Menu

About the DBA

Membership Info

Calendar / CLE

Members Only

Attorney Resources

Public Resources

Judiciary Info

Fee Dispute Rules

Grievance Procedures

Sections

Presidents' Pages

2008
Frank E. Stevenson II

2007
Beverly B. Godbey

2006
Mark K. Sales

2005
Timothy W. Mountz

2004
Rhonda Hunter

Dallas Bar Association
2101 Ross Avenue
Dallas, Texas 75201

View Map

214-220-7400
214-220-7465 (fax)

Browse the DBA News Archive...

DBF Fellows Present 2008 Award
to George Bramblett Jr.

Darlene Hutchinson Biehl March 28, 2008

On Wednesday, April 16, the Fellows of the Dallas Bar Foundation will honor George W. Bramblett Jr., a senior partner at Haynes and Boone, LLP, as the recipient of the 2008 Fellows Award at a luncheon at the Pavilion at the Belo Mansion.

The Dallas Bar Foundation was founded in 1971 to provide financial support for law-related charitable, educational and historic programs. Over the years, the DBF has awarded more than $3,500,000 in grants for the furtherance of justice, scholarships, and legal aid to the underprivileged and underrepresented.

Recipients of the DBF Fellows Award must be DBA members who have adhered to the highest principles and traditions of the legal profession and be highly respected by those in the legal profession. In addition, nominees must have demonstrated long-term devotion and commitment to service to the community and/or to the bar.

When Justice Douglas S. Lang recently compiled his book Deeds, Not Words, using vignettes about icons in the legal community, George Bramblett told Justice Lang how he measures a lawyer’s character. Has the lawyer made the transition from success to significance?
“Lawyers who work hard can be successful in a financial way to one degree or another,” Mr. Bramblett notes. “Pursuing clients, charging billable hours, burning the ‘midnight oil,’ using smart tactics and collecting those fees may fill bank accounts,” but Mr. Bramblett rhetorically asks, does “that financial success and even, perhaps, power make a contribution to the betterment of our legal system?”

Mr. Bramblett has had an extensive and diverse litigation practice for over 30 years. He has represented clients in the full range of business, commercial and tort litigation. He also has significant experience in the general area of securities and shareholder litigation.

Mr. Bramblett’s commitment to his community is also clear. He has served on the board of trustees for the Southwestern Medical Foundation, Baylor College of Dentistry and on the board of development for the University of Texas at Dallas.
After receiving a B.A. from SMU in 1963, Mr. Bramblett earned his J.D. in 1966 from SMU. While in law school, he served as the captain of the National Moot Court Team and attended two days of the Jack Ruby trial. He is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers, and is formerly the president of the Dallas chapter for the American Board of Trial Advocates.

In 2001, the Dallas Bar Association selected Mr. Bramblett as its Trial Lawyer of the Year. A frequent CLE speaker, he has also written extensively on courtroom procedures.

Chartered in 1991, the Fellows are the DBF membership group who support the mission of the foundation by raising additional revenue for grant awards.

As a result of receiving the annual DBF Fellows Award, the recipient directs a $10,000 grant to a particular organization or project. Mr. Bramblett has chosen the Sarah T. Hughes Diversity Scholarship Program at the SMU Dedman School of law as the recipient of the grant.

DBA members are invited to attend the luncheon on Wednesday, April 16. The reception begins at 11:30 a.m. at the Pavilion at the Belo Mansion, and lunch will be served at noon. Tickets are $50 each (parking included), and can be purchased from Elizabeth Philipp or 214-220-7487.

Law Day: Morris Dees to Receive Courageous Advocacy Award

Sherry L. Talton March 28, 2008

There, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home -- so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person; the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works.”

Morris Dees, the keynote speaker for the DBA’s Annual Law Day Luncheon on Friday, May 2, referred to Eleanor Roosevelt’s famous remarks to the United Nations in 1958 to describe the meaning of this year’s national Law Day theme — “Rule of Law: Foundation for Communities of Opportunity and Equity.”

It is easy to understand why these words resonate with Mr. Dees, a well-known civil rights attorney. At this year’s luncheon, he will be the first recipient of the DBA’s Courageous Advocacy Award, which was conceived by the Morris Harrell Professionalism Committee to honor a “practicing attorney who has demonstrated intense personal commitment, sacrifice and courage in advocating the rights of a client or clients, particularly in an unpopular case.”

Mr. Dees is the co-founder and chief trial lawyer of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a non-profit organization based in Montgomery, Ala., that advances the civil rights of disadvantaged people through litigation and education.

His childhood in a farming family in segregated Alabama allowed him to witness firsthand the painful consequences of prejudice. He credits his upbringing for his commitment to fighting for the rights of others. Mr. Dees received his law degree from the University of Alabama in 1960. After graduation, he ran a successful publishing business that generated revenues to build his law practice.

Then, in 1969, he filed a class-action lawsuit to integrate an all-white YMCA that refused to admit two black children to its summer camp. He followed the judgment for these children with many more victories over racial discrimination.

Mr. Dees is known for his “damage litigation” strategy. Rather than pursuing individual perpetrators of hate crimes, he has used civil litigation to bankrupt or otherwise destroy the organizations that host such individuals. In 1987, he obtained a $7 million judgment against the Ku Klux Klan for the mother of Michael Donald, a black teen who had been murdered.

Several years later, he won a $12 million judgment against Tom Metzger and the White Aryan Resistance for the killing of an Ethiopian student. The SPLC also obtained a $6.3 million verdict against the Aryan Nations in 2000, forcing the organization to give up 20 acres in Idaho.

As Mr. Dees explains, “Blacks don’t ride in the back of the bus anymore and women are allowed to work, but the real challenge of our time is a pervasive institutional racism.” One example he points to is immigration. “Immigrants are the 21st century’s sharecroppers.”

One of his clients recently testified before Congress about an immigration raid which has become the focus of a lawsuit Mr. Dees has filed alleging that the government has illegally detained, searched and harassed U.S. citizens of Latino descent in its efforts to control immigration.

Mr. Dees has not limited himself to issues involving racial discrimination either. In 1970, he filed a class-action suit for mental health patients confined in state institutions. Subsequently, the case established minimum standards of care for the mentally ill, now known as “the Wyatt standards.”

Mr. Dees has received numerous accolades for his work, and his crusade against white supremacist groups was memorialized in a fictionalized television movie in 1991 called Line of Fire: The Morris Dees Story.

A Lawyer’s Journey: The Morris Dees Story is the first in an ABA series of biographies about lawyers who have made extraordinary contributions to society.

The late Coretta Scott King has called Morris Dees “the most dedicated and effective civil rights lawyer in U.S. history.”

Lisa Blue, a well-known Dallas trial attorney and jury selection expert, is a long-time friend of Mr. Dees who says she is “inspired by Dees’ passion for what he does. He is never distracted by criticism; instead he remains focused on his goal and does not stray off-course. Dees’ objective is his work. Unlike a lot of high-profile lawyers, self-promotion is not part of his equation. He focuses on his passion.”

The career of Morris Dees illustrates what Eleanor Roosevelt explained: The rule of law affects our daily lives, and the rights we obtain in our daily lives are the most important.

Since President Eisenhower’s 1958 proclamation, Law Day has celebrated the “principle of government under law.” During the Law Day Luncheon at the Belo Mansion, we will honor our judiciary, and numerous schoolchildren will be in attendance to be recognized for their exceptional entries in essay and art contests depicting the Law Day theme.

The DBA Law Day Luncheon will begin at noon (doors open at 11:45 a.m.). Tickets are $35 per person and can be purchased via the DBA Web site at www.dallasbar.org. For more information, contact Brandi Thayer.

[dev v2]

DBF Fellows Present 2008 Award to George Bramblett Jr.

Law Day: Morris Dees to Receive Courageous Advocacy Award

DBF Fellows Present 2008 Award
to George Bramblett Jr.