Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas Women’s Advocacy Awards
Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas has announced its Women’s Advocacy Awards recipients who will be honored at its annual reception June 11 at the Arts District Mansion in Dallas.
The Louise Raggio Women’s Legal Advocate Award will go to Juanita Harris, assistant vice president and senior legal counsel for DIRECTV. “Harris is widely viewed within the corporate law community as one of the leading and most authoritative voices on diversity,” Texas Lawbook founder and reporter Mark Curriden wrote in a 2018 profile of Harris, who was then an assistant vice president and senior legal counsel of human resources for AT&T. That year, Harris was a recipient of the ACC-DFW and Lawbook’s Outstanding Corporate Counsel award.
The Champion of Justice Award will be presented to Cynthia “Cynt” Marshall, president and CEO of Marshalling Consulting. Latresha Goodwin, owner of A Better Choice Enterprises, will receive the Business Leadership Award and Beth Myers, CEO of Girls Inc. of Metropolitan Dallas, will be honored with the Civic/Nonprofit Leadership Award.
The Advocate on the Rise Award will go to Amber Hamilton Gregg, litigation house counsel of Progressive Casualty Insurance.
This year marks the Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas’ 25th Annual Women’s Advocacy Awards, which honors lawyers and organizations that make a difference in the lives of women and children. Much of the organization’s legal services go to domestic violence survivors and their children. In more than 70 years, the organization has provided free legal aid to more than 1 million women and low-income families.
The awards reception will include a silent auction and door prize drawings. Sponsors of the event include Johnston Tobey Baruch, Baker & Hostetler and Courtney Barksdale Perez, Estes Thorne Ewing & Payne, Bill and Audrey Pedersen, The Honorable Royal Ferguson and Marcellene Malouf.
Purchase tickets and learn more about the organization here.
Hispanic Bar Association of Houston Annual Gala
As the Hispanic Bar Association of Houston prepares for its annual gala, organizers are asking for donations of unique items and experiences to include in an auction at the fundraising event.
The association’s 37th annual gala celebrates the accomplishments of Hispanic lawyers and raises money for student scholarships.
Organizers are seeking “distinctive items, such as vacation home stays, event tickets, restaurant vouchers, exclusive experiences, memorabilia and bottles of fine wine or liquor” by May 9. The gala, set to a “Havana Nights” theme, will take place May 16 at the Omni Houston Hotel.
Those interested in contributing to the auction should contact Ruth Mendez via email at info@hisbahouston.com. More information about the event and how to become a sponsor may be found here.
ADL Honors SMU First Amendment Clinic Director
The Anti-Defamation League Texoma Regional Office has announced that its Larry Schoenbrun Jurisprudence Award this year will go to Thomas S. Leatherbury, clinical professor of law and director of the First Amendment Clinic at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law.
The award is given annually to a member of the legal community who exemplifies outstanding leadership, exemplary community contributions and commitment to the ADL’s ideals.
Leatherbury will be honored at an award luncheon on Nov. 13 at the Fairmont Dallas.
For more than two years, Leatherbury has had his own firm, Thomas S. Leatherbury Law. Prior to that, he spent more than 32 years at Vinson & Elkins.
Leatherbury recently represented an East Texas newspaper before the Texas Supreme Court against a prosecutor’s libel lawsuit. The high court decided the newspaper did not defame the prosecutor in an article that tied him to the wrongful murder conviction of Michael Morton, for which a state evidence law is named. Leatherbury also recently lent his signature to an amicus brief in support of Perkins Coie’s challenge to President Donald Trump’s March 6 executive order targeting the firm.