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Distinguished Jurist, Attorney and Professor Awards Program 2005 Recognition is given to those individuals who, by reason of his or her professional activities, have distinguished themselves in their chosen profession and have brought credit and honor to the legal profession.
2005 Distinguished Jurist Hon. Jay C. Zainey
Judge Zainey and New Orleans Attorney Mark Surprenant founded SOLACE, a Louisiana State Bar Association program, which provides services to members of the bar association and the entire legal community who experience family tragedies. There are currently approximately 1900 volunteer attorneys throughout the state who participate in the SOLACE Program. SOLACE was instrumental in assisting attorneys who were displaced as a result of Hurricane Katrina in finding housing, office space, office furniture and books. In May 2004, Judge Zainey organized the Homeless Experience Legal Protection (H.E.L.P.) Program. Over 350 attorneys provide legal consultation and notary services at four homeless centers in New Orleans. He is organizing similar programs in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Shreveport, Alexandria, New York City, Washington, DC, and Memphis. In October, 2004 Judge Zainey and his wife Joy founded the God’s Special Children Program. The program includes a monthly mass for people with special needs, their families and friends. Judge Zainey has also worked with the Louisiana State Bar Association to Provide Legal Services for Persons with Disabilities in providing pro bono legal services to people with disabilities and their families. While currently carrying a full docket in the Eastern District of Louisiana, Judge Zainey also assists his colleagues by presiding over cases in both the Southern District of Texas and the Southern District of Mississippi. He is past president of the Louisiana State Bar Association and the Jefferson Bar Association, and is currently on the Board of Directors of the Pro Bono Project, the New Orleans Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, Magnolia Special School, and is President of the Judge John C. Boutall American Inn of Court. He also currently serves on the American Bar Association’s Hurricane Katrina Task Force, and has recently written an article about the H.E.L.P. Program which will be included in a book entitled "Lawyer’s Working to End Homelessness," a book published by the American Bar Association’s Commission on Homelessness and Poverty.
2005 Distinguished Attorney H. Alston Johnson III
His practice concentrates primarily in litigation, particularly at the appellate level and with particular emphasis in the areas of tort, insurance coverage, and administrative law. He has extensive experience in legislative, regulatory and governmental matters and has represented numerous public entities in both counseling and litigation capacities. Mr. Johnson served on the LSBA Board of Governors from 1975 to 1976. He is a member of the LSBA, the American Bar Association, and the American Law Institute and a former member of the council of the Louisiana State Law Institute. He is a past president of the Louisiana Association of Defense Counsel and in 1988 he served as chair of the Governor’s Advisory Committee on Tort, Workers’ Compensation and Insurance Reform. From 1973 to 1984, he served as consultant for the LSBA Law Reform Committee. Mr. Johnson also received the 2005 LBF Curtis R. Boisfontaine Trial Advocacy Award for his long-standing devotion to excellence in trial practice and for upholding the standards of ethics and consideration for the courts, litigants and all counsel in his practice of the law. He is the author or co-author of three treatises on Louisiana law published by Thomson/West Publishing Company: Louisiana Workers’ Compensation (4th ed.), Louisiana Insurance Law (3rd ed. in manuscript) and Louisiana Civil Jury Instructions (2nd ed.).
2005 Distinguished Professor Dean Brian Bromberger
While in Australia, he was the director of the Center for the Study of Law and Technology at the University of New South Wales. He also served on boards and a tribunal that focused on mental health issues and was a part-time lecturer at New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry and the School of Medicine. He came to Loyola from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he was associate dean for academic affairs and professor of law since 1995. An accomplished scholar, Bromberger has written four books and numerous articles. His scholarship was recognized with a prestigious Ford Foundation Graduate Research Scholarship and a graduate scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Bromberger relocated Loyola Law School onto the campus of the University of Houston for the fall 2005 semester-an unprecedented feat in America’s legal education. More than 300 students from Loyola and Tulane participated in the Loyola Houston curriculum. For the first year law students Loyola’s Houston program was the only way they could commence their legal education this year, and for a number of Louisiana students planning to graduate, taking Louisiana’s unique civil law courses at other schools was not an option. Brombergers leadership kept Loyola Law School on track and boosted morale with a much needed "can-do" attitude. 2005 Distinguished Professor Chancellor Freddie Pitcher, Jr.
Under his leadership, the SULC has thrived. He has initiated a part-time evening division, created a distance learning partnership with New York Law School to offer an on-line curriculum; established a certificate program in Public Interest Law; added a Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic and a Domestic Violence Law Clinic to its successful Clinical Education Program; offered its first Summer Studies Abroad Program to London, England; attracted a donation to establish the J.J. McKernan Distinguished Lecture Series; significantly increased in size and number faculty summer research stipends; and increased the Law Center’s endowed professorships from two to eight. Chancellor Pitcher is a member of the American Bar Association, National bar Association, Louisiana State Bar Association, and the Baton Rouge Bar Association. He is admitted to practice before the United States Eastern, Middle, and Western District Courts of Louisiana and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He received his undergraduate degree in political science from Southern University in 1966 and his Juris Doctor Degree from Southern University School of Law in 1973. While in law school, he was elected president of the Student Bar Association and won distinction as an outstanding moot court competitor. Chancellor Pitcher was also the founding vice president of the Southern University Law Center’s American Inns of Court Chapter. Pitcher has a career of many firsts. He became the first African American elected to a judgeship in Baton Rouge with his election to the City Court in a citywide election in April 1983. He was the first African American elected to the 19th Judical District in a parish-wide election in 1987. In 1992, he achieved another first with his election to the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeals, without opposition. Pitcher has also served as an associate justice ad hoc on the Louisiana Supreme Court. Chancellor Pitcher authored close to 200 judicial opinions while serving on the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal. Upon his retirement from the bench in May 1997, Pitcher was named a partner in the Baton Rouge office of Phelps Dunbar LLP, an international law firm. His practice focused on the areas of commercial, casualty, and employment litigation. He was also a member of the firm’s appellate practice group. Prior to his election to the bench, Judge Pitcher was the principal partner in the firm Pitcher, Tyson, Avery and Cunningham. He has also served as a special counsel in the Office of the Attorney General for the State of Louisiana, and as an assistant district attorney for East Baton Rouge Parish. Chancellor Pitcher has been honored as a recipient of the Brotherhood Award by the Baton Rouge Region of the National Conference for Community and Justice.
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HONORABLE JAY C. ZAINEY was appointed by President George W. Bush to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana on February 19, 2002. He is a graduate of the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University and he served in the United States Air Force Reserves from 1970-76. 
H. Alston Johnson III is a managing partner of Phelps Dunbar’s Baton Rouge office. Mr. Johnson graduated cum laude in 1967 from Georgetown University. He received his J.D. in 1970 from Louisiana State University, Paul M. Hebert Law Center where he was a senior associate editor of the Law Review . Prior to joining Phelps Dunbar in 1984, he was a full-time member of the law faculty at LSU for twelve years. He continues to teach as an adjunct member of that faculty, teaching primarily conflict of laws, federal courts and insurance. 
Brian Bromberger was educated in his native Australia where he earned a bachelor of laws degree with honors at Melbourne University. He also completed an LL.M. degree at the University of Pennsylvania. He began his teaching career in law in 1969 and has taught or served as a visiting professor at law schools in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States including the University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse University, the University of Utah, and William and Mary College.
Freddie Pitcher, Jr, (Judge Ret.) was appointed Chancellor and Full Professor of Law at the Southern University Law Center (SULC) in November 2002. Chancellor Pitcher’s more than 25 years of teaching experience has included adjunct professorships at the Southern University Law Center and at LSU’s Paul M. Hebert Law Center. Pitcher has been appointed to a three-year term of the American Bar Association Law School Legal Education Section’s Committee on Professionalism and has been named to two ABA Site Evaluation Team for Reaccrediting Law Schools, one of which he serves as chair.
