The Austin Bar Association and Austin Bar Foundation are proud to announce the winners of the 2024 Distinguished Lawyer and David H. Walter Community Excellence awards!
Edna Ramón Butts, Marcy Hogan Greer, and Randy Howry have won Distinguished Lawyer awards, and Jeff Edwards has won the David H. Walter Community Excellence Award.
The Distinguished Lawyer Award recognizes the dedication and hard work of an attorney who has practiced for 30 years or more and has significantly contributed to the profession and the community.
The David H. Walter Community Excellence Award is presented to an Austin Bar member who has recently made a significant impact in the community and, at the same time, raised the profile of the profession.
These awards will be presented at the 2024 Austin Bar Foundation Gala on Jan. 27, 2024, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin. Tickets and sponsorships are available. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
Edna Ramón Butts
Austin Independent School District
Butts currently serves as the director of intergovernmental relations and policy oversight for the Austin Independent School District (AISD), where she has worked since 2012. In her role, she works with the AISD Board of Trustees’ Intergovernmental Relations Committee to develop the board’s legislative priorities for the Texas legislature and serves as the primary liaison with congressional, legislative, and local government officials. She also develops policies for AISD, provides legal services, and serves as the elections administrator.
Prior to AISD, Butts served as general counsel and senior policy advisor for then-Senator Kirk Watson, after having served as a special assistant attorney general for six years working on health care matters and as liaison for Mexican attorneys general and foreign consular officials. From 1998 to 2001, Butts was of-counsel at Hughes & Luce LLP and also worked for the Texas Department of Insurance, where she served, in addition to other roles, as the commissioner. From 1980 to 1993, Butts worked in the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in various capacities, including chief of the Finance Division and chief of the Insurance, Banking & Securities Section.
She graduated from The University of Texas School of Law in 1978. She has served on a variety of committees and boards over the years. From 2013 to 2016, she was a member of the implementation task force for The Texas Blueprint: Transforming Education Outcomes for Children and Youth in Foster Care, and also served as a member on the State Bar’s Committee on Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct for three years.
Butts has served as a member of The University of Texas Chancellor’s Executive Committee since 2019. From 2013 to 2018, she served on the boards of directors for the Workforce Solutions Capital Area, the Long Center for the Performing Arts, and Communities in Schools of Central Texas. She has also volunteered on the YMCA Board Development Committee; Austin Partners in Education as a volunteer tutor; and the Ceden Family Resource Center as a volunteer English tutor, and is a graduate of the Leadership Austin Essential Program. In 2013, Butts received the 2013 Corazón Community Award given by the non-profit Con Mi Madre.
Marcy Hogan Greer
Alexander Dubose & Jefferson LLP
Marcy Hogan Greer is the managing partner of Alexander Dubose & Jefferson LLP, a nationally recognized appellate boutique firm. She has been acclaimed for her work in federal and state trial and appellate courts throughout the country. Greer received the 2021 Gregory S. Coleman Outstanding Appellate Lawyer Award from the Texas Bar Foundation, which honors Greg Coleman’s legacy to the appellate bar, requiring that the recipient demonstrate an outstanding appellate practice while maintaining a strong commitment to providing legal services for the underserved, dedication to mentoring young attorneys, and a strong moral compass to guide both professional and personal pursuits.
She also received the 2022 Pro Bono/Community Service Award from the University of Houston Law Center Alumni Association.
Greer has been board-certified in civil appellate law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization since 1997. In addition, she has been a member of the State Bar Pro Bono College for almost all of her career, which requires at least 75 hours of pro bono work each year. She is currently representing her second death-row inmate, for whom she has obtained orders staying execution and permitting DNA testing and reanalysis in order to support a claim for actual innocence.
In June 2017, Greer received the Louise B. Raggio Award, given by the State Bar’s Women and the Law Section to recognize an attorney who has actively addressed the needs and issues of women in the legal profession and in the community.
She also served as the lead pro bono partner with Texas Appleseed on a major project for the Supreme Court of Texas, focused on improving the lives of foster children in Texas, and was awarded the State Bar’s Frank J. Scurlock Award for Outstanding Legal Services to the Poor in 2011.
Greer was elected to the American Law Institute. She currently serves as the vice chair for the American Bar Association’s Tort Trial and Insurance Practice Section, and recently completed a six-year term on the Executive Committee of the Center for Women in Law. Greer continues to be active in the community as a Greenhill Fellow and former president of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society; a member of the board of trustees for the Bar Association of the Fifth Federal Circuit; a member of the Texas Supreme Court Advisory Committee; and a member of the Oversight Board of the Texas Office of Capital and Forensic Writs.
Greer received her B.A. from Emory University and her J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center. She designed, and was the original national editor of, A Practitioner’s Guide to Class Actions (2010), as well as the 2012 supplement and the second edition (2017). She is the national co-editor of the third edition, which was published in November 2021.
Randy Howry
Howry, Breen & Herman LLP
As a founding partner of Howry, Breen & Herman, Randy Howry is an accomplished attorney certified in personal injury trial law and civil trial law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.
Howry’s legal practice focuses on personal injury, product liability, catastrophic injuries, wrongful death, and commercial/business disputes. His mission is to fight to win his clients the best outcome possible while maintaining the trust and confidence his clients deserve.
Howry’s skill has been acknowledged by top legal organizations, such as the American Board of Trial Advocates, the American College of Trial Lawyers, and the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.
Howry has served as on the boards and as president of the Austin Bar Association, the Austin chapter of the American Board of Trial Advocates, and the Austin Bar Foundation.
Howry counts among his professional memberships the American Association for Justice (formerly the American Trial Lawyers Association), the Texas Bar Foundation, the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, and the Texas Center for Legal Ethics and Professionalism.
Since 2006, he has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America. Between 2003 and 2020, he was recognized as a Texas Super Lawyer by Thomson Reuters. Since 2018, Martindale-Hubbel has rated him as AV Preeminent (the site’s highest rating based on peer feedback). Since 2017, he has been recognized by Top American Lawyers. In 2009, he was recognized by The Best Lawyers in America for Bet-the-Company Litigation. In 2006, he was recognized by The Best Lawyers in America for Commercial Litigation.
Howry was raised in Georgetown, and loves the Austin-Georgetown area. Family is everything to him. He and his wife of 31 years, Julia, share two children, Baker and Daniel. Though he now resides in Austin, he greatly enjoys his frequent visits back to Georgetown to see his mother, Georgia.
Howry earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism from The University of Texas in 1980. He is a Longhorn through and through and still supports his alma mater by attending football and basketball games, as well other university events. He obtained his law degree from the South Texas College of Law, where he was president of the Board of Advocates, won national and state championships in multiple moot-court competitions, and was awarded the Dean Garland Walker Award for Outstanding Student. He was named Alumnus of the Year in 2009. He currently serves on the South Texas College of Law board of directors, the 100 Club of Central Texas, and the Austin chapter of the Beta Theta Pi National Fraternity.
Howry is licensed to practice law in Texas and Arkansas. He is also admitted to the four U.S. federal District Courts in Texas. In 2017, he had the great honor of being admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Jeff Edwards
Edwards Law
Jeff Edwards founded Edwards Law to help people obtain the justice they deserve. With this goal in mind, Edwards has successfully tried numerous cases and negotiated hundreds of settlements.
Before practicing law, Edwards went to Dartmouth College and taught sixth grade in the Rio Grande Valley as part of the Teach for America Program. In 1999, Edwards graduated with a joint degree in law and public affairs from The University of Texas School of Law and the LBJ School of Public Affairs.
While he began his career working at an international defense firm practicing business litigation and defending companies accused of securities fraud, his passion for helping people led him to the plaintiff’s side. Since 2003, Edwards has represented individuals who have suffered serious injuries or endured significant financial hardships.
Edwards has been victorious in numerous trials and has achieved several settlements resulting in multi-million-dollar recoveries for his clients. Among these are the Richard Danziger wrongful imprisonment case, a securities fraud case brought by an Austin company against several investment banks, and the drowning of a child at a fitness center swimming pool.
Edwards is well known for his work in the medical malpractice and civil rights arenas and has been instrumental in obtaining several high-profile victories in Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Angelo, Marshall, Amarillo, San Antonio, and Michigan. These include police shootings, sexual abuse of minors by government employees, jail deaths, and failures by medical providers to diagnose cancer or provide adequate treatment in hospitals and nursing homes.
In 2008, the Texas Civil Rights Project awarded Edwards the Pro Bono Champion award for successfully resolving several sexual abuse cases at the Texas Youth Commission and helping them make systemic changes to the way in which children are treated in Texas’s juvenile justice system.
In addition to accolades from peers, Edwards is also certified in personal injury law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, a certification bestowed upon less than five percent of the plaintiff’s bar and very few people Edwards’s age.
Despite his success, Edwards strives to maintain strong working relationships with members of the defense bar and takes great pride when his adversaries recommend him to their friends and colleagues.
Edwards and his firm are committed to making a difference in the community. From 2005 to 2009, Edwards served as a commissioner on the Access to Justice Commission, the State Bar and Supreme Court’s effort to provide legal services for the poor, and regularly testifies before the legislature on behalf of its legislative committee. While on the Commission, he chaired the technology section and arranged for the delivery of $800,000 worth of computer equipment to Texas legal services organizations.
Edwards has also been on the board of Volunteer Legal Services for more than 10 years, has served as its president, was a founding member of its Sustainability Society, and has hosted numerous fundraisers at his home. Edwards is a life fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation and a member of the Lloyd Lochridge Inn of Court, and remains active in the bar. He previously served as president of the Austin Young Lawyers Association and on the board of Youth Launch, a teen-mentoring group.
Edwards has spoken throughout the state on topics as diverse as federal practice, evidence, civil rights issues, and pro bono service.
Edwards is married to a wonderful woman and attorney, Allison, with whom he has three beautiful children, Bering, Luke and Gracie. Though they are originally from Connecticut and Houston, respectively, they now proudly call Austin home.