John Dan Kemp Jr. (born September 8, 1951) is an American lawyer and jurist who is the chief justice of the

Arkansas Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Arkansas is the highest court in the state judiciary of Arkansas. It has ultimate and largely discretionary appellate jurisdiction over all state court cases that involve a point of state law, and original jurisdiction o ...

. Born in

Batesville, Arkansas Batesville is the county seat and largest city of Independence County, Arkansas, United States, 80 miles (183 km) northeast of Little Rock, the state capital. According to the 2010 Census, the population of the city was 10,268. The city serve ...

, Kemp attended Mountain View High School and received his undergraduate degree from the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...

in 1973, followed by a Juris Doctor from the

University of Arkansas School of Law The University of Arkansas School of Law is the law school of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a State university system, state university. It has around 445 students enrolled in its Juris Doctor (J.D.) and Master of Law (LL.M) ...

in 1976. While attending the University of Arkansas, he was a member of the Gamma Upsilon Chapter of Sigma Nu Fraternity. Kemp was a city judge and city attorney in Mountain View before being elected as a circuit judge in Stone County, Arkansas in 1986, which position he held for 29 years. In 2015, Kemp decided to challenge sitting Justice Courtney Hudson for the Chief Justice position. Kemp defeated Hudson to win the seat.

References

1951 births 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American judges 21st-century American judges Arkansas lawyers Justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court Chief Justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court Living people People from Batesville, Arkansas University of Arkansas School of Law alumni {{Arkansas-state-judge-stub