PracticePerfect Wills, Trusts, and Estates

Karen J. Sneddon became Dean of the Mercer University School of Law on May 31, 2023. As a Professor of Law she taught legal writing and trusts & estates. She continues to write and present in those areas as well as classroom instruction and pedagogy. After graduating summa cum laude from Tulane Law School, she practiced in the area of trusts & estates. Two years later, she became a Forrester Fellow at Tulane Law School before joining the Mercer faculty in 2006. She has been a Visiting Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and taught a short course in Comparative Succession at ELTE Law, Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. Her most recent law review article is Dead Men (and Women) Should Tell Tales: Narrative, Intent, and Construction Proceedings, 46 ACTEC Law J. 301 (2021). In 2021, she received the 2020 Teresa G. Phelps Scholarship Award for Legal Communication for Clause A to Clause Z: Narrative Transportation and the Transactional Reader, 71 S.C. L. Rev. 247 (2019) (with Professor Susan M. Chesler, co-author and co-recipient of the award). In addition to authoring law review articles, Professor Sneddon co-authored with Moot Court Workbook with Professor Sue Painter-Thorne. Professor Sneddon has also co-authored Experiencing Trusts & Estates with Professor Deborah Gordon, Professor Carla Spivak, & Professor Alison Tait. Professor Sneddon has also contributed a rewritten judgment to Feminist Judgments: Rewritten Trusts and Estates Opinions (eds. Deborah S Gordon, Browne C. Lewis, & Carla Spivack) (Cambridge Univ. Press 2020). Since 2008, Professor Sneddon has co-authored with Professor David Hricik the regular column “Writing Matters” for the Georgia Bar Journal. She is an active member of the Legal Writing Institute, Association of Legal Writing Directors, and the Southeastern Association of Law Schools.