News Post

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

MONTGOMERY – The Alabama State Bar on Tuesday announced the names of the 30 attorneys selected as members of the 2016 Leadership Forum Class 12.

Created in 2005, the bar’s Leadership Forum has produced 318 graduates.  Participants will undergo a rigorous education and training process focusing on servant leadership, ethics and career development. Candidates are required to attend five separate sessions including a three-day orientation program.

“The Leadership Forum has a proven track record for catapulting its graduates further down a path of success in their careers and their personal lives,” said Alabama State Bar President Lee H. Copeland of Copeland Franco Screws & Gill, P.A. (Montgomery). “The program brings out the natural leader within each of the members, while also creating and fostering strong relationships among the participants.”

While there is no age requirement, participants must have practiced law for at least five years and no more than 15 years. Candidates are selected based on demonstrated leadership qualities and service to their communities. Entry to the program is competitive, with approximately 40 percent of applicants chosen for the 30 positions each year.

In 2013, the American Bar Association awarded the Alabama State Bar Leadership Forum with the E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Award, the nation’s leading award honoring the best professionalism programs and practices of law schools, bar associations, professional commissions and other law-related organizations.

The lawyers selected for the 2016 Leadership Forum Class 12 include:

Erica W. Barnes, USAO Northern District of Alabama (Birmingham)

Edgar Black, Black & Hughston, PC (Muscle Shoals)

Mary Margaret P. Carroll, Fine Geddie & Associates, LLC (Montgomery)

Paige J. Casey, Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz (Birmingham)

Latisha V. Colvin, Federal Defenders Office, Southern District of Alabama (Mobile)

Thomas G. DeLawrence, Balch & Bingham, LLP (Birmingham)

Starr T. Drum, Maynard Cooper & Gale, PC (Birmingham)

Christopher J. England, City of Tuscaloosa (Tuscaloosa)

Heather R. Fann, Boyd, Fernambucq, Dunn & Fann (Birmingham)

Brent Hargett, Sasser, Sefton & Brown PC (Montgomery)

David W. Holt, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings (Huntsville)

Carmen F. Howell, Law Firm of Carmen F. Howell, LLC (Enterprise)

Wilson Hunter, U.S. Attorney’s Office (Birmingham)

Adam K. Israel, Balch & Bingham, LLP (Birmingham)

Lee F. Knowles, Law Office of Lee Knowles (Geneva)

Parker Miller, Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis and Miles, PC (Montgomery)

George L. Morris, IV, Cabaniss, Johnston, Gardner, Dumas & O’Neal LLP (Birmingham)

Tamara W. Neeley, Watson & Neeley, LLC (Fort Payne)

Levi Nichols, Lightfoot & Nichols (Luverne)

Blake L. Oliver, Adams, White, Oliver, Short & Forbus, LLP (Opelika)

Kathryn J. Osburne, The University of Alabama System (Tuscaloosa)

Ashley R. Peinhardt, Hare, Wynn, Newell & Newton LLP (Birmingham)

Christopher K. Richardson, Espy, Metcalf & Espy, PC (Dothan)

Ryan P. Robichaux, Bradley Arant Boult Cummings (Birmingham)

Steven D. Rygiel, Birmingham AIDS Outreach (Birmingham)

Stephen A. Stetson, Alabama Arise (Montgomery)

Samuel Todd, Vulcan Materials Company (Birmingham)

Latanishia D. Watters, Hand Arendall LLC (Birmingham)

Bennett White, Starnes Davis Florie LLP (Birmingham)

Suntrease Williams-Maynard, U.S. Attorney’s Office (Mobile)