IMPORTANT - COVID-19 Update

Faculty Directory

Back to the Faculty Directory

David W. Case

Professor of Law and Mississippi Defense Lawyers Association Distinguished Lecturer

Professor Case regularly teaches Environmental Law, Administrative Law, Contracts, Contract Negotiation and Drafting, Civil Procedure, and Property

Professor Case’s career as a law professor began in 2001 at the University of Memphis School of Law. He subsequently joined the University of Mississippi School of Law faculty in 2007. He has also regularly taught courses as a member of the faculty of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College since joining the Ole Miss faculty. Professor Case has been a member of the Mississippi Bar since 1988 and currently serves as a member of the Mississippi Supreme Court Advisory Committee on Rules (since 2017). He was named one of “Mississippi’s Leading Attorneys” by the Mississippi Business Journal in 2019.

Professor Case received his Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor degrees from the University of Mississippi. As a law student at Ole Miss, he was on the executive editorial board of the Mississippi Law Journal, served as chair of the Honor Council, and was selected for membership in the honor society of Phi Kappa Phi. He has a Master of Laws degree from Columbia University and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Vanderbilt University in Interdisciplinary Studies: Environmental Law, Management and Policy. While in residence at Vanderbilt, Professor Case was a Bridgestone Americas Fellow in Environmental Management and a senior research associate with the Vanderbilt Center for Environmental Management Studies.

Prior to his academic career, Professor Case served as a federal judicial clerk for the Honorable Rhesa H. Barksdale of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (1991-92) and the Honorable James C. Sumner of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi (1993-94). He was a partner in the Jackson, Mississippi law firm of Ott & Purdy and also served as an attorney in the Civil Division (Commercial Litigation Branch) of the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

Professor Case’s legal scholarship primarily focuses on environmental regulation and management.  His articles have appeared in the Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum, the Emory Law Journal, the Environmental Law Reporter, the Mississippi College Law Review, the Mississippi Law Journal, the University of Colorado Law Review, the University of Memphis Law Review, the Washington & Lee Law Review, and the William & Mary Environmental Law & Policy Review.  He co-authored (with colleague Professor Ron Rychlak) the book Environmental Law, part of the Legal Almanac Series: Thomson Reuters’ Law for the Layperson (re-released by West Publishing following original publication by Oxford University Press). He is currently writing a treatise on Mississippi real property law, which will be published by LexisNexis and Matthew Bender & Company in 2024.

Professor Case coached teams in the National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition in White Plains, New York, for nearly two decades. His Ole Miss Law teams won five championships at the NELMCC (in 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016). His experiences with moot court coaching are the subject of an article, A Pedagogical Rationale for the Law Professor as Moot Court Coach, 89 Miss. L.J. 367 (2020).

Education

Ph.D., Vanderbilt University
LL.M., Columbia University
J.D., University of Mississippi
B.A., University of Mississippi