At Tulane, D.J. Adams found his voice in entertainment law

Daevon James "D.J." Adams dreaded public speaking. He had no debate background, no courtroom experience and did not think he was ready for a Moot Court team. He joined anyway.

Three years later, he stood in front of a panel of judges and argued his way onto the Tulane School of Law's wall, as part of a decades-long tradition in which Moot Court champions have their names etched into the marble plaques that line the walls of the Wendell H. Gauthier Moot Court Room in John Giffen Weinmann Hall.

A first-generation college and law student, Adams was raised in Lutcher, Louisiana, and earned his bachelor's degree at Occidental College in Los Angeles, where he studied politics and Black Studies.

Years spent near Los Angeles' creative industries, combined with a lifelong love of music rooted in his father's devotion to jazz, nudged him toward entertainment law. At Tulane, he didn't just pursue that path of study, he became integrally involved in building it. As a founding member and co-director of the Tulane Entertainment Law Negotiation Competition, Adams helped grow the event from eight teams to 16 and brought in more than 30 attorneys from across the country to judge students on real-world film and television legal cases.

"Giving students the opportunity to see what exactly they'd be doing day-to-day, in front of judges that actually do it day-to-day," he said. "I think it's incomparable."

Adams approaches his life and work through the idea of Ubuntu, an African proverb meaning "I am because we are," a mantra he traces to his family and growing up in south Louisiana.

"Being able to find common ground, I think specifically in our history, we've had to do that time and time again across generations," he said.

Adams also served as president of the Tulane Entertainment and Arts Law Society and is a recipient of Tulane's Dr. King Student Leadership Award and the Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyers Association Ultimate Achiever Award.

And then there is Moot Court. After Adams joined the team in his second year of law school, he won regional and national championships and eventually became a coach. His efforts culminated earlier this year when he was named one of two finalists in Tulane Law's intra-school appellate Moot Court competition. It was this achievement that permanently placed his name "on the marble" in Weinmann Hall. The occasion was even more special because his family was in the room for the competition.

"They've never really seen me do what I do," Adams said.

Outside the classroom, Adams interned with the Urban League of Greater New Orleans, The Ella Project, Create Music Group in Los Angeles, SSP American Arrington & Phillips LLP in Atlanta, and NBCUniversal's Music Business and Legal Affairs team.

After graduation, Adams is heading back to Los Angeles to sit for the California bar and continue working in transactional entertainment law. Eventually, he wants to come back and help build out what he started at Tulane for the next generation.

He'll participate in Tulane Law's commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 16, in the Avron B. Fogelman Arena in Devlin Fieldhouse with his family in the crowd, including godchildren, nieces and nephews.

"You can't let where you're from define where you can go," he said.