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Distinguished Jurist, Attorney and Professor Awards Program 2006 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.
2006 Distinguished Jurist Justice Catherine D. (Kitty) Kimball
Justice Kimball is a founder of the Sunshine Foundation, which distributes free books annually to Louisiana’s pre-schoolers to enhance self-esteem regardless of personal circumstances. To date, the Louisiana National Guard has distributed over 500,000 free books to Louisiana children. Justice Kimball currently serves as chair of the Louisiana Budgetary Control Board; chair, Louisiana Supreme Court Technology Committee; chair, Court Committee Southeast Louisiana Criminal Justice Recovery Task Force; chair, Louisiana Integrated Criminal Justice System Policy Board. She also serves on the Paul M. Hebert Law Center Search Committee; Louisiana Children’s Cabinet; Juvenile Justice Implementation Commission; and Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Criminal Justice. She is one of two judges on the COSCA/NACM National Center for State Courts Joint Technology Committee. Justice Kimball has been inducted into the Louisiana Justice Hall of Fame and the Louisiana State University Law Center Hall of Fame. She was selected as the Outstanding Alumni of the LSU Law Center in 1999. She received the Outstanding Judicial Award from Victims & Citizens Against Crime Inc. and was nominated on three occasions for the YWCA Women of Achievement Award. She was honored as one of the 25 Women of Achievement by the Baton Rouge Business Report in 1997 and received the 2002 Louisiana CASA President’s Award as well as the 2003 Ambassador for Children Award from the Louisiana CASA Association. She was recently honored by Crimestoppers with the Crimestoppers Criminal Justice and Community Service Award.
2006 Distinguished Attorney Wayne J. Lee
Mr. Lee received his law degree in 1974 from Tulane University School of Law, where he was chosen to the Order of the Coif and was a member of the Tulane Law Review Board of Editors, 1972-74. He received his undergraduate degree from Tulane in 1971. Mr. Lee is a past president of the Louisiana State Bar Association (LSBA). Throughout his career, he has held numerous other positions within the LSBA including membership in the House of Delegates, 1997-2003; the Board of Governors, 1993-96; vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Diversity in the Profession, 2006-07; chair of the Practice Assistance and Improvement Committee, 1997-99; chair of the Continuing Legal Education Program Committee, 1991-93; and an ad hoc member of the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education Committee. He received two President's Awards, first in 1993 for his work as chair of the Continuing Legal Education Program Committee, and again in 1998 for his work as co-chair of the Practice Assistance and Improvement Committee. He served as a member of the American Bar Association House of Delegates, 2003-05 and is a member of the American Bar Association Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession. In addition to his involvement with the bar associations, Mr. Lee is on the Board of Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund and a member of the Dean's Advisory Board of the Tulane University School of Law. Mr. Lee was a member of the Louisiana Indigent Defense Assistance Board and served as chair of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana Civil Justice Reform Act Advisory Group. He was appointed to the Louisiana Board of Regents for Higher Education, 1989-94; served as president of the board of Kingsley House, 1998-2000; served as chairman of the board of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, 2001-03; and is the immediate past chairman of the board of the Audubon Nature Institute. He currently is a member of the board of directors for Attorneys' Liability Assurance Society, Ltd., a member of the Tulane University Inn of Court and a member of the Advisory Board of Editors of the Tulane Law Review. He is also the current chairman of the board of the New Orleans Community Support Foundation. Mr. Lee is a member of the American, National, Louisiana, New Orleans and Fifth Federal Circuit Bar Associations and a member of the Louis A. Martinet Society. He is a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers. Mr. Lee is a frequent speaker at legal seminars and has been named to The Best Lawyers in America in the field of business litigation.
2006 Distinguished Professor Katherine Shaw Spaht
In 1977 she was appointed by the Louisiana State Legislature to chair an advisory committee to draft revisions to Louisiana’s community property law, resulting in the enactment in 1979 of a comprehensive reform of that law. Professor Spaht was subsequently appointed to chair two other legislative advisory committees and one legislative task force on the topics of the rights of illegitimate children and child support. She remains the reporter for the Marriage/Persons Committee of the Louisiana State Law Institute, serving since 1981, and as such retains responsibility for the ongoing revision of Book I of the Civil Code. As a member of the American Law Institute she was an active participant during the 1990s in meetings and discussions of the Consultative Group for the project entitled Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution (published in 2000). Her other public service also includes serving on several task forces created by Louisiana governors to study such issues as women’s rights and the manner of judicial selection. In an unofficial capacity, Professor Spaht drafted Louisiana’s covenant marriage law and since its enactment in 1997 she has consulted and spoken widely in this country and abroad on the subject. As an active member of the informally recognized "Marriage Movement", she has taken part in numerous Smart Marriages conferences and consultative groups created by the Institute for American Values in New York. She served as a paid consultant to the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy in Washington, DC, drafting model legislation. She is the author of a treatise on Louisiana community property (three editions), three textbooks in her subject matter areas of teaching, seven book chapters, and more than seventy articles and essays for law reviews and journals in the United States and overseas.
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Justice Catherine (Kitty) Kimball was elected associate justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court in November 1991, becoming the first woman to serve on that court. She is a graduate of the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University and served as district judge in the 18th Judicial District prior to being elected to the Supreme Court. Her previous legal experience includes law clerk, United States District Court, Western District of Louisiana, Special Counsel, Louisiana Attorney General’s office, General Counsel, Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, and private law practice in New Roads, Louisiana.
Wayne J. Lee is a member of Stone Pigman's Management Committee and chairs the firm's Commercial Litigation practice group. For the last 12 years, his practice has included a concentration in insurance and class action lawsuits. Mr. Lee has extensive experience in handling coverage issues, bad faith claims, regulatory issues and class actions involving a myriad of substantive issues.
Katherine Spaht, Jules F. and Frances L. Landry Professor of Law at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at LSU, graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1968 with a B.A. and from Louisiana State University Law School in 1971. In 1972 she began her teaching career at the LSU Law School, concentrating on Civil Code subjects that impact the family–Family Law, Matrimonial Regimes, and Successions and Donations. She also taught the course in Obligations for twenty-six years. During the calendar years of 1990-91 she served as vice chancellor of the Law Center.
