In this week’s edition of P.S., a Houston litigator joins the board of managers of the Houston Independent School District and Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law and its DEI office wrap up a weeklong program that exposes high school students to the law school experience.
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— This week, SMU Dedman School of Law hosted 22 Dallas-area rising high school seniors for its third-annual Rising Scholars Program, which gives law-curious high school students primarily from minority and underprivileged communities the opportunity to see the law school experience up close: attend classes, meet with practicing attorneys, develop writing and oral advocacy skills and participate in a moot court competition. Throughout the week, the students stay on campus in one of SMU’s dormitories. The program, hosted in conjunction with SMU Dedman’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, concluded today with a closing awards luncheon featuring guest speaker Cole Brown, an SMU Dedman alum who is the chief people officer at American Airlines. Brown presented each scholar with American Airlines miles good for one roundtrip ticket.
SMU Dedman was able to offer this program to the students free of charge through the financial support of three key sponsors that each gave $5,000: AT&T, Apple and Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann. Lawyers from each organization also donated their time. Other panelists throughout the week are lawyers at Thompson & Horton, Sheppard Mullin, Duffee + Eitzen, the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, Human Rights Initiative of North Texas, Lone Start Justice Alliance, Holland & Knight, Toyota, Peleton, BNSF Railway, Fletcher Farley and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Judges from Dallas’ civil and criminal district courts, as well as SMU Law faculty, were also on panels.
— The Texas Education Agency recently appointed Houston Balch & Bingham partner Audrey Momanaee as one of nine members of the Houston Independent School District’s board of managers. TEA’s appointment was part of a takeover in an effort to reform HISD, which TEA says has been riddled with years of missteps and mismanagement — such as noncompliance with legal requirements for special education, years of poor performance on standardized testing and previous unethical board practices — the Houston Chronicle reported. The board of managers temporarily replaces the elected board to oversee the management of HISD and its newly appointed superintendent, Mike Miles. Momanaee practices energy litigation and leads Balch & Bingham’s trial practice in Texas. An HISD parent and native Houstonian, Momanaee dedicates much of her free time to public service and pro bono legal work, including serving on the board of Houston Volunteer Lawyers, representing caretakers in adult guardianship cases, and serving as the director of Community Family, a Houston-area nonprofit that offers family services and adult and early childhood education.