Montague earns top CSLR prize, four graduates earn Dooyeweerd awards |

Terri Y. Montague has won the 2014 Eliza Ellison Prize for Leadership in Law and Religion from the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. The award is named for the center’s former associate director and director of publications and recognizes a graduate who has shown special initiative in leading law and religion studies within and beyond the classroom. 

Montague, who received a juris doctor and a master of theological studies, was also one of four recipients of the Herman Dooyeweerd Prize for Excellence in Law and Religion.

Three other graduates who received Dooyeweerd Prizes are:

·        Amanda M. Baker:A Los Angeles native, she received a juris doctor and master of theological studies. She plans to work at Collazo Florentino & Keil, a labor employment firm in New York City.

While at Emory, Baker was executive managing editor of the Emory Law Journal. She wrote on religious arbitration from a variety of perspectives. She was published in the Vermont Law Review and received the David R. Blumenthal Award in Jewish Studies and the Humanities for her writing. Baker earned an undergraduate degree in religious studies from Grinnell College in 2008.

·        Tommy Buck:A Vestavia Hills, Alabama native who served as a naval officer for five years, he received a juris doctor and master of theological studies. He plans to practice law at Maynard, Cooper & Gale in Birmingham.

While at Emory, Buck was a notes and comments editor for the Emory International Law Review, vice president of the Emory Federalist Society and vice president of the Emory Military Law Society. He worked with the Emory Law Volunteer Clinic for Veterans and served as an Emory Ambassador. He received a Savage-Lebey Scholarship in Law and Religion and was a Blackstone Legal Fellow, which is awarded by Alliance Defending Freedom.

Buck graduated from Vanderbilt with a bachelor of science in 2005, having attended on a Navy ROTC scholarship.

·        Zach Eyster:A native of York, Pennsylvania, Eyster received a juris doctor. He plans to complete by spring of 2015 his dissertation for a PhD. in ethics. He plans to practice at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton in Atlanta.

While at Emory, he worked for the Hon. William S. Duffey, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia. Eyster worked on the first issue of the Journal of Law and Religion edited by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He was a member of Emory’s Law and Religion Moot Court team, which won a national championship. Eyster was a Robert W. Woodruff Fellow and a Three Minute Thesis winner.

Eyster earned a master of arts in theological ethics from Villanova University in 2009 and an undergraduate degree in religion from Messiah College in 2006. 

Montague plans to start in August a 2014-2015 National Legal Honors clerkship with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington D.C.

Montague was the first president and CEO of Atlanta’s $3 billion BeltLine Project from 2006 through 2009. While at Emory, Montague shared her BeltLine experience with her real estate law classmates. “When it came time to talk about tax allocation districts, I turned it over to Terri, given that she operated the BeltLine TAD,” said Frank Alexander, Emory University School of Law professor and co-founder of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion. “Rarely has a student entered our joint program with as much professional experience; even more rarely has a joint degree student had such a transformative impact on the law school and the theological school communities.” 

While at Emory, Montague served as sustainability fellow in Emory’s Office of Sustainability Initiatives, and was an Executive Board member for Emory’s Black Law Students Association.  She held public interest and transactional law internships and externships at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Region IV and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 4. She completed a litigation clerkship at Savage, Turner, Pinckney & Madison.

Concurrent with her law studies, Montague served on the board of Tapestry Development Group, an affordable housing development consulting organization, and on the board of Southern Environmental Law Center, a regional environmental legal advocacy organization.

In 2012, she was awarded a Savage-Lebey Scholarship, which the center awards to students specializing in Christian legal studies, clinical and social service work and religion and human rights.

A native of Chevy Chase, Maryland, Montague holds master’s degrees in real estate development and city planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Chicago.