Dallas Bar Association
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Focus | Entertainment, Art & Sports Law
March 2022 Volume 47 Number 3
2022 Fellows Justinian Award Recipient: Hon. Karen Gren Scholer BY SAKINA RASHEED FOSTER
Quentin Brogdon, Sarah Rogers, Rob Crain, John Spillane
Crain Brogdon Rogers Contributes to a New EAJ Campaign Record BY MICHELLE ALDEN
As the Dallas community contends with the Omicron variant, the Dallas Volunteer Attorney Program (DVAP) was fortunate to receive the support of Crain Brogdon Rogers LLP with a $25,000 donation. This makes an impressive total of $288,705 from Rob Crain and his previous and current firms, including a $50,000 pledge to the DVAP Endowment, the Justice Forever Fund. Crain Brogdon Rogers, LLP is a team of lawyers and professionals focusing on serious personal injury and wrongful death cases of all types. Though their practice is concentrated in North Texas, the firm handles cases throughout the country. Why do the accomplished attorneys of Crain Brogdon Rogers support equal access to justice? “There are many competing opportunities for all of us to contribute our money and our time to worthwhile causes, but DVAP stands head and shoulders above most of them. I have never second-guessed our firm’s contributions to this worthy cause. I know to a certainty that those contributions are making a real difference in real people’s lives,” said Quentin Brogdon. The justice gap in Dallas County remains daunting. In a country based on justice for all and access to our court system, over 25 percent of Dallas County residents live near the poverty level, and 42 percent have a slim hope of affording an attorney. With annual poverty incomes of $34,687 for a family of four, justice is a luxury for low and moderateincome families. Last year was another unusual year for our community. DVAP continued to con-
duct virtual legal clinics every Thursday and a virtual veteran’s clinic the first Friday of each month, along with periodic specialized wills, driver’s license restoration, and eviction clinics. The most publicized legal issues during the pandemic have been those in the landlord-tenant realm, as eviction rates have soared despite the imposition of eviction moratoriums. DVAP was able to assist “Sharon” with her landlord-tenant matter. Sharon recently had a baby, and the air conditioning in her family’s rental home went out, forcing them to check into a hotel. The rental house was also plagued with mold and plumbing issues. Sharon continued paying rent for nine months while she and her family could not live in the house due to the uninhabitable conditions. The property management company notified her that they were terminating her 30-day lease, as the owner planned to sell the house to his son. During this time, the management continued to string Sharon along, finally crediting two months’ rent and returning her security deposit. However, she was still out for seven months of rent. She was diligent and followed up with emails and texts before seeking help from DVAP. Sharon’s case was placed with volunteer attorney Shalanda Smith. Shalanda filed suit under the DTPA in District Court, followed by a motion to compel discovery. At last, defense counsel provided a monetary settlement. “I personally experienced bad situations with landlords during the time I was assisting Sharon. I fought for her, just like I fought for myself. I saw myself in her. continued on page 10
Trailblazer. It is a word we use to describe someone who forges a new path through uncharted territory to help others find their way. The Honorable Karen Gren Scholer, this year’s recipient of the Dallas Bar Foundation’s (DBF) prestigious Fellows Justinian Award, embodies every aspect of this word. The Fellows Justinian Award is awarded to an attorney who has achieved and consistently demonstrated the highest levels of professional excellence in a substantive area of the law. Recipients are recognized for making extraordinary contributions through their professional achievements in an area of the law. Judge Scholer’s impeccable professional reputation, commitment to legal excellence and fortitude are a perfect reflection of these ideals espoused by the Fellows Justinian Award. As Judge Scholer has been known to say, being “the first” helps break down barriers for other people and what they think they can do in their own lives. Fittingly, Judge Scholer’s professional excellence is marked by the many “firsts” she has accomplished during her career. Judge Scholer was the first Asian American elected official in the City of Dallas when she was elected as state district judge for the 95th Judicial District, where she resided from 2001 to 2008. Now, as the sitting judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Judge Scholer is the first Asian woman to become an Article III judge in a court within the Fifth Circuit. As detailed in the book chapter dedicated to Judge Scholer in The First Fifteen: How Asian American Women Became Federal Judges by Susan Oki Mollway, this is especially impressive given that women did not enter the federal judiciary until less than a century ago and that, as of 2019, Asian women made up roughly 4 percent of women sitting Article III judges. And, as the Texas Lawyer noted in 2019, Karen Gren Scholer’s decade-long journey to become the first Asian-American federal district judge in Texas is evidence of her exceptional qualifications and the universal respect she has earned from her colleagues throughout her career. In another important “first,”
Judge Karen Gren Scholer
Judge Karen Gren Scholer is the first Asian American to receive the esteemed Fellows Justinian Award. Some may say that Judge Scholer was destined to be a trailblazer. She is the daughter of a Japanese mother, who is a college graduate, a rare and impressive accomplishment for a woman in 1940s Japan. Her father was an American World War II veteran, son of Polish immigrants and the first in his family to attend college. Judge Scholer was the first on her father’s side of the family to complete college, which she did when she graduated from Rice University before going on to obtain her J.D. from Cornell Law School. Judge Scholer then went on to private practice focusing on business litigation, complex tort litigation, and alternative dispute resolution at Strasburger & Price (now Clark Hill), Andrews Kurth (now Hunton Andrews Kurth), Jones Day, and Carter Arnett (then Carter Scholer). As a further testament to Judge Scholer’s trailblazing career, she was a partner at each of these firms at a time when women of color partners made up only 1.5 percent to 3 percent of lawyers at firms (per a Berkeley Law 2020 Diversity Report). Judge Scholer’s commitment to legal excellence is also illustrated by her willingness to use her extraordinary advocacy skills and brilliant legal mind to serve on the judiciary. As Mollway notes, when Judge Scholer was urged by others to pursue a state judgeship, she said they were telling her what was already in continued on page 22
Inside 6
Name Image and Likeness Compensation for Student Athletes
14 NFT Museums in the Metaverse 16 Homeowners Insurance and the Iconic Dust Jacket 23 Super Bowl Settlement: St. Louis vs. Rams Relocation
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