For The Defense, December 2011 - DRI Today
For The Defense, December 2011 - DRI Today
For The Defense, December 2011 - DRI Today
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<strong>The</strong> Awards<br />
This year during the <strong>DRI</strong> Annual<br />
Meeting, <strong>DRI</strong> honored individuals and<br />
institutions with 11 awards that recognized<br />
their contributions to important<br />
areas of the law, the profession, and the<br />
defense bar.<br />
■ <strong>The</strong> Louis B. Potter Lifetime Professional<br />
Service Award recognizes lifetime<br />
contributions to the profession. <strong>The</strong> recipient<br />
of this award serves the best interests<br />
of clients and the public and exemplifies<br />
professionalism and professional service<br />
beyond observing the legal profession’s<br />
ethical rules. His or her conduct demonstrates<br />
respect for the law, upholds the decorum<br />
and integrity of all aspects of the<br />
judicial process, and preserves and enhances<br />
the public image of the legal profession.<br />
This year’s recipient was James W.<br />
Morris III. Mr. Morris is chair of Morris &<br />
Morris PC in Richmond, Virginia, where<br />
he practices civil litigation. He has written<br />
and spoken extensively on legal topics<br />
before a variety of organizations and<br />
has lectured on trial practice at the law<br />
schools of the University of Virginia and<br />
the University of Richmond. He has been<br />
included in the publication <strong>The</strong> Best Lawyers<br />
in America from its inception. Based<br />
on a poll of his peers, he is regularly identified<br />
as one of the “elite” trial lawyers in<br />
Virginia in Virginia Business Magazine.<br />
Louis B. Potter Lifetime Professional Service Award recipient James W. Morris III with R. Matthew Cairns, <strong>DRI</strong><br />
President 2010–11.<br />
14 ■ <strong>For</strong> <strong>The</strong> <strong>Defense</strong> ■ <strong>December</strong> <strong>2011</strong><br />
He is named one of the “Top Ten Super-<br />
Lawyers” in Virginia by Richmond Magazine<br />
and the SuperLawyers of America.<br />
He has tried over 500 cases to jury verdict<br />
in his career.<br />
Mr. Morris is a past president of <strong>DRI</strong><br />
(1988). He is a past recipient of the Award<br />
for Excellence in Civil Litigation by the<br />
Virginia Association of <strong>Defense</strong> Attorneys.<br />
He has also been presented with<br />
the Hunter W. Martin Professionalism<br />
Award by the Bar Association of the City<br />
of Richmond.<br />
■ To honor a <strong>DRI</strong> member involved in<br />
community or public service activities<br />
that demonstrate active and outstanding<br />
commitment to improving the social<br />
or cultural well being of the general public<br />
through programs that have a positive<br />
impact on a community segment or<br />
the general public, <strong>DRI</strong> bestows the Community<br />
Service Award. Joseph M. Hanna,<br />
a partner of Goldberg Segalla in Buffalo,<br />
New York, received the award for <strong>2011</strong>.<br />
Mr. Hanna is the founder and president<br />
of the nonprofit organization Bunkers<br />
in Baghdad, whose mission is to<br />
collect and supply new and used golf<br />
equipment to U.S. soldiers in combat<br />
zones and to Wounded Warriors programs<br />
across the country. It provides<br />
much-needed recreational outlet to our<br />
<strong>The</strong> Community Service Award is presented to<br />
Joseph M. Hanna.<br />
troops and is a rehabilitation aid to our<br />
soldiers recovering from injuries. More<br />
than two million golf balls and 50,000<br />
clubs have been distributed to active<br />
military members and veterans in all 50<br />
states and 11 countries.<br />
■ <strong>DRI</strong> conferred the Richard H. Krochock<br />
Award to Anne M. Talcott, a shareholder<br />
Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt in<br />
Portland, Oregon. This award recognizes<br />
a <strong>DRI</strong> member who has provided exemplary<br />
leadership to the <strong>DRI</strong> Young Lawyers<br />
Committee through sponsorship or<br />
participation in its programs and activities,<br />
education, guidance, support, and<br />
mentoring and who has otherwise exhibited<br />
those qualities, enhancing the image<br />
of the civil defense trial lawyer. Ms. Talcott’s<br />
practice focuses on complex business<br />
and product liability litigation. She<br />
defends a broad range of clients in business<br />
disputes, class actions, mass torts,<br />
and automotive, pharmaceutical, and<br />
medical device product liability litigation.<br />
Ms. Talcott was selected as an Oregon<br />
Super Lawyer Rising Star in 2008,<br />
an honor bestowed on no more than two<br />
percent of eligible lawyers. She is chair<br />
of her firm’s Diversity Committee, where<br />
she was instrumental in implementing<br />
the firm’s First Year Law Student Diversity<br />
Scholarship Program.<br />
Ms. Talcott joined <strong>DRI</strong> as a young<br />
lawyer and became active in the Young<br />
Lawyers Committee, holding several leadership<br />
roles, including committee chair.<br />
She is an active member of several <strong>DRI</strong>