handling Appeals in Arkansas that addresses writing the brief.
A former member of the editorial board of The Trademark Reporter and now a member of the Board of Advisers for The Green Bag Almanac & Reader, she brings to the editor’s job extensive experience as an appellate lawyer, a longstanding interest in legal writing, and a background as a freelance writer. Her work has appeared in Scribes, The Winning Brief, The Trademark Reporter, Voir Dire, The Arkansas Lawyer, and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Professor May is a graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and she is also a magna cum laude graduate of Bowdoin College. Although editing The Journal is her primary responsibility, she has taught Intellectual Property at the Law School.
J. Thomas Sullivan, who founded The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, is a professor of law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law and an adjunct professor of law and psychiatry at the medical school of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. He earned his B.A., with highest honors, and his LL.M. from the University of Texas at Austin, and his J.D. from Southern Methodist University. Now a senior editor at The Journal, Professor Sullivan teaches courses in criminal law and procedure and in law and psychiatry, and leads a popular seminar entitled Film and Criminal Law.
He also represents criminal defendants before trial and appellate courts, often in high-profile cases. Licensed to practice in three states, he has argued before the United States Supreme Court, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fifth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits, the Supreme Courts of Texas and New Mexico, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and a number of intermediate appellate courts.
Professor Sullivan’s scholarly writing, which has appeared in a number of law reviews and other publications, focuses on criminal law and procedure, appellate practice, and workers’ compensation. He is a director of the Eighth Circuit Appellate Practice Institute, and also directs the annual capital defense seminar for Arkansas attorneys.
Melissa M. Serfass, who earned an M.A. in Library and Information Science from the University of South Florida and a J.D. from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, is the research editor of The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process. As the electronic resources and reference librarian at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock/Pulaski County Law Library and a professor of law librarianship at the law school, she teaches online legal research and provides reference assistance to the many users of the combined academic and county law library: law students, law-school faculty, attorneys and judges, students at area colleges, and members of the public.
Professor Serfass serves as editor of the Special Interest Section News column in Spectrum, the monthly magazine of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). A former editor of both MAALL Markings, the newsletter of the Mid-America Association of Law Libraries, and RIPS Law Librarian, the newsletter of the Research Instruction and Patron Services Special Interest Section of AALL, she is a frequent speaker at continuing-education seminars for librarians and research professionals. Professor Serfass has in addition published three articles in The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process. The first collects information about state rules addressing the certification of appellate specialists. The second and third, both of which she wrote with articles editor Jessie W. Burchfield, are frequently cited surveys of federal and state rules about the precedential value of unpublished opinions. She also collaborated with Professor Burchfield on the Loislaw User’s Guide (2002 Aspen Law & Business).
Coleen M. Barger is the developments editor for The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process and an associate professor of law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, where she teaches courses in legal writing, legal research, and appellate advocacy. She has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Legal Writing Directors, a member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Writing Institute, and is the Legal Research & Writing Subject Guide Editor for JURIST.
Professor Barger's interest in technology and the Internet is reflected not only in the legal writing resource web site she maintains, Barger on Legal Writing, but also in her work concerning the effects of technology on appellate court systems.
Lindsey P. Gustafson, who was the first executive editor of The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, is now its technical editor. An assistant professor of legal writing at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, she earned both undergraduate and law degrees, magna cum laude, at Brigham Young University, where she was an executive editor of the Brigham Young University Law Review and a member of the Order of the Coif. She is a member of the Utah bar.
Professor Gustafson joined the faculty after clerking for, and then serving as staff attorney for, the Second District Court for the state of Utah. She teaches Reasoning, Writing and Advocacy, and has lectured on and continues to teach her course, Legal Editing, Scholarship, and Publishing, which she developed to better train law students to edit their own and others’ legal scholarship.
Jessie Wallace Burchfield, articles editor of The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, earned her M.L.S. from Texas Woman’s University and her J.D. with high honors from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, where she was a Bowen Scholar and served as student fellow for The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process. As the Reference and Circulation Librarian at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock/Pulaski County Law Library and a professor of law librarianship at the law school, she supervises the operations of the circulation department and the library’s interlibrary loan and document delivery services, participates in teaching online legal research, and provides reference assistance to law library patrons.
A former editor of the Public and Reference Services column of Arkansas Libraries, and an active member of several regional, state, and national library organizations, Professor Burchfield is a frequent speaker at continuing education programs for library and legal research professionals. She has written several articles on various law and library related topics, including co-authoring an award-winning survey of federal and state rules about the precedential value of unpublished opinions with research editor Melissa Serfass.
Brent E. Newton, an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the Southern District of Texas, is a contributing editor for The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Columbia Law School, where he was a James Kent Scholar and a Senior Editor of the Columbia Law Review. He clerked after finishing law school for Judge Carolyn Dineen King of the Fifth Circuit.
After years of representing death-row inmates in Texas and Florida, Mr. Newton is a recognized authority on criminal procedure. He has published several articles in The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, speaks often at CLE seminars, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center, where he teaches Remedies and Criminal Procedure.
Revised: 2/26/2008