Baylor Law School has selected Dallas lawyer Lewis Sifford as the 2019 recipient of the Baylor Lawyer of the Year Award.
A 1972 Baylor Law graduate, Sifford has been a Leon Jaworski Fellow at the law school since 2012. He has tried more than 150 civil jury trials to verdict and is the founder of the law firm Sifford, Anderson & Company.
“Lewis speaks compellingly to the truth that as lawyers and as citizens we must pay heed to the need to preserve our sacred Seventh Amendment right to trial by jury,” Baylor Law Dean Brad Toben said in a statement. “As a genuine quality person and as a Baylor Lawyer, his reach into the profession and his deep understanding of human relations gives Lewis a distinctive role as a commentator on the needed directions of our profession.”
Sifford, a past national president of the American Board of Trial Advocates, has received numerous awards from ABOTA. He has received the prestigious legal association’s Masters in Trial Award, Texas Trial Lawyer of the Year Award, ABOTA Foundation Mark P. Robinson Lifetime Achievement Award and The National ABOTA Lifetime Achievement Award. He is one of two people to receive both lifetime achievement distinctions.
Past winners of the Baylor Lawyer of the Year Award include Chief Federal Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas, Locke Lord Chair Emeritus Jerry Clements and former U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis of the Eastern District of Texas.