George W. Kuney took an early interest in the law as he watched the turbulent events of the 1960s and 1970s—including the Watergate scandal—unfold. He studied economics at the University of California and enrolled in law school at UC Law San Francisco, receiving a J.D. in 1989.
After law school, where he fared well, he worked with bankruptcy and reorganization cases at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco. “The first thing I learned was that I was unprepared to practice law,” Kuney recalls. “I was great at writing research memos and basic motions, but I was clueless about the transactional documents used by banks and large businesses for syndicated loans.”
Instead of being overwhelmed by how much he needed to learn, Kuney felt excited. “I was like Mickey Mouse when he opens the wizard’s book in Fantasia,” he says. “I remember thinking it would be great if law students could have this kind of an empowering peek into the magic book that documents relationships instead of just reading cases about the portions that went wrong.” That and other insights informed his teaching as an adjunct at UC Law in its legal writing program.
Kuney practiced law for the next decade, enjoying interesting assignments at Morrison & Foerster that involved frequent cross-country travel, including two months in Denver working on retail bankruptcies. “It was really cool for somebody who had never had that kind of experience,” Kuney says. When he moved to the Howard, Rice firm (now part of Arnold & Porter) in San Francisco, and then to join the San Diego office of Allen Matkins Leck Gamble & Mallory LLP, his practice broadened beyond creditor-side insolvency and reorganization to include committee, debtor-in-possession, and trustee matters nationwide. He also became an adjunct professor at California Western School of Law. “I had a blast teaching advanced legal drafting and bankruptcy.” On top of that, to foster client relations and business analysis, he completed his MBA at the University of San Diego with a new venture management emphasis.
But the grueling schedule of practicing law all day and teaching and taking college courses in the evenings took a toll. Kuney started looking for an opportunity to move his career fully into academia. In 2000, the University of Tennessee College of Law hired Kuney to direct the new Clayton Center for Entrepreneurial Law.
Impacting students with real-world experiences
Kuney packed up and moved across the country, eager to dive into a new role. Remembering his experience transitioning from law school to practice, he set out to ensure College of Law students had access to real-world cases and problems. “I wanted to prepare students for the practice of law and not just to pass the bar,” he says. “Traditional doctrinal law studied alone is only half the battle. You need to know what to do with it.”
The Clayton Center facilitates training for business lawyers in transactional and litigation practices by sponsoring the Concentration in Business Transactions. “We take students through basic business courses which belong under the belt of either a business litigator or transaction attorney,” Kuney explains. The center’s visiting professor program brings practitioners from private practice who spend many hours in the classroom with students over their term. “We try to expose students to practitioners with decades of experience who will share the lessons they learned throughout their careers.”
The center also oversees the publication of Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law and offers students real-world experiences, such as field placement with UT’s Athletic Department’s Office of Compliance and, in the past, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Y-12 Security Complex, among others. In partnership with the Emory University Transactional Law program, the center sponsors a conference every few years covering practical and transactional law pedagogy.
As the center’s director, Kuney developed the contract drafting program at the College of Law, creating curriculum and planning contract drafting courses with in-class and out-of-class assignments. He’s also enjoyed designing, teaching and recruiting others to teach advanced contract drafting courses covering specialized issues like software licensing, commercial leasing, mergers and acquisitions, and construction law. “My big push is to incorporate practice-based problems into all courses,” he says. “Students told me they enjoy the injection of practical reality on top of the law we are studying. And when we give students real-world experience, they can perform at a higher level when they arrive at their law firms and ride the learning and career advancement curve faster.”
Publishing and partnership
Even as Kuney poured energy into curriculum development and teaching, he pursued a research interest, publishing books and articles on transactional drafting and structuring topics. “I’m interested in the evolution of bankruptcy practice from the code when it was written in 1978,” says Kuney. “Some of my research looks at changes in the process through different developments, such as the rise of 363(f) sales and the use of plan support agreements to alter the strategic power of different constituents in Chapter 11 in particular.”
Kuney has co-authored books and articles with his wife, Donna C. Looper. “We met in law school, in contracts class,” Kuney says. After a successful career practicing law at various firms and clerking at the Federal District Court in New Orleans and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Looper joined her husband as an adjunct professor at the College of Law. “We’ve worked on a variety of books and scholarly articles. She’s a stellar lawyer and a super person to work with. We certainly couldn’t have gotten as far down the roads we’ve been on without her.”
A legacy of teamwork and value
From beginning to end, the goal of doing good work and providing value for clients—and students—has guided Kuney’s career. When he came to the College of Law to direct the Clayton Center, recalls Professor Emeritus Robert M. Lloyd, Kuney was only required to teach part-time. “But that wasn’t enough to keep George occupied, so he quickly decided to take on a full teaching load,” Lloyd says. When there were gaps in the curriculum, Kuney volunteered to teach overloads so every student could get the courses they needed. “He taught on Saturdays, and the students liked him so much, they actually came to class. All the while, he was producing first-class scholarship, chairing committees, mentoring students, and generally being a great colleague.”
Over the past 24 years, Kuney has introduced hundreds of students to the real-life implications of contracts, bankruptcy law, reorganizations, and workouts using his experiences. He encourages them to retain a posture of learning even after they leave law school. “Make a daily habit of being a sponge, seeking out knowledge both in the popular press regarding law and in recent cases and developments,” he encourages graduates. “Spend about an hour a day gaining new knowledge, even if they can’t bill for it, and try to identify mentors you respect who can help you develop goals and chart your progress.”
As he prepares for retirement, Kuney doesn’t want to focus on his personal legacy. “I want us—everyone involved in the Clayton Center—to leave a collective legacy,” he says. “My colleagues in the business law program at UT Law have been invaluable. We work together like an orchestra to produce something excellent: a quality, practice-focused educational experience for our students.”