Contact: Ralph Derickson

Barbara Willett Jones

Jones has been serving in UK’s Office of Legal Counsel since August 2003. She has served on many UK committees, including the Lexington Community College Transition Committee, Medical Malpractice Committee, National Collegiate Athletic Association Self Study Committee, and the Top 20 Steering Committee.

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LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 21, 2004) -- The University of Kentucky Board of Trustees today appointed Barbara Willett Jones, a native of Bardstown, Ky., and a graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Law, as UK’s new general counsel.

Jones earned a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from UK in 1969 and a UK law degree in 1978. She has an extensive legal background, while serving in several legal posts for state government.

As UK general counsel, Jones will report directly to UK President Lee T. Todd Jr. She will advise the Board of Trustees, university administrative staff and support personnel on all legal matters and employment issues, provide oversight and supervision to the university legal office, participate in developing UK legislative strategies, and contract with law firms that represent UK in litigation.

Todd said Jones’ legal expertise in government and academia is “absolutely essential to our efforts to negotiate all the serious and complicated issues we face in meeting the Commonwealth’s challenge to take UK to the top level of public research institutions in this country.”

Jones has been serving in UK’s Office of Legal Counsel since August 2003. She has served on many UK committees, including the Lexington Community College Transition Committee, Medical Malpractice Committee, National Collegiate Athletic Association Self Study Committee, and the Top 20 Steering Committee.

She is a current member of the board of directors of Leadership Kentucky; she has been a past board member for the New Opportunity School for Women at Berea, Ky. and the Brain Injury Association of Kentucky. She is a lifetime member of the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference.

Jones was a legal intern with the Judge Advocate General’s Corps at Fort Knox, Ky., in the summer of 1977. After receiving her law degree in 1978, she joined the Consumer Protection and Special Prosecution Unit of the Kentucky Office of Attorney General.

From 1980 to 1981, Jones taught legal writing and oral advocacy and supervised 10 first-year UK law students. From 1981 until 1996 Ms. Jones served as the General Counsel for the Kentucky Department of Corrections. Jones also served as a legal consultant and trainer on correctional law for the National Academy of Corrections, U.S. Department of Justice from 1985 through 1996.

In 1996, Jones was named general counsel for the Kentucky Justice Cabinet and in 2002 was appointed Deputy Secretary to the Justice Cabinet as well. She retired from these positions in 2003. As General Counsel and Deputy Secretary, Jones advised the Justice Cabinet Secretary on policy, budget, legislative, legal and media issues that affected the cabinet. She also provided direct legal services to the Kentucky Parole Board, the Office of the State Medical Examiner, the Kentucky Criminal Justice Council, and the Division of Grants Management.

Jones lives in Frankfort. Her husband James Rick, retired from state government as the General Counsel for the Department of Financial Institutions in 2001.