Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law (LMU Law) announces the hiring of Laura Mott as an Assistant Professor of Law and John Poore and Celsy Johnson as Visiting Assistant Professors of Law for the 2024-2025 academic year.
“We are so excited to have these three new faculty colleagues join us in our mission to educate and train resilient lawyers who value and display excellence and are committed to serving their clients, their communities, and the legal profession,” said LMU Law Vice President and Dean Matt Lyon. “Their years of experience in both teaching and practice will greatly enrich our law school community.”
Laura Mott
Mott joins LMU Law from CUNY School of Law in New York, where she served as Director of the Academic Skills Center for the Evening 1L Program. She has presented at numerous academic conferences and published on best practices in academic support and environmental issues. Mott holds a J.D. from CUNY School of Law and an LL.M cum laude in Environmental Law from the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University. Prior to teaching, she worked in environmental organizations and in New York City housing court and managed large-scale discovery projects for complex civil litigation matters. She will teach Contracts and Sales I in the Fall 2024 semester.
“I am thrilled to be joining the faculty at LMU and am excited to bring an end-to-end perspective on the connectivity between first-year building blocks and bar success to the Contracts classroom. I look forward to meeting and working with the incoming 1L class as they begin their law school journey,” said Mott.
John Poore
Poore joins LMU Law after spending nearly 15 years as a prosecutor in Southern California. During his time as a prosecutor, he conducted over 40 jury trials, including serious and violent felonies, narcotics, gang, sexual assault and hate crime cases. Poore managed 15 wiretap investigations involving gang, narcotics, human trafficking, and homicide investigations while assigned to various state, local and federal task forces. He earned his J.D. from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Prior to law school, Poore served as an Infantry Officer in the United States Marine Corps and completed multiple overseas deployments to Asia and the Middle East. He will teach Criminal Law in the Fall 2024 semester.
“I am looking forward to creating a positive and engaging learning environment in the classroom to prepare the next generation of LMU Law graduates for a meaningful and fulfilling career in law,” said Poore.
Celsy Johnson
Johnson joins LMU Law’s academic and bar success department from the practice of law, most recently as a solo practitioner and previously as an attorney at Held Law Firm in the areas of family law, juvenile law, and estate planning. Prior to that, Johnson was in-house counsel at Cellular Sales and focused primarily on commercial real estate transactions. She holds a J.D from the University of Tennessee College of Law, where she was the Executive Editor of the Tennessee Journal of Race Gender and Social Justice. In 2023, the Tennessee Supreme Court awarded Johnson the Pro Bono Award for her service to the community. As an adjunct professor at LMU Law, she created and taught a class on the Multistate Performance Test portion of the Uniform Bar Exam. Johnson will teach Multistate Essay Exam Skills I and Legal Practice Skills this Fall 2024 semester.
"I am excited to join the faculty full-time and further contribute to the academic and bar success team. I look forward to developing the students' skills necessary both for practice and for the bar exam," said Johnson.
The Lincoln Memorial University Duncan School of Law is located in Knoxville’s Historic Old City Hall Building. LMU Law is an integral part of LMU’s value-based learning community and is dedicated to preparing the next generation of lawyers to provide sound legal service in the often-underserved region of Appalachia and beyond. For more information about LMU Law, call 865.545.5303 or visit us online at Law.LMUnet.edu.
