Honorable Stephen Higginson to deliver 2019 Rubin Lecture on March 19

The Honorable Stephen A. Higginson, federal judge on the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, will present the Judge Alvin B. and Janice G. Rubin Visiting Professor of Law Lecture on March 19 at the LSU Law Center. The lecture, titled “The Fifth Circuit, Summer of 1963: ‘A Causerie of … Ethics in Negotiation,'” will take place at 5 p.m. in the Robinson Courtroom.

The Judge Alvin B. and Janice G. Rubin Visiting Professor of Law Program provides funds to bring outstanding legal scholars to the LSU Law Center. Judge Rubin served as United States Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and was a former United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He was valedictorian of his law school class, graduated The Order of the Coif, and served as editor of the Louisiana Law Review. He was an adjunct professor at LSU Law Center for 43 consecutive years.

Judge Higginson was nominated by President Barack Obama in May 2011 to serve on the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to fill the seat vacated by Judge Jacques Wiener. “Stephen Higginson is a distinguished candidate for the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Both his legal and academic credentials are impressive and his commitment to judicial integrity is unwavering. I am confident he will serve the American people with distinction,” Obama said of the nomination. Higginson was rated Unanimously Well Qualified by the American Bar Association for the nomination, and he was confirmed on a recorded 88-0 vote of the U.S. Senate and received his commission on November 2, 2011.

Higginson received his Juris Doctor in 1987 from Yale Law School, where he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Law Journal. Before law school, he earned a Master of Philosophy for the University of Cambridge in 1984 and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard University with an Artium Baccalaureus degree in 1983, where he concentrated in Government and English.

From 1987 until 1988, Higginson served as a law clerk for Judge Patricia Wald of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He then served as a clerk for Associate Justice Byron White on the United States Supreme Court from 1988 until 1989.

Higginson became an Assistant United States Attorney in 1989, working in the criminal division for the District of Massachusetts. In 1993, he shifted to working in the Eastern District of Louisiana, and he became chief of appeals in 1995. From 2004 to 2011, he worked part-time as a prosecutor, continuing to supervise the appellate section. In 2004, he became a full-time faculty member at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, where he taught criminal procedure, constitutional law and evidence. Higginson is an elected member of the American Law Institute.

Higginson is married to Collette Creppell, who is the university architect for Brown University and was the former director of the New Orleans City Planning Commission and the former university architect and director of campus planning for Tulane University. The couple has three children and lives in New Orleans.