South Texas College of Law Houston will award 238 J.D. degrees May 24 during spring Commencement at the George R. Brown Convention Center.
Morgan Cuenod will be honored as the spring 2025 valedictorian. Graduating at the top of the class with a 4.2 GPA, he credits his accomplishments at South Texas Law to the rigorous, foundational education he received at Houston’s Episcopal High School. “I gained the writing skills and work ethic that have made me successful in law school and beyond.”
Cuenod’s other academic achievements include earning a total of 12 CALI awards — which go to the student with the highest grade in a given class — as well as a spot on the Dean’s List in fall 2022, spring 2023, fall 2023, and spring 2024. He also has served as an articles editor for the South Texas Law Review.
His hard work and classroom success gave Cuenod the opportunity to land several clerkships, including one in 2023 with The Hon. Jeffrey V. Brown, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas and one in 2024 with the Office of the Attorney General of Texas.
A summer intern last year at Wright, Close & Barger, the native Houstonian will travel to Washington, D.C. after graduation to be a summer clerk for the Senate Judiciary Committee. Next, he will travel to Tyler, Texas, to begin a year-long assignment as a law clerk for the Hon J. Campbell Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
The Commencement ceremony will feature keynote speaker The Honorable Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod. For the past 14 years, Judge Elrod has served as a circuit judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, where she was recently named chief judge. Before her tenure on the federal bench began, Elrod was appointed, then twice elected, judge of the 190th District Court of Harris County, where she spent more than five years presiding over 200-plus jury and non-jury trials.
Prior to becoming a judge, Elrod worked in private practice, focusing on civil litigation, antitrust, and employment matters. As of January 2025, Elrod became a governing member of STCL Houston’s board of directors and now concurrently serves as South Texas Law’s jurist in residence, a position she has held since 2022.
To learn more about the 2025 STCL Houston Commencement ceremony, visit stcl.edu/commencement.
