TSU Professor to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award from Nashville Legal Community

Robert Smith, assistant professor in the Department of Criminal Justice, will receive the Z. Alexander Looby Lifetime Achievement Award from the Napier-Looby Bar Foundation Feb. 20, during the association’s annual banquet. (courtesy photo)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (TSU News Service) – Robert Smith, an assistant professor of Criminal Justice at Tennessee State University, will receive the Z. Alexander Looby Lifetime Achievement Award from the Napier-Looby Bar Foundation.

Smith will be honored during the organization’s 10th Annual Barristers’ Banquet and Award program on Thursday, Feb. 20 at the Music City Center in Nashville. The award is named after Z. Alexander Looby, who was a leading Civil Rights lawyer in Nashville along with his law partner, Avon Williams.

Smith, who teaches constitutional and criminal law at the University, will be one of four attorneys to be recognized during the annual awards banquet. During his time at the University, Smith has not only been a strong force in the classroom, but has also coached the TSU Mock Trial team since its inception in the John Marshall School of Law undergraduate competition. Additionally he conducts the CAMA: CSI/Mock Trial for high school students at TSU during the summer.

A nonprofit organization of attorneys in the Nashville legal community, the Napier-Looby Bar Association is dedicated to the advancement and development of black attorneys as well as attorneys interested in issues affecting the black community. Its membership consists of attorneys, in the private and public sectors, as well as judges, law professors, law students, paralegals and other interested individuals.

For more information about the banquet, contact the association at 615.238.6303 or info@napierlooby.com.

Department of Media Relations
Tennessee State University
3500 John Merritt Boulevard
Nashville, Tennessee 37209
615.963.5331

About Tennessee State University

With nearly 9,000 students, Tennessee State University is Nashville’s only public university, and is a comprehensive, urban, co-educational, land-grant university offering 38 undergraduate, 22 graduate and seven doctoral programs. TSU has earned a top 20 ranking for Historically Black Colleges and Universities according to U.S. News and World Report, and rated as one of the top universities in the country by Washington Monthly for social mobility, research and community service. Founded in 1912, Tennessee State University celebrated 100 years in Nashville during 2012. Visit the University online at tnstate.edu.