April 2025
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The Austin Bar has named this year’s recipients for the Professionalism Award, the Regina Rogoff Pro Bono Award, the Larry F. York Mentoring Award, and the Joseph C. Parker, Jr., Diversity Award. These individuals will be honored with their awards at the annual Bench Bar Conference on April 11. Register now at austinbar.org/benchbar2025.
Professionalism Award – Michelle Cheng
Michelle Cheng has been with Whitehurst, Harkness, Brees, Cheng, Alsaffar, Higginbotham, and Jacob since 1996. Her practice focuses on representing injured individuals and their families in cases involving medical malpractice, birth injuries, products liability, automobile and trucking accidents, and other serious personal injuries and wrongful death.
“Michelle Cheng is a rare blend in our profession of a great lawyer and a truly great person,” wrote Austin attorney Lynn Bradshaw in a letter supporting her nomination. “She is an excellent attorney, from soup to nuts. She knows the law and the facts of her case, works hard, and is also compassionate, brilliant, and able to remain focused on obtaining a fair and just result for her clients.”
In past years, Michelle has also won the Travis County Women Lawyers’ Association’s (TCWLA) Pathfinder Award, which honors women TCWLA believes to be role models and trailblazers.
In 2006, AYLA named Michelle Outstanding Young Lawyer. She’s also been named a Texas Rising Star and a Texas Super Lawyer by Thomson Reuters.
Michelle has been a member of the American Association for Justice and the Texas Trial Lawyers Association. She has also been a long-time member of the Advisory Board for the Capital Area AIDS Legal Project, and she served on the board of the Lone Star Victims Advocacy Project (now part of RAICES Rural Services), a group fighting for the rights of immigrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking individuals and families. She’s also a past president of the Capital Area Trial Lawyers’ Association (CATLA). Still today, Michelle coordinates a regular CATLA Women’s Lunch to bring together women litigators to forge bonds both professional and personal.
“In our office, she’s the person who remembers every birthday, every work anniversary, who orders the cakes and organizes the celebrations that make everyone feel special,” wrote firm colleague Laurie Higginbotham in a letter supporting Michelle’s nomination. “She’s the kind of daughter who called her parents every single day to check-in. She has been a life-long teacher to me when it comes to relationships and communication.”
In every letter of support Michelle received, they all mention her contributions to the legal profession through her activity as an administrator for the Texas Lawyers Bar Association (Texas Lawyers, TL) Facebook group, which has more than 17,000 members.
“Attorney interactions in TL number in the millions and managing these can be an intense obligation,” wrote Austin attorney and TL Founder Andrew Tolchin in his letter of support. “Needless to say, conflicts arise between lawyers requiring administrative action. No matter how time-consuming or challenging, Michelle always gets involved to help get these issues resolved.”
Regina Rogoff Pro Bono Award – Meghan Kempf
Meghan is the associate director of policy with the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, where she has worked for nearly 11 years. In this role, Meghan provides in-house counsel for 10 state hospitals and 13 state-supported living centers. Her work primarily focuses on individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD), as well as those who need behavioral health services (BHS).
Prior to her work at the Commission, Meghan was an Equal Justice Works Fellow sponsored by the Texas Access to Justice Foundation. In this role, she provided services to residents of San Antonio and Bexar County.
She provided full representation to 41 clients, the majority of whom sought protective orders and enforcement or modification of existing civil court orders regarding custody, child support, and property division. Meghan was instrumental in development referral relationships with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and the Crisis Response Team of the San Antonio Police Department (SAPD). She also taught a weekly know-your-rights class to the residents of the Battered Women and Children’s Shelter.
Meghan’s commitment to public service extends to her free time. She’s been a tireless AYLA and Austin Bar volunteer, serving on such committees as the Women’s Resource Fair, Social Services, Leadership Academy, AYLA Community Service Days, AYLA MLK Day of Service, AYLA Government Law liaison, VLS Board of Directors liaison for AYLA, Austin Bar Foundation Board of Directors, and AYLA Board of Directors. Since 2015 Meghan has been a volunteer for SAFE (Stop Abuse for Everyone).
“Meghan’s commitment to the public and to public service shines through her compassion and enthusiasm in all that she does,” wrote AYLA President-Elect Jenna Malsbary in her nomination letter. “She is an excellent candidate for this public sector service award.”
Larry F. York Mentoring Award – Sara Foskitt
Sara has been named a top real estate attorney by Austin Monthly six years running.
In 2018, she was awarded the Travis County Women Lawyers’ Association’s (TCWLA) Pathfinder Award, which are awarded to local women with law degrees who use their degrees in a variety of often atypical ways to impact the Austin community and the legal profession.
Sarah and her husband, lawyer Dave Floyd, eventually opened a real estate brokerage firm of lawyers, Floyd Real Estate. As a broker, she helps clients purchase and sell homes all over Austin. With her legal knowledge, she also excels at advising real estate investors.
She is a graduate of the 2014 Leadership Austin Essential program and was a finalist for the Legal category of the Austin Under 40 Awards. She has served on the boards of the Austin Bar Association, the Austin Bar Foundation, the Austin Young Lawyers Association, and the Lawyer Referral Service of Central Texas.
In 2011 she started the Austin Bar Mentor Program. Mentorship has been important to Sara throughout her career: She attended law school out of state and knew it would be difficult to launch her career in Austin without a network of alumni and contacts.
Instrumental in her early career were Justice Darlene Byrne, Jo Ann Merica, and Justice Cindy Olson Bourland. As her own career prospered, Sara felt it was incumbent upon her to pay it forward and provide mentoring to younger lawyers.”
Joseph C. Parker Jr. Diversity Award – Judge Maya Guerra Gamble & Hon. Rudy Metayer
This year’s Joseph C. Parker, Jr., Diversity Award is jointly awarded to 459th District Court Judge Maya Guerra Gamble and Pflugerville Councilmember Rudy Metayer.
Judge Guerra Gamble currently serves as secretary of the Austin Bar Board of Directors. She has served on the 459th District Court bench since 2018. She is an integral member of the Austin Bar’s Mentorship Committee and oversaw the establishment of the Austin Bar’s Equity (now DEI) Committee. Judge Guerra Gamble was the main proponent for the inaugural Equity Summit and remains a staunch supporter of this annual event.
In 2024, the National Judicial College (NJC) named Judge Guerra Gamble one of the nation’s 60 Courageous Judges. The NJC’s Courageous Judges initiative seeks to “honor 60 judges, present and past, from courts in the United States and abroad, who have demonstrated courage in upholding the rule of law and providing justice for all.”
Judge Guerra Gamble’s varied career prior to taking the bench included a solo practice representing children and parents in child protective services cases; representing whistleblowers at O’Connell & Soifer; prosecuting child pornography and child exploitation cases for the Texas Attorney General; suing companies committing fraud against the United States for the Department of Justice; and clerking for Judge Richard Cudahy on the 7th Circuit.
Judge Guerra Gamble is a native Austinite, graduate of Austin High School, Yale University, and Yale Law School. She is married with two children. She is a devoted Scouter and is planning to canoe the Boundary Waters in Canada for 10 days this summer.
Hon. Rudy Metayer is a longtime supporter of the Austin Bar and a familiar face to anyone who attends Austin Bar/AYLA events even semi-regularly.
He is of counsel at Graves Dougherty Hearon & Moody, where his practice includes government affairs, administrative and regulatory litigation, tax-exempt/nonprofit law, and civil litigation. He has represented governmental entities in a broad range of legal matters, such as federal appellate review of state agency actions to strategic counsel on multi-billion-dollar public procurement contracts.
In addition to his longtime support of the Austin Bar and AYLA, Rudy is an enthusiastic member and supporter of the Austin Black Lawyers Association, the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce, a former president and executive director of the Texas Black Caucus Foundation, and former chair of the State Bar of Texas’ African American Lawyers Section.
Rudy serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he advises students in the university’s well-known Advocacy program. He also serves as councilmember of the City of Pflugerville and enjoys helping to solve the growing city where he lives with his wife Letisha and their three daughters: Celeste, Arielyn, and Brooklyn.
The son of Haitian immigrants, Rudy is the first in his family to graduate from college and law school. He is a 2006 graduate of UT Law and a 2016 graduate of UT’s LBJ School of Public Affairs, where he earned his Master of Public Affairs degree. Rudy has been a tireless advocate in the community, speaking and working on a host of issues ranging from teaching at-risk children, co-authoring an honor code for the University of Texas, helping to form a partnership with local law enforcement and the State Bar to address the issue of community policing, and creating pro bono legal advice clinics for U.S. military veterans. He has been recognized numerous times as one of the most influential young professionals in Texas.