May 8, 2020
Come on down: Mid-South Ag/Environmental Law Conference puts a spin on ethics lecture
By Sarah Cato
U of A System Division of Agriculture
Fast facts
- The president of the Mississippi Bar will give an ethics presentation at the seventh annual Mid-South Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference
- The presentation will be structured as an interactive game show
- Details and registration for this conference can be found here: http://bit.ly/2S97qCn
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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A Mississippi attorney is breathing some fresh air into a critical
topic whose rules and regulations can often be tedious.
Amanda Jones Tollison, partner at Butler Snow in Oxford, Mississippi, who is currently serving as the 114th President of the Mississippi Bar, will be giving an ethics presentation at the seventh annual Mid-South Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference. Her hour long talk will focus on ethics for lobbyists, attorneys and agricultural professionals in their dealings with the government.
“Ethics can be so dry,” Tollison said. “I often give these ethics presentations on what the laws and regulations are, and afterward, I typically get several follow-up calls asking about specific scenarios that people are dealing with such that I feel like I’m a contestant on a game show.”
Those post-talk phone calls inspired Tollison to do something different: revamp her presentation into a quiz show.
“I don’t want this to be a lecture,” she said. “I want it to be interactive, so I am structuring it like a quiz show.”
Tollison’s presentation will feature scenarios that attendees may face when they travel to Capitol Hill or to the state capitol.
“I want them to think of ethics in a fresh way,” she said. “I want them to put themselves in these factual scenarios that are likely to come up in either their law practice, as a lobbyist, or as someone who may be on the board of a cooperative.”
There are rules that elected officials must follow on a federal level that those at the state level may not consider. For example, in the state of Mississippi, it is customary for lobbyists to take officials to lunch. However, on the federal level, there are gift and entertainment rules that prohibit this practice.
Tollison will also discuss issues that overlap into the realm of ethics, such as presidential campaign contributions and event sponsorship.
“Hopefully attendees will leave with best practices to implement,” Tollison said. “So they don’t just learn the rules, but how to apply the rules in factual situations they encounter.”
Tollison’s ethics hour is among several presentations at the seventh annual Mid-South Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference, hosted by the National Agricultural Law Center. This year, the conference will be held online and will feature six hours of continuing education, including this hour of ethics.
For registration and more information on the conference, visit http://bit.ly/2S97qCn
For more information on the National Agricultural Law Center, visit https://nationalaglawcenter.org/ or follow @Nataglaw on Twitter.
About the National Agricultural Law Center
The National Agricultural Law Center serves as the nation’s leading source of agricultural and food law research and information. The Center works with producers, state and federal policymakers, Congressional staffers, attorneys, land grant universities, and many others to provide objective, nonpartisan agricultural and food law research and information to the nation’s agricultural community.
The Center is a unit of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture and works in close partnership with the USDA Agricultural Research Service, National Agricultural Library.
About the Division of Agriculture
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation’s historic land grant education system.
The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.
The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture is an equal opportunity/equal access/affirmative action institution. If you require a reasonable accommodation to participate or need materials in another format, please contact 479-575-4607 as soon as possible. Dial 711 for Arkansas Relay.
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Media Contact:
Sarah Cato
National Agricultural Law Center
University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
sscato@uark.edu
870-815-9035