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The Marion Griffin-Frances Loring Award

The Honorable Camille R. McMullen
2025 Marion Griffin-Frances Loring
Award Honoree
Hurd Headshot in Robe.jpg
Judge Rhynette Northcross Hurd is presiding judge for Division 5 of Shelby County Circuit Court in Memphis, Tennessee. Formerly she was a mediator, arbitrator, and special master at Ridder Hurd PLLC, a firm she co-founded with Judge Lorrie Ridder.

Prior to her work as a mediator, Judge Hurd was a transactional attorney at International Paper Company and manager of litigation and E&O claims at Sedgwick Claims Management Services. She has taught Federal Courts, Civil Procedure, and Legal Methods as an adjunct professor at Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. Before law school, Judge Hurd was an English professor, most recently at the University of Memphis.

In addition to having served on numerous non-profit boards including the Memphis Child Advocacy Center and Leadership Memphis, Judge Hurd has served on the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners and the Board of Trustees of The University of Tennessee and Memphis College of Art. As an assistant to the Board of Law Examiners, she wrote and graded bar exam questions for over twenty years. Currently, she is vice chair of the Board of Trustees of Mount Holyoke College.

Judge Hurd holds a B.A. in English Composition from Mount Holyoke; a Master of Arts in Teaching from Harvard University Graduate School of Education; a Ph.D. in English Education from George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University; and a J.D. from the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at The University of Memphis. She was editor-in-chief of the 1990-91 Memphis State Law Review and judicial law clerk to the Honorable Bailey Brown, U.S. Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit. She is an Emeritus Member of the Leo Bearman, Sr. American Inn of Court, was elected a Fellow of the Memphis Bar Foundation, and received the 2015 Chancellor Charles A. Rond Memorial Award as Outstanding Judge of the Year.

Judge Hurd has two sons, a granddaughter, and a grandson.

Past Marion Griffin-Frances Loring Award Recipients

 

1989       Frances Grant Loring

1990       The Honorable Martha Craig "Cissy"                       Daughtrey

1991       Gail O. Mathes

1992       The Honorable Julia S. Gibbons

1993       The Honorable Karen R. Williams

1994       The Honorable Bernice B. Donald

1995       Blanchard E. Tual

1996       The Honorable Penny J. White

1997       Dorothy J. Pounders

1998       Ellen B. Vergos

1999       The Honorable Janice M. Holder

2000       Veronica F. Coleman

2001       The Honorable Carol J. Chumney

2002       Linda L. Holmes

2003       The Honorable Kay Spalding Robilio

2004       Susan Clark

2005       The Honorable Rita L. Stotts

2006       Barbara Zoccola

2007       Amy J. Amundsen

2008       Ruby R. Wharton

2010       Professor Janet L. Richards

2011       The Honorable Donna M. Fields 

2012       Amy P. Weirich

2013       The Honorable Paulette J. Delk

2014       Linda Warren Seely

2015       The Honorable Holly Kirby

2016       Maureen Holland

2017       Mary Wolff

2018       The Honorable Claudia Haltom

2019       Jocelyn Dan Wurzburg

2020       The Honorable Diane K. Vescovo

2023       Lucie Brackin

2024       The Honorable Camille R. McMullen

2025       The Honorable Rhynette Hurd

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