Austin Bar Board and Officer Candidates Announced

The Austin Bar Association’s nominating committee has announced its slate of officer and board candidates for the 2020-21 bar year.

Wooten

Courreges

Arriaga

Kelly

President Kennon Wooten has been on the Austin Bar’s board since 2013 and has served as the Austin Bar’s treasurer, secretary, and president-elect. She was president of the Austin Young Lawyers Association in 2013 and editor-in-chief of Austin Lawyer between 2013 and 2019. In addition to local-bar involvement, Wooten assists the State Bar of Texas with CLE events and serves on the State Bar’s Court Rules Committee, the Supreme Court Advisory Committee, and the editorial board for The Advocate. She is a member of the American Law Institute and a partner at Scott Douglass & McConnico, where she focuses on civil litigation and appeals.

President-Elect David Courreges is a sixth-generation Austinite who believes in being a steward of the Austin community. He currently serves as secretary of the Austin Bar, having previously served as treasurer and as a two-term director. He has co-chaired the Austin Bar’s Legislative Committee, Law– Related Education Committee, and the Wildfire Legal Response team, and is the co-founder of the Austin Bar/AYLA Leadership Academy. He served as president of AYLA from 2014 -15 and as vice president of the Texas Young Lawyers Association from 2010-11, and has represented the Austin Bar as a member of the Travis County Civil and Family Courthouse Bond Advisory Committee and the City of Austin’s Downtown Community Court Advisory Board. He is the Director of Legal and Compliance, and Senior Corporate Counsel at University Federal Credit Union.

Secretary Amanda Arriaga has served as treasurer of the Austin Bar since June of 2019 and served as chair of the Austin Bar’s Gala Committee for the past two years. She was president of AYLA in 2014 and has been active on the Austin Bar board since 2015.

Treasurer Hon. Chari L. Kelly is a U.S. Army veteran and a justice on the Texas Third District Court of Appeals. She is a former AYLA president and graduate of the Austin Bar/AYLA Leadership Academy. Before her election as a director to the Austin Bar board in 2018, she served as the chair for AYLA’s Runway continued on page 9 for Justice from 2015-17. She is board-certified in criminal law by TBLS and the National Board of Trial Advocacy and also serves on the Litigation Council for the State Bar of Texas.

Boykin

Christian

Gamble

Meredith

Murray

Moore

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

There are six candidates vying for four seats on the Austin Bar’s board of directors. The director positions are for two-year terms. Any qualified member not receiving the nomination of the committee may be included on the ballot by submitting a written petition signed by 75 members by Friday, April 10, 2020.

A link to the electronic ballot will be sent to Austin Bar members on April 13, 2020 by Ballot Box Online. The email will be sent from noreply@ballotboxonline.com Members are encouraged to add this address to their safe-senders list to ensure that the message doesn’t go to their spam filters. Online voting will end at 5 p.m. on May 1, 2020.

Four of the following candidates will begin their terms on July 1, 2020, joining current board members Rob Frazer, Leslie Hill, Megan Honey Johnson, and Mary Ellen King, whose terms will expire in 2021.

Leslie Jane Boykin, owner of the Law Office of Leslie J. Boykin, is a solo practitioner defending clients accused of crimes in the Central Texas area. She has been involved with AYLA and the Austin Bar since 2004. She has served on the Austin Bar’s Law-Related Education Committee and is a 2019 graduate of the Austin Bar/AYLA Leadership Academy. She served on the AYLA board of directors from 2013-15, co-chaired the AYLA Retro Vegas fundraiser and the Reentry Committee, and served as a volunteer at the Women’s Resource Fair and Expunction Expo. Boykin is a member of the Austin Bar’s Solo/Small Firm and Criminal Law sections. In addition, she is a member of the Barbara Jordan Inn of Court, the Texas Bar College, the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, and the Austin Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. She is a Fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation and a founding member of the DUI Defense Lawyers Association.

Bill Christian is a shareholder at Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody. He has practiced civil litigation in Austin for over twenty years and is board-certified in civil appellate law. Christian is a member of the Austin Bar’s Civil Appellate Section, serving as the section’s chair in 2017. He is a Fellow of the Austin Bar Foundation. He served on the board of Volunteer Legal Services for ten years and was VLS board president in 2016.

Judge Maya Guerra Gamble is the presiding judge of Travis County’s 459th District Court. Prior to taking the bench, she had a solo practice representing children and parents in child protective services cases; represented whistleblowers as of counsel at O’Connell & Soifer; prosecuted child pornography and child exploitation cases for the Texas Attorney General; sued companies committing fraud against the United States for the Department of Justice; and clerked for Judge Richard Cudahy on the 7th Circuit. She has served on many boards and committees, including the Austin Bar’s CAFA section board, the Texas Supreme Court’s Children’s Commission’s Standing Committee on Foster Children and Education, the Travis County Child Welfare Board, the Capitol Area Council Scouting BSA Executive Board, and the Austin High School Continuing Education Fund Board.

Amy Meredith is the Chief Prosecutor for the Public Integrity Unit of the Travis County District Attorney’s Office. Meredith has been with the Travis County Attorney’s Office since 2004 and has spent the majority of her career in trial court. Currently serving as an Austin Bar board member, she is seeking re-election for her second term. Meredith has been an active member of the Austin Bar throughout her entire career. She currently serves on the Bench Bar committee and is a member of the Criminal Law Section, of which she is a past chair. She has participated in numerous Austin Bar committees and is currently a member of the Austin Black Lawyers Association and the Travis County Women Lawyers’ Association.

Carly Gallagher Murray is a board-certified attorney practicing family law in Central Texas, primarily in Travis and Williamson counties. Murray is a former Judge Suzanne Covington Pro Bono Service Award honoree and has been a member of the Austin Bar since 2008 and the Austin Bar’s Family Law Section since 2010. She is a board member of the Mother Attorneys Mentoring Association (MAMAs), through which she has participated as a UT Women’s Law Caucus mentor and has helped to sponsor events connecting female law students with working attorney moms. She enjoys participating in mock trial and moot court, and since 2016 she has served as both a sparring attorney and program judge with the UT School of Law Advocacy Program.

Craig Moore is an Assistant District Attorney for Travis County. He was a member of the LeadershipSBOT Class of 2014-15, and he has served as the Project Reentry Ambassador and Government Representative for AYLA. Moore was co-chair of the Austin Bar’s 4th Friday Free Members-Only CLE Committee from 2017 to 2019. He has served for the State Bar of Texas on the Public Affairs, Criminal Pattern Jury Charges, and District 9 Grievance committees. He is a member of the Austin Black Lawyers Association and the Robert W. Calvert American Inn of Court. In 2018, the Austin Bar presented Moore with the Regina Rogoff Award for Outstanding Public Sector Service. AL