James R. Elkins grew up on a small farm in Western Kentucky. He obtained his undergraduate and law degree from the University of Kentucky. After serving as a litigation trial attorney with the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. and an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Newark, New Jersey, he obtained an LL.M. from Yale Law School and became a law teacher. He taught Criminal Law, Law and Psychiatry, Legal Ethics, Lawyers and Literature, edited a literary legal journal for over twenty years, and served as president of the American Legal Studies Association. After more than forty years teaching, Elkins retired in 2019. He is the author of books on legal interviewing and counseling, the law student experience, and editor of That World We Call Law, an anthology of poetry by lawyers.







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