University of Kentucky College of Law Assistant Dean of Community Engagement & Diversity Daniel P. Murphy, Jr., Awarded the 2019 Nathaniel R. Harper Award
University of Kentucky College of Law Assistant Dean of Community Engagement & Diversity Daniel P. Murphy, Jr., was awarded the 2019 Nathaniel R. Harper Award, on June 14, 2019, during the Kentucky Bar Association’s Membership Luncheon.
Through the Nathaniel R. Harper Award, the KBA’s Young Lawyers Division seeks to recognize those individuals or organizations that have demonstrated a commitment to changing the face of the Bar in Kentucky by promoting full and equal participation in the legal profession through the encouragement and inclusion of women, minorities, persons with disabilities, members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community and/or other underrepresented groups.
Murphy is a 1998 graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law. Prior to joining the University of Kentucky College of Law administration in 2010, he was counsel at the law firm of Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs, LLP, in its Lexington office, and was formerly a member the law firm of McMurry & Livingston, PLLC, in Paducah, Kentucky, where he focused primarily in the area of real estate law.
Dean Murphy oversees day-to-day nonacademic operations at the College of Law, including supervision of Marketing & Communications, Information Technology, and the Continuing Legal Education departments and capital project management and building operations. Dean Murphy also serves as the College's diversity officer, oversees the voluntary student pro program and efforts to engage the College with the university, the community-at-large, the Commonwealth and across the nation.
Dean Murphy is active in the community. He is a past chair of the Commerce Lexington Board of Directors and serves on the KY YMCA Youth Association Board of Directors, Community Action Council Board of Directors and Junior Achievement of the Bluegrass Board of Directors.
He obtained his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Kentucky in 1993, making him the first college graduate in his family. He received his J.D. University of Kentucky College of Law in 1998. He and his wife, Melissa, are the proud parents of three children, Terrance, Makari and Micah.
By Shannon Roberts, Kentucky Bar Association