2024 FBA Chapter Awards
The New Orleans Chapter of the Federal Bar Association recognizes the contributions of members of the legal community every year at our Annual Meeting & Luncheon. The recipients of the President’s, Professionalism, and Pro Bono Awards are recognized at the New Orleans Chapter’s Annual Meeting held August 22, 2024.
2024 nominations are now open! Please send a letter of nomination via email to fbaneworleans@gmail.com. In your email, include the name of your nominee and explain why you believe they deserve the award. Feel free to attach any supporting documentation you think would be important for the selection committee. All nominations are due by 5:00 p.m. on June 28, 2024.
Awards
President’s Award
This award recognizes demonstrated leadership in and outstanding service to the legal profession and to the larger community. The award may be conferred upon an individual
or a group.
Professionalism Award
This award honors the late John R. “Jack” Martzell. The award
recognizes an attorney who best exemplifies outstanding professionalism in the practice
of law.
Public Service & Pro Bono Award
This award honors the late Camille Gravel, a champion in the
battle for civil rights and equal justice irrespective of financial means. The award recognizes an attorney who has done substantial pro bono or public service legal work. The award may be conferred upon an individual or a group
2023 Chapter Award Recipients
President’s Award
2023 President’s Award Recipient, Alysson Mills
President’s Award
This award was conceived in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and its purpose is to recognize a lawyer for contributions to community leadership outside the practice of law. The award may be conferred upon an individual or upon a group led by an attorney.
Prior Recipients:
2022 Scott Sternberg
2021 Posthumously to S. Gene Fendler 2020 José R. Cot
2019 Brian J. Capitelli
2018 Omar K. Mason, Annie G. McBride, and Paul M. Sterbcow
2017 Mark C. Surprenant
2016 Christopher K. Ralston
2015 Patricia A. Krebs
2014 Kara Van de Carr
2013 Marshall Hevron
2012 Thomas Fierke
2011 Kim Boyle
2010 Aimee Quirk
2009 Paul Pastorek
2008 Andy Lee
2007 Walter Leger, Jr.
Jack Martzell Professionalism Award
2023 Jack Martzell Professionalism Award Recipient, R. Patrick Vance
Jack Martzell Professionalism Award
This award is named in honor of the late John R. “Jack” Martzell. Mr. Martzell practiced in New Orleans, Louisiana with the firm of Martzell & Bickford. He served as law clerk to the Hon. J. Skelly Wright, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Mr. Martzell served as Director of the Louisiana Commission on Human Relations, Rights and Responsibilities for six years. He was a member of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American College of Trial Lawyers, and the Council of the Louisiana State Law Institute. He served as President of the Louisiana Trial Lawyers Association and as Chairman of the Department of Public Affairs with the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. The John R. “Jack” Martzell Professionalism Award recognizes the attorney who best exemplifies outstanding professionalism in the practice of law.
Prior Recipients:
2022 Dawn Barrios
2021 Eva J. Dossier
2020 Kathryn M. Knight
2019 Richard C. Stanley
2018 Ashley L. Belleau
2017 Judy Y. Barrasso
2016 Irving J. Warshauer
2015 Barry W. Ashe
2014 Wayne Lee
2013 Harry Simms Hardin
2012 John Wilson Reed
2011 Phillip Wittmann
2010 Gerald Meunier
2009 Marian Mayer Berkett and Russ Herman
2008 Julian R. Murray, Jr.
Camille Gravel Public Service & Pro Bono Award
2023 Camille Gravel Public Service & Pro Bono Award Recipient,
Claude J. Kelly, III
Camille Gravel Public Service & Pro Bono Award
This award is named in honor of the late Camille Gravel, a veteran trial attorney and a champion in the battle for civil rights and equal justice irrespective of financial means. With the avowed intention to have the “ordinary practice of a country lawyer,” Mr. Gravel hung out his shingle in Alexandria in the 1940s. Mr. Gravel’s career paralleled the tumultuous years of the civil rights movement in the South, and his desire to help those in trouble led him to embrace fully the call for equal justice for all races. In 1980, an African American civil rights leader Alexandria, and a contemporary of Mr. Gravel, wrote the following of him: “I know of no other man in this state who has been more dedicated to the problems of the weak, the oppressed, the down-trodden, the have-nots, and those who are least able to defend themselves than Camille Gravel.” The Camille Gravel Award recognizes an attorney who has done substantial pro bono or public service legal work in keeping with the spirit and values exemplified by Camille Gravel.
Prior Recipients:
2022 Barrasso Usdin Kupperman Freeman & Saver, LLC
2021 Jee Park
2020 William C. Snowden
2019 Ernest L. Jones
2018 David H. Williams
2017 Mary E. Howell
2016 Dana M. Douglas
2015 Jane L. Johnson
2014 Posthumously to Mark Moreau
2013 Virginia Laughlin Schlueter
2012 Judy Perry Martinez
2011 Christy F. Kane
2010 Tulane Environmental Law Clinic
2009 Lawrence Ernst; John Jerry Glas and Douglas R. Elliott; Richard Duplantier, Jr. and Doris Bobadilla; Avery Pardee, Andrew Lee and Richard Schroeder; Davis S. Bland; Lindsay Larson III; L. Eades Hogue; Joe Norman and Michael Rubenstein; G. William Jarman and Charles McCowan, III; Kim Boyle; Posthumously to William Porteous, III
2009 K. Eric Gisleson and Charles Marshall, III
2008 Mark Surprenant
2007 Orleans Parish Indigent Defenders Board
2006 Paula Kluver Cobb; Nicholas Trenticosta; Prof. William Quigley