The Calogero Justice Award is named in honor of Chief Justice Pascal F. Calogero, Jr. who was elected to the Louisiana Supreme court in 1972. Calogero was sworn in as Chief Justice in 1990 and served on the Court for 36 years. At the Annual Fellows Gala the Louisiana Bar Foundation honors an individual or organization for a significant contribution to the Louisiana justice system.
2015 Calogero Justice Award
The Family Justice Center of Ouachita Parish
The Family Justice Center of Ouachita Parish (FJC) opened in 2005. A Family Justice Center is an innovative method of co-locating a multi-disciplinary team of professionals to provide coordinated services to victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. The FJC is one of only 15 in the nation. The FJC puts agencies that serve victims under one roof, making it easier for those who need services to get them while batterers are held accountable for their actions.The FJC is a well-respected, long standing program, and has been a resource not only in Louisiana, but the whole nation.
2014 Calogero Justice Award
Marta-Ann Schnabel
O'Bryon & Schnabel, PLC
New Orleans
Marta-Ann Schnabel is a shareholder in the law firm of O'Bryon & Schnabel, PLC. She is a cum laude graduate of Loyola University of New Orleans College of Law, where she was a member of Law Review. She served as Editor of the Louisiana Bar Journal from 2001-2003 and was the first woman to serve as President of the Louisiana State Bar Association. She remains active with LSBA and is currently the chair of the LSBA Access to Justice and ATJ Policy Committees. She was honored to receive the LSBA's President's Award on three separate Occasions.
Schnabel is a past President of the New Orleans Bar Association and has served in the ABA House of Delegates and as a member of the ABA Standing Committee on Bar Activities and Services. She is a Fellow of the Louisiana Bar Foundation and a past recipient of the LBF Hornblower Award. She is currently the President of the Louisiana Association of Defense Counsel and the Chair of the Louisiana Supreme Court's Judicial Campaign Oversight Committee. She is a past recipient of the Gillis Long Poverty Center Public Service Award and the David A. Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award for her work as an advocate for Access to Justice. As part of her commitment to public service, Schnabel also heads the Board of the non-profit Louisiana Civil Justice Center.
2013 Calogero Justice Award
Hon. Robert H. Morrison III
Chief Judge, 21st Judicial District Court Amit
Chief Judge Robert H. Morrison III is a 1970 graduate of LSU Law Center. He operated a private practice for 18 years before he was first elected to the 21st Judicial District in 1988. He has been Chief Judge for 22 years and Drug Court judge for 15 years. He served as past chair of the Judiciary commission; Past President Louisiana District Judges Association; and served as Legislative Liaison for that Association. He is presently co-chair Criminal Law & Procedure Committee of Law Institute; and chair of Trial Court Committee on Judgeships of Judicial Council of Supreme Court. He is a member of Judicial Budgetary Control Board.
2012 Calogero Justice Award
Hon. Jay C. Zainey
United States District Court,
Eastern District of Louisiana
Judge Jay C. Zainey is a 1975 graduate of Louisiana State University Law School. He was appointed by President George W. Bush to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana on February 19, 2002. In 2011, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed Judge Zainey to serve on the Federal Judiciary Commission Codes of Conduct Committee.
He is a past President of the Louisiana State Bar Association (LSBA). As State Bar Association President, he created the Community Action Committee and the Committee to Provide Legal Services for the Disabled. These two committees were purportedly the first of their kind in the nation.
Judge Zainey is co-founder of SOLACE which provides services to members of the bar association and the entire legal community and their family members who experience tragedies, and who otherwise have special needs. SOLACE Programs have now been developed in Rhode Island, Delaware, Georgia, Nevada, Nebraska, Puerto Rico, Louisville, St. Louis and El Paso and plans are underway to start programs in the District of Columbia and other cities and states throughout the country.
In May 2004, Judge Zainey organized the Homeless Experience Legal Protection (H.E.L.P.)Program. In this program, over 450 attorneys provide legal consultation services and notary services at four homeless centers in New Orleans. He has initiated similar programs in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Opelousas, Lake Charles and Shreveport, Louisiana; Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia; Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Virginia; Hartford, Connecticut; Bloomington, Indiana; Columbia, South Carolina; Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee; Lubbock, Texas; Jackson, MS; New York City, New York; Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, California; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Mobile, Alabama; and, Detroit, Michigan. Plans areunderway to start H.E.L.P. Programs in other major cities. Judge Zainey has also worked with the LSBA to provide legal services for the disabled by providing pro bono legal services to people with disabilities and their families. He has assisted Tulane Law School develop its Disability Law Society, one of the first of its kind in the country.
Judge Zainey and his wife Joy founded the God's Special Children Program for people with special needs, their families and friends. Judge Zainey and Joy also co-founded St. Andrew's Village, a faith-based long term living community for adults with disabilities. St. Andrew's Village recently purchased a 100 acre tract of land in Abita Springs, and will provide a loving environment for disabled adults. He proudly serves as President of the Board of St. Andrew's Village. Groundbreaking for St. Andrew's Village is scheduled to take place in the fall 2013.
Judge Zainey has been a Fellow of the Louisiana Bar Foundation since 1995.
2011 Calogero Justice Award
Gregory A. Pechukas
Gregory Pechukas is the Director of the Louisiana Supreme Court's Central Staff, established in 1977 to manage the Court's criminal docket and filings. For more than 30 years he has been the court's leading staff lawyer assisting the court in its review of criminal cases. Mr. Pechukas is responsible for supervising a staff of over two dozen employees who process and report on designated criminal writ applications for the Justices and who assist in researching and writing criminal law opinions.
Mr. Pechukas graduated from Yale University in 1966 and from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1969. He was in private criminal law practice prior to coming to the Court. In 1978 he was hired as a law clerk in Central Staff, and two years later became the director. He has served in that capacity to the present day under a total of five Chief Justices.
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