Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School has announced the addition of new adjunct faculty members for the upcoming semester. Professors Torris Butterfield and V. Aislee Smith will join the law school, bringing a range of experience in criminal defense, trial and appellate advocacy, federal income taxation, and entrepreneurial practice.
The new adjunct professors are set to teach courses including Criminal Pretrial Advocacy, Criminal Trial Advocacy, and Federal Income Taxation. The school states that these courses will provide students with both theoretical knowledge and practical skills relevant to legal practice.
Professor Torris Butterfield joins as both an adjunct professor and Managing Director of the Criminal and Civil Justice Institute at AJMLS. He holds a B.A. in English from Fort Valley State College and a J.D. from Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law. According to the law school, Butterfield has conducted fifty felony jury trials—including twenty-four murder cases—and handled hundreds of bench trials across Georgia courts. His appellate work includes several reported decisions in state appellate courts such as In Re: Butterfield, which resulted in a not-guilty verdict for his client, as well as Georgia’s first Non-Consensual Pornography case, Somerville v. White.
Butterfield leads The Law Offices of Torris J. Butterfield & Associates, P.C., focusing on criminal defense, personal injury, and divorce law since 2004. He previously served as Senior Trial Attorney for the Fulton County Public Defender’s Office.
He is affiliated with professional organizations including the State Bar of Georgia, GACDL, NACDL, American Bar Association, and Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College.
Professor V. Aislee Smith is a Morehouse College graduate who earned his J.D. from Howard University School of Law and an LL.M. in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center. Smith has worked as a tax attorney with the IRS and held positions at Ernst & Young and PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York before moving into entrepreneurship over two decades ago in Atlanta.
Smith now focuses on teaching, speaking engagements, writing projects, golf, travel, and charity work supporting underprivileged children through Give a Child A Smile Around the World.
"Professors Butterfield and Smith exemplify the law school’s commitment to preparing students not only to understand the law but to practice it with skill, confidence, and integrity," according to Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School.
The law school states that these appointments are part of its ongoing effort to blend academic inquiry with practical training for its students.