Announcing New Officers and Members of the Board

from Austin Lawyer, June 2021

A Brief History of the Austin Bar's LGBT Law Section/Austin LGBT Bar Association

Welcome to the Board of Directors for Bar Year 2021-22

With no uncontested races, the Austin Bar Association announces its new officers and board of directors for the upcoming bar year.

Current Austin Bar President Kennon Wooten will become past-president when President David Courreges takes office on July 1, 2021. Courreges has been a member of the Austin Bar Association’s Board of Directors since 2015, serving in the capacity as treasurer, secretary, and two terms as a 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, 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, BSA Officer, and Senior Corporate Counsel at University Federal Credit Union.

Rounding out the executive committee are President-Elect Amanda Arriaga, Secretary Justice Chari Kelly, and Treasurer Mary Ellen King.

Arriaga has served as secretary and treasurer of the Austin Bar, as well as chair of the Austin Bar Gala Committee for the past three years. She was president of AYLA in 2014 and has been active on the Austin Bar board since 2015. Justice 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 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.

King practices civil litigation in the Austin office of Richie & Gueringer. She has served on the board of directors for both the Austin Bar and AYLA. She was the 2019-20 Austin Bar Outstanding Director and the 2012 AYLA Outstanding Young Lawyer. She received AYLA’s President’s Award of Merit in 2013, and was a member of the Austin Bar/ AYLA Leadership Academy. She also served as Judicial Reception Committee Chair from 2010-14 and Austin Bar Foundation Gala co-chair in 2020 and 2021. She was a member of the Solo and Small Firm Section where she has served as chair, vice-chair, and programming committee chair.

Nadia Bettac, Rob Frazer, Leslie Hill, and Maitreya Tomlinson will serve two-year terms on the Austin Bar board of directors, with terms expiring in 2023.

Bettac is an insurance defense litigator for Farmers Insurance. She was an award-winning director for AYLA, co-chaired Runway for Justice, volunteered for AYLA's Holiday Program (formerly known as "Reindeer Games"), Bar and Grill musical, Women’s Resource Fair, and the Austin Bar Gala. She is a member of the Travis County Women Lawyers Association and Robert W. Calvert American Inn of Court. She is an adjunct professor and championship-winning mock trial coach at the UT School of Law.

Frazer is a board-certified family law attorney practicing primarily in Austin. He has been an active member of the Austin Bar for many years and has served on the Bench Bar, Austin Bar Gala, and Law-Related Legal Education committees, and is a graduate of the Austin Bar/AYLA Leadership Academy. He serves on the Leaders for Literacy Committee and is an active member of St. Michael’s Episcopal Church.

Hill is the chief counsel of the Travis County Office of Child Representation (OCR) and is a NACC Child Welfare Law Specialist. Prior to working at OCR, she was a prosecutor at the District Attorney’s and County Attorney’s offices, where she worked on the CPS and protective order dockets. She has served as the Legal Services Director at SafePlace, and as a mediator in private practice. Hill serves as the LGBT Section liaison to the Austin Bar board. She is a member of the Adoption Day Committee and the LGBT and Family Law sections. She has also proudly served as a board member for Lawyer Referral Service and for Asian Family Support Services of Austin (Saheli).

Tomlinson is a board-certified civil appellate attorney and the founder of the Tomlinson Firm. He is the chair of the Civil Appellate Section and co-chair of the Bench Bar Committee. Tomlinson has also served on the Austin Bar’s Jury Trial Task Force. In addition, he currently serves on the State Bar’s Civil Appellate Section’s Amicus Committee and the Third Court of Appeals Pro Bono Committee. He is a member of the Robert W. Calvert American Inn of Court and is a fellow of the Texas State Bar and Austin Bar Foundations.

The new directors will join Leslie Boykin, Judge Maya Guerra Gamble, Amy Meredith, and Craig Moore, whose terms expire in 2022.

The officers and directors are joined on the Austin Bar board of directors by the chairs of all Austin Bar sections, the AYLA president and president-elect, and representatives from local affinity bar associations. Also serving are ex-officio members, including local delegates to the American Bar Association, the local representatives to the State Bar of Texas board of directors, and representatives from the Association of Legal Administrators, Capital Area Paralegal Association, Austin Legal Professionals Association, Federal Bar Association, UT School of Law, Volunteer Legal Services, and a UT School of Law student representative. AL