Fellows Awards
FELLOWS AWARDS
Outstanding Service Award
The Fellows shall, on an annual basis, select a Fellow for the Outstanding Service Award, who has, in his or her professional career, adhered for more than thirty years to the highest principles and traditions of the legal profession and to the service of the public.
Outstanding Scholar Award
The Fellows shall, on an annual basis, select a person, not necessarily a Fellow, for the Outstanding Scholar Award, who has engaged in outstanding scholarship in the law or in government.
Outstanding State Chair Award
The Fellows Officers shall, on an annual basis, select a current State Chair for the Outstanding State Chair Award, who has demonstrated a dedication to the work of the Foundation and the mission of The Fellows through exceptional efforts on behalf of The Fellows at the state level.
The Fellows are currently accepting nominations for 2011 Awards. The submission deadline is October 1, 2010.
Download a nomination form and instructions for submission here.
CLICK HERE for a complete list of previous award recipients.
2010 Fellows Awards
The 2010 Fellows Awards will be presented in Orlando, Florida on Saturday, February 6, at the Fellows 54th Annual Awards Reception and Banquet. Congratulations to this year's distinguished honorees:
2010 Outstanding Service Award Recipient
Brooksley E. Born
Washington, District of Columbia
2010 Outstanding Scholar Award Recipient
Professor Marc Galanter
Madison, Wisconsin
2010 Outstanding State Chair Award Recipient
Linda A. Klein
Atlanta, Georgia
With 2010 Awards Banquet Keynote Address by:
Professor Steven D. Levitt
Chicago, Illinois
2009 Fellows Awards
The 2009 Fellows Awards were presented in Boston, Massachusetts on Saturday, February 14, at the Fellows Annual Awards Reception and Banquet.
2009 Outstanding Service Award Recipient
James B. Sales
Houston, Texas
James B. Sales has practiced as a litigator in Houston for nearly 50 years and is known throughout his community and Texas for his commitment to underserved client populations. Mr. Sales served as Head of Fulbright & Jaworski's Litigation Department from 1979 to 2000 and currently serves as Of Counsel to the firm. He served in the United States Marine Corp. with the Third Battalion Marines. He is a Life Benefactor Fellow of the ABF and served as the Texas State Chair for five years.
As President of the Houston Bar Association, Jim Sales initiated the Houston Volunteer Lawyer Program for the working poor, today one of the largest pro bono programs in Texas. He was instrumental in the creation of the Houston Bar Foundation and appointed to serve as its first Chair. He led the Texas State Bar board to adopt a mass disaster plan to prohibit improper solicitation and harassment of victims in disaster situations. In May 2004, the Texas Supreme Court appointed Mr. Sales to chair the Supreme Court Access to Justice Commission, which aims to expand the delivery of legal services to poor and low-income Texans.
As Chairman of the Board and then as President of the State Bar of Texas, Mr. Sales led a successful effort to restructure and approve the current Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct. Concerned about misconduct by attorneys related to impairment caused by drug and alcohol abuse, he acted to reestablish the Texas Lawyer Assistance Programs, enabling intervention to assist and support impaired lawyers. As Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Texas Bar Foundation (1993-1994), he also instituted a planned giving campaign to assure the long-term viability of the Foundation. Jim Sales' many awards and honors include the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award presented to him in 2005 by his alma mater, the University of Texas School of Law, and in 1994, he was chosen by Texas Lawyer magazine as one of the Legal Legends in Texas.
2009 Outstanding State Chair Award Recipient
Honorable Frederic B. Rodgers
Golden, Colorado
Judge Frederic B. Rodgers, a graduate of Amherst College and the Albany Law School, has been a judge since 1969 when he served as one of the first U.S. Army military judges in Vietnam. There he was awarded two Bronze Stars and the Air Medal for meritorious achievement in aerial flight. He has previously been chief deputy district attorney in Denver, magistrate of the Denver Juvenile Court and in private practice in Breckenridge, Colorado. He became a part-time municipal judge in 1978, and in 1986 Governor Richard Lamm appointed him judge of the Gilpin County Court. He hears civil and criminal cases, including felonies, in Colorado's 1st Judicial District and has been retained by election five times.
Judge Rodgers is a a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation and has served The Fellows as Colorado State Chair since 2005. He has served in the ABA House of Delegates, on the ABA Nominating Committee, on the ABA Board of Governors and was Senior Vice-President of the Colorado Bar Association for 2004-2005. He served on the Boards of the American Judicature Society and the National Judicial College, whose faculty he joined in 1990, and was Chair of its Faculty Council in 1999.
Judge Rodgers has taught at numerous national, international and state CLE programs. He is the author of many articles and has served on the editorial board of The Judges' Journal. His personal and professional history of service and expertise in Vietnam afforded him the opportunity to provide judicial training and law drafting assistance to the Vietnam Supreme People's Court, National Assembly and Ministry of Justice for USAID and the U.N Development Programme in 2002-2003. He has been President of the Colorado Municipal Judges Association, the Colorado County Judges Association, the Denver Law Club, Rhone-Brackett American Inn of Court and the National Conference of Special Court Judges, Vice-Chair of the Colorado Trial Judges Council, and Chair of the ABA Judicial Division.
2009 Outstanding Scholar Award Recipient
Professor Laurence H. Tribe
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Laurence H. Tribe was named one of Harvard's few University Professors in 2004 and has been holder of its constitutional law chair since 1980. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2000 was voted Harvard's best law teacher. A mathematics summa cum laude with numerous honorary degrees, Laurence Tribe helped draft such constitutions as South Africa's and Russia's and has published over 100 books and articles, including a constitutional law treatise more often cited than any other post-1950 legal text. Tribe's many appellate arguments, most of them pro bono and 3/5 of them successful, include more than three dozen cases in the Supreme Court of the United States. He has frequently testified before Congress on a broad range of constitutional issues.
Awards Banquet Keynote Address: "The Invisible Constitution"
Professor Laurence H. Tribe
Much that we take for granted about our Constitution's meaning is not contained in its text but implicit in its structure and history - and in our history as a nation. Discerning what that "invisible" Constitution contains - from the unwritten rights of individuals to the implied rights of families, communities, and even states - has been central to the national conversation about our Constitution from the beginning. But that conversation has been clouded by a recurring accusation, hurled by the right against the left and by the left against the right, that the constitutional principles advocated by each side's ideological adversaries should be rejected simply because they cannot be located in, or inferred from, what the document expressly says. This keynote address, and the book that more fully spells out the reasoning summarized in this address, is an attempt to show how pointless those accusations are and to confront more forthrightly the challenge of describing what the Constitution means but never actually says, and of debating what we should take that meaning to be.