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CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: 2009 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.

Nominations for the 2009 Fellows Awards must be received in our office by October 17, 2008 to be considered for a 2009 award.

Download a nomination form and instructions for submission here.

2008 Fellows Awards

2008 Outstanding Service Award Recipient: James R. Ellis

The 2008 Outstanding Service Award was presented to a pillar of the Seattle, Washington community: James R. Ellis.  Mr. Ellis, a longtime managing partner at Preston Gates & Ellis LLP, has been characterized as the “quintessential lawyer’s lawyer’” and an indefatigable visionary.  In addition to his contributions to the practice of law, a cornerstone of Mr. Ellis’ long and distinguished career has been his commitment to public service.

For more than half a century, Mr. Ellis has contributed to the improvement of the Northwest through his work as a citizen activist.  He was a leader in the campaigns to clean up Lake Washington in the 1950s; to finance mass transit, parks, pools, and other public facilities through “Forward Thrust” bonds in the 1960s; to preserve farmlands in the 1970s; to build and expand the Washington State Convention & Trade Center in the 1980s; and to establish the Mountains to Sound Greenway along the I-90 corridor in the 1990s.  William H. Gates expressed well the importance of Mr. Ellis’s contributions when he posited, “…whether there is a civic actor anywhere in this great land whose biography would match Jim’s. Who else cleaned up a 30 mile long lake, created a metropolitan transit system, built a convention center and developed a greenway bordering 100 miles of a federal highway?”

Mr. Ellis is heralded for his resourcefulness in meeting resistance and his realism in managing controversy.  Mr. Ellis’s contributions and honors are too numerous to be detailed, but his commitment to his community, his family, his profession, and to public service should serve as a model to all.   In 1990, Mr. Ellis stated, in remarks given at the University of Washington School of Law inaugural Condon-Falknor lecture series, “This is not a time for lawyers to refuse to commit…If you pursue each cause with persistence, honesty, civility, and respect for others, win or lose, you will leave a stronger republic and a more scrupulous and generous community.”

It is with great honor and regard that we recognize Jim Ellis for his lifetime of remarkable accomplishments.

2008 Outstanding Scholar Award Recipient: Professor Judith Resnik

This year, we recognize Professor Judith Resnik, the Arthur Liman Professor of Law at Yale Law School.  Professor Resnik teaches about federalism, adjudication, procedure, citizenship, sovereignty and equality. She has taught at the University of Southern California and visited at NYU, Harvard, Chicago, and the University of Toronto Law Schools.  She has been a Parsons Fellow at the University of Sydney and served as a faculty member at the Salzburg Seminar.  Professor Resnik graduated from Bryn Mawr College and NYU Law School where she was an Arthur Garfield Hays Fellow.

Professor Resnik has published extensively, including Processes of the Law: Understanding Courts and Their Alternatives (2004); Trial as Error, Jurisdiction as Injury: Transforming the Meaning of Article III, 113 Harvard Law Review 924 (2000); and her current work, Representing Justice: The Rise and Fall of Adjudication as Seen from Renaissance Iconography to Twenty-First Century Courthouses.

Long active in promoting and supporting the profession, Professor Resnik has chaired the Sections on Procedure, on Federal Courts, and on Women in Legal Education of the American Association of Law Schools.  She is a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Federal Judicial Improvements and a Managerial Trustee of the International Association of Women Judges.  Professor Resnik argued in the Supreme Court of the United States the case about the Rotary Club’s exclusion of women from its membership.

We are honored to recognize Professor Resnik’s enormous accomplishments and contributions to the profession.

Outstanding State Chair Award

The Officers of The Fellows 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 on The Fellows as the state level.

2008 Outstanding State Chair Award Recipients: Oklahoma State Chairs

L. David Pomeroy is the current Co-Chair of the Oklahoma Fellows. He was admitted to the bar in 1966. He received his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Oklahoma. Pomeroy is an active member of the American, Oklahoma and Oklahoma County Bar Associations. He served as a Governor of the Oklahoma Bar Association from 1998 to 2000 and was a Director of the Oklahoma County Bar Association from 1983 to 1996. He was President of the county bar in 1992-1993. He served as a delegate to the American Bar Association in 1995-1996. He is a Master Emeritus of the William J. Holloway, Jr. American Inn of Court CV and was recently appointed by the Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives to serve a four-year term on the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. Pomeroy is also active in charitable organizations of the legal profession. He is a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, serving during 2006-2007 as co-chair of the Oklahoma chapter of the Fellows. He is also Benefactor Fellow of the Oklahoma Bar Foundation and serves as a Trustee of that organization.

Also being honored is William H Sullivan, current Co-Chair of the Oklahoma State Fellows. He is a solo practitioner in Oklahoma City.

Graydon Dean Luthey, Jr. is a shareholder and director in the Tulsa, Oklahoma office of Hall, Estill, where he practices trial and appellate law in securities, anti-trust, commercial, public utility, Indian and administrative matters.  He is president of the Council Oak/Johnson-Sontag American Inn of Court, is an adjunct professor of law at the University of Tulsa, an elected member of the American Law Institute and listed in the Best Lawyers in America in the categories of Bet the Company Litigation, Commercial Litigation and Gaming Law.  He received a B.A. in Letters and a J.D. from the University of Oklahoma and was a visiting research fellow at Keble College of Oxford University.  He is a life fellow of the American Bar Foundation and was Oklahoma State Co-Chair from 2003-2006.

Michael C. Mayhall is a certified public accountant and an attorney practicing primarily in the field of taxation in Lawton for the past thirty-two (32) years. He is a shareholder in the firm of Godlove, Mayhall, Dzialo, Dutcher & Erwin, P.C. He and his wife, Sandy, have two sons, Jeffrey and Justin. Mr. Mayhall is a member of several professional organizations including the Oklahoma Bar Association, Oklahoma Bar Foundation, Comanche County Bar Association, Oklahoma Society of Certified Public Accounts, Southwest Oklahoma Chapter of Certified Public Accountants, American Bar Association and the American Bar Foundation. He is also currently serving the Board of Visitors, O. U. College of Law and Board of Directors, Oklahoma Attorneys Mutual Insurance Company.

O.B. Johnston III was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1941; admitted to Bar, 1966, Oklahoma; Baylor University (B.B.A., 1963); University of Tulsa School of Law (J.D., 1966); Assistant U.S. Attorney, Western District of Oklahoma, 1970-76; Partner, Logan & Lowry, LLP Vinita and Grove, Oklahoma; Member Craig County Bar Association (President 1986-1988); Benefactor Fellow, Oklahoma Bar Foundation (President 1995); American Bar Foundation (State Chair 2001-2003).

 
Also being honored is Jon H. Trudgeon, Prior Past Co-chair of the Oklahoma Fellows. He is a partner at Hertzog Conger Cason & Neville in Oklahoma City.

CLICK HERE for a complete list of previous award recipients.