Professor of Law
wriddick@sulc.edu
(225) 771-4900 ext. 203

Courses taught: Civil Law Property, Louisiana Real Estate Law, Urban Law, Constitutional Law, Insurance Law, Health Law, Administrative Law, Mineral Law, and Alternative Dispute Resolution

The Crowley, Louisiana, native earned a B.A. in political science from the University of Louisiana in Lafayette, where he received a T. H. Harris Scholarship and Joel L. Fletcher Fellowship; an M.A. in Political Science, with emphasis on Latin American studies, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow; and a Ph.D. in Public Administration and Political Science from Columbia University, where he was a National Aeronautics and Space Administrative Trainee Fellow for Social Science.  He earned a J.D. from Louisiana State University School of Law, where he was a moot court finalist and a member of Phi Delta Phi Legal Fraternity.

Prior to joining the Law Center faculty, he taught at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey; Hunter College, New York, New York; and Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He joined the law faculty on a part-time basis from 1974-1995 while he practiced law and worked in Louisiana government.  He became a full-time professor of law in 1995.

A political scientist and lawyer by training, Riddick has an extensive background in state government and was adviser/counsel to two Louisiana governors. He served as chief deputy commissioner and executive counsel for the Louisiana Department of Insurance from 1992-1995. He was executive assistant attorney general for the Louisiana Department of Justice; general counsel and assistant commissioner of marketing for the Louisiana Department of Agriculture; and associate state superintendent of education for the Louisiana Department of Education. He also served briefly as director of the Louisiana Higher Education Facilities Commission.

Admitted to practice before all Louisiana state and federal courts, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court, Riddick’s practical experience includes real estate, insurance, administrative, and constitutional law. He is a member of the Louisiana Bar Association and is a certified fraud examiner with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners in Austin, Texas.  He has spoken extensively at Continuing Legal Education courses for the Louisiana State Bar Association, the Baton Rouge Bar Association, the Louisiana Legislature, the East Baton Rouge Parish Attorney’s Office, and the Louisiana Department of Insurance in Costa Rica on constitutional and administrative law topics, ethics and professionalism.  He practiced law with Riddick and Riddick, Inc.; prosecuted high profile white collar and insurance crime cases for the state; and served as an expert insurance fraud witness in Louisiana, California and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

In addition to the papers presented at continuing legal education programs, Riddick’s publications reflect his interest and expertise in political and urban affairs.  He edited Louisiana Urban Affairs, published by the LSU Institute of Government Research; authored a chapter on “The Louisiana Mayor” and co-authored “The Role of Federal, State, and Parish Governments in Providing Essential Urban Services.”  He also wrote an article, “Economic Development and Private Ownership of Immovable Property:  A Comparison of Louisiana and Haiti.”  His articles have appeared in the Southern University Law Review, The Journal of the Society of Financial Examiner and theElectronic Journal of Comparative Law, the Journal of the Society of Mixed Jurisdictions, which promotes research in topics and countries with mixed civil and common law jurisdictions.

After his first trip to Haiti as part of a Southern University System delegation in 2002, Riddick returned to Haiti three more times as a consultant to the Haitian Resource Development Foundation, consultant and advisor to the Dean and faculty of the University of Haiti Law School, keynote speaker on judicial reform to the 2003 Annual Haitian Bar Association meeting, and consultant to landowners and business interests on legal issues and economic development. He served as a moderator at the Tulane Law School Conference, World Affairs Forum, April 23, 2004, on “The Future of Haiti.”  He also met with Acting President of Haiti, Boniface Alexandre, on his last trip to Haiti.  As an outcome of his Haitian experience and research, Riddick presented the paper on comparative Louisiana and Haiti property regimes at the University of Edinburgh Law School.  He also presented another paper, “Haitian Immovable Property Law: A Major Obstacle to Earthquake Recovery and Economic Development,” at the 2010 St. Thomas University program on Human Rights Aftershocks: The aftershocks of the 2010 earthquake: a human rights perspective symposium, for publication in the St. Thomas University Intercultural Human Rights Law Review.