© 2013 The Texas Lawbook.
By Patricia Baldwin
Lifestyle Writer for The Texas Lawbook
In her 20 years as a professional photographer, Haynes and Boone attorney Alicia Calzada never pictured this – an award bearing her name.
The Alicia Calzada First Amendment Award, created by the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), will recognize individuals who have supported advocacy work in First Amendment freedoms. The first annual award will be presented in March at a photography conference in New Jersey.
“I am honored beyond belief. I am humbled,” says Calzada, 40, an associate in the business litigation practice group in Haynes and Boone’s San Antonio and Austin offices.
Calzada has served as the chair of NPPA’s Advocacy Committee and as the organization’s president. She continues to serve NPPA as an attorney.
Her committee position helped serve as an impetus for her second career in the law. When she married her husband, Billy Calzada, now a photojournalist for the San Antonio Express-News, the couple moved to Texas, and she became an independent photojournalist. That also meant she became a businessperson, something for which she had not been trained. Calzada turned to her trade group – and found little help.
“I became the squeaky wheel,” Calzada recalls. Thus, she launched the organization’s Advocacy Committee.
“There are two sides of the issue,” Calzada explains. “There are copyright and business-related rights. There also are First Amendment rights.”
She soon found that she enjoyed her advocacy work as much as her photography. About the same time, St. Mary’s University School of Law in San Antonio was starting an evening program.
“Sometimes, life just falls into place,” Calzada says. After graduation in December 2010, she was recruited by partner Laura Prather who focuses her practice on the First Amendment.
Calzada has gained experience in general litigation with an emphasis on matters involving defamation, First Amendment, commercial practices and Texas’ new anti-Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation (SLAPP) law, as well as intellectual property matters pertaining to copyright and trademark infringement claims.
Prather comments, “This is an amazing accomplishment, and we are so proud of Alicia. She has dedicated so much time and energy into supporting NPPA’s mission. No one is more deserving of this honor.”
Mindy Hutchison, executive director of Durham, N.C.-based NPPA, adds, “Alicia has transformed the NPPA through her leadership and dedication to the mission of the organization. She is a tenacious advocate for issues that affect visual journalists, and she is tireless in her efforts to assist members in need of advice and support.”
Hutchison also notes that the Alicia Calzada First Amendment Award is the first NPPA award named after a female.
Do you have a special hobby – or other lifestyle interest – to share? Please email patricia.baldwin@texaslawbook.net.
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