Cumberland School of Law's Continuing Legal Education department and the American College of Trial Lawyers will present the Jere F. White Jr. Trial Advocacy Institute. The 2026 keynote speaker is Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Rick Bragg.

6 CLE credit hours are available, including 1 hour of ethics

In Person Registration Webcast Registration

Rick Bragg

Rick Bragg was born in the small city of Piedmont in northeastern Alabama and grew up in the tiny community of Possum Trot near Jacksonville. He credited his ability to write to listening to his family tell stories. He was raised primarily by his mother, as his father was an alcoholic and rarely home. His relatives were also very involved in his young life and greatly influenced his personal and emotional development.

Bragg worked at several newspapers before joining the New York Times in 1994. He covered murders and unrest in Haiti as a metro reporter, then wrote about the Oklahoma City bombing, the 1998 Westside idle School shooting, and the Susan Smith trial as a national correspondent based in Atlanta. He later became the paper's Miami bureau chief. Bragg won the Pulitzer Prize for his work.

Bragg has authored eleven books. His first, and the title readers around the world most recognize, All Over But the Shoutin' tells of his childhood in Alabama, his rise to becoming a journalist, his personal struggles and the stories of the people he cares about. The book pays special attention to his mother who raised Bragg and his two brothers on her own.

Rick Bragg, along with Harper Lee, was in the inaugural class of the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame. He holds more than 50 major writing awards and with the passing of Harper Lee and his friend Pat Conroy, is considered by critics as the most beloved living Southern writer.